With a one-term Trump Presidency, we have dodged a powerful bullet, and we should keep in mind that it took crossover Republicans to do it.
Biden’s now relying on outdated postures and needs to be shaken out of the still near past with Obama.
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I’ll go a little further here with the note that our own decadence drives large foreign affairs, financial, and social issues. We’ve overdone it with the coke, dope, and sex (for starters), and the same have launched mass migrations toward us as well as funded our enemies through their control of Transnational Crime Organizations (TCOs). As “Children of the ’60s”, we should own up to some of the less immediately visible consequences of our own appetites.
In the western hemisphere, insecurity related to black market operations — cartels, gangs — literally drives people out of their homes; the same, of course, sends the “entrepreneurs” toward The North for business — or deliveries.
Posted to YouTube by Sheriff Reynolds, June 18, 2013.
We each of us know what belongs to each by way of our persons and our families, and if we’re a little larger than that, our companies and communities, but we falter some with “my air; my water; my mountains; my rivers; my shores”. Some objects are too large for singular possession. Even subdivided and sold off in lots — so one might own a patch or an estate (and hunting grounds) — such resources and spaces may have lives of their own and greater than appreciated. OUR rain forests, for example, may be critical to OUR planetary oxygen supply.
As our species matures — however else we may think of ourselves (as framed by our nearly 7000 living language cultures and directed, somewhat, by our 4300 active religions), we may consider the fragility of our species foremost — we may do well to look far forward of our positions rather than fix and freeze ourselves as we are. If we are to contemplate, for example, the end of the Eon of Oil and continued Global Warming or merely increasingly severe oscillations in temperature, this may be the best time to think about the energy resources and insulating technologies of the 22nd Century.
Why not — and why not this minute?
It’s never too late?
It’s never too soon.
What if?
What if the world hadn’t to deal with what have become essentially political criminals?
Posted to YouTube by A Whisper to a Roar, February 10, 2014.
What are we — or what is the world — still doing here — in the same frozen situation — with Ukraine?
Ukraine’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba said on January 11 that Russia “has done everything to fulfill nothing.” His latest attempts with his German counterpart “to hold another round of talks at the level of foreign minister were unsuccessful,” Mr. Kuleba said. He said the continuing deadlock is a situation in which, “on the one hand, there is progress on Donbas, and, on the other, there is no progress.”
While it may be understood that we are not all angels, one might wonder why any state population must be made to weather the bullying criminality of gangs, more or less, of so-called “state elites” and leaders — or invasion by alien forces ordered by the same with precisely that mentality?
I had thought both the feudal and medieval eras known to European and Russian history finished off by the allied powers of World War II.
While at this post-Trumpian moment (start HIS history as an American President with Manafort, his first choice for campaign manager), no American has the right to ask how others could have been blown so far off course from the modern and practical demands for accountability, integrity, and responsibility in governance, the complaint begs a question as applicable to every capital as well as Kiev and Moscow: who would be the good stewards of states and regions and on up the scale to global assets?
These “leaders” that draw out crowds to brave their batons and bullets and mass arrests — who would have time for them were they not so brazen and stuffed full of themselves?
An advertisement for Good Stewards of any geopolitical space: ability to both imagine and think beyond one’s own existence and interests; ethical; good-willed; holistic; honest; magnanimous; possessed of high integrity; responsible; sense of humor a must.
What if through democracy coupled with ambitious public education, the world really could think about and tend to its own collective future well being as expressed through Qualities of Living x Area-Squared (or Cubed) for any geopolitical space?
For “Earth Consciousness and Process”: Thomas Berry.
For an Advanced Psychology and Spirituality: Abraham Maslow.
I know at this point — I am 65 — my references are a bit dated but I feel their spirit still to be realized. If those who wish for themselves and future generations better lives, the answers, means, and methods are certain to be found in the comprehending of global issues and the development of related cooperation across space and time.
The slogans, e.g., “Think Globally — Act Locally”, have been around for a long time. The businessmen and politicians up to the challenge of producing a better world NOW and for setting up into the next century? Apparently, far less than would seem immediately desirable.
Posted to YouTube by Conservation International, October 5, 2014.
Books and circulars, first, radio, television, and films, later, have long presented us to ourselves, and so much so that it has long been common to reference our behavior in terms of characters well known. There has been the Great White Hunter’s perspective too in which the white guy — the Ernest Hemingway of one American generation; the Peter Beard of another — would view the journey into the “back of beyond” as exotic, and one day not too long ago, it was exotic.
The Grand Tour may be that no longer.
We are all here making our appearance known on desktop around the world. “Global Culture” — what we look like in recordings worldwide — has had these other and epic tours since the 1990s, and now we in North America have had in place for at least 14 years an astonishing “World Wide Web” through which all may see the world — including themselves — in states closer and closer to real time — or with live feeds within seconds of “real time”.
How are we now supposed to separate?
We can’t.
It’s too late — and we’re not going to go backward into more parochial decades or centuries.
In fact, we’re going to go through the life process and illness and death in the company of our virtually relayed but quite real familiars — our Facebook buddies, Twitter rosters, Instagram producers, and such — thousands of miles from our own desktops. When these new old friends fall ill . . . we’ll know it depending on our emotional and relational distance, not our geography. We’ll be asking what can be done (hit the FB “Cares” icon!) and what can we do — and about so many things: what can be done and what can we do sitting where each of us sits?
In terms of the larger picture, the significance of the Euromaidan, or generally the Maidan, of 2013-14 can hardly be overstated: it not only caps the period of hybrid post-Soviet existence initiated by independence in 1991, but also provides a kind of closure to the complex and drawn-out process of Ukrainian nation-formation that began in the 19th century.
I don’t know why I should have the spread of friends that I do on Facebook, so many have turned out reactionary conservatives muttering about a communist front that just hasn’t been shaping up as such. Have a look at the Communist Party USA’s membership number. Read Jacobin if you want to — I rather appreciate the alternative views but seem to be missing out on the sound of the earth-shaking thundering herd raging behind it. Inspiration for the following: the boast that former President Trump fought Chinese Communism (China’s elite society and growing class of billionaires left that blue serge lifestyle behind some time ago) and rightly put “America First!” The slogan was old before it came out of his mouth and the go-it-alone of the paranoid narcissistic personality may have only abetted Putin’s 19th Century ideas for destroying the political cohesion of a truly democratic and modern EU/NATO.
November’s election and today’s inauguration brought back to the United States of America the most fundamental of American principles and values riding right beside our glorious Constitution: a government by and for — i.e., responsible and responsive to — The People of the Nation in all our varied colors, cultures, and creeds.
We are Americans — no adjectives required unless appreciated and enjoyed — once again.
Beneath the banner of Communism, Beijing’s financial, ideological, and political realities differ quite from what imagination may supply in minds restricted by tired old presumptions. The state has been fairly minting billionaires and producing an elite within lines of authoritarian control in some ways mirroring what Moscow has going in the way of a deeply autocratic and politically repressive state.
For all intents in the United States, the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) may at best boast a membership around or beneath 10,000.
Excessive autocratic control — totalitarian in China these days — backed by military and paramilitary force have marked Beijing and Moscow’s respective narratives. In EU/NATO, the post-9/11 “New Nationalism” has similarly scarred “The West” in Hungary, Italy, Poland, and Turkey. However, as bad ideas reach their nadir, one may expect the reactionary drift (also in the United States) to reverse and more return to practical democratic approaches to a spread of tough and real — rather than imaginary — issues involving how we live together and how we (Americans) work together as a political society.
The base nods its collective head, raises its fists, and shouts its opinion — always someone else’s ideas and words — on the social network.
From the Awesome Conversation
We appear to use our military superiority — and we have it in many areas — judiciously to alter geopolitical space in well defined ways, to hem in ambitious enemies (such as Russia where it has bogged down in Ukraine), and to dampen the spirit for aggression in places like the South China Sea. We don’t just pack our kits and go off to obliterate cultures, governments, and societies. Life just ain’t that simple. I have primer on the subject: https://conflict-backchannels.com/2020/11/27/a-short-note-on-chinas-contemporary-political-sins/ — anywhere one waltzes in, from Wal-Mart to the Thousand Talents program (our research departments have taken a lot of Chinese grant money, but the same has been also a setup for Chinese espionage) — the realpolitik gets quite tough (for affordable everything — add in the borrowing on the U.S. national debt).
Fair for web search: “China, Wal-Mart”; “Thousand Talents Program”; “U.S., China, Debt”, “Ukraine, American Anti-Tank Weapons”; “China, USA, South China Sea”.
Are Far Right / Far Left Americans just plain lazy when it comes to looking into issues independently?
You tell me.
Too often online, one may come across the “Two Minutes Hate” entirely without legitimacy, sophistication, or substance.
This is not asking 320 million Americans to come up to speed in International Affairs in the way of, say, Belfer Center, but at least take in the best of available, valid, and reliable / clear, accurate, complete reportage. Citizens think; mobs mouth slogans.
In the tags section of this post, I’ve thought of a few dimensions that may need to be approached in some fresh way. I believe I have seen an ugly coarsening of competitive norms between China and the United States in the course of President Trump’s tenure. “Beat the other guy!” Well, we approach deals and games with that competitive zeal, but whether our partner in tennis or in trade, we’re generally not inclined to destroy the same without some related punitive motive. China’s “debt trap diplomacy” and the guile associated with the Thousand Talents Program indicates ambition to dominate more than facilitate healthy development and financial exchange.
In the days before Trump supporters’ insurrection, the Department of Defense placed major limitations on the tactics, equipment, and resources the DC National Guard could make use of in dealing with rioters, The Washington Post reported Thursday.
Pentagon officials sent memos on January 4 and 5 barring DC guardsmen from receiving ammo and riot gear, engaging with protesters (except for self-defense), sharing equipment with local police, and using surveillance or air assets without explicit approval from President Donald Trump’s acting Defense Secretary, Christopher Miller, according to The Post.
The CISA page for the 2020 elections features guidance helpful to the nation’s election managers and has been designed to counter domestic false claims and rumors as well as foreign created or influenced disinformation.
Addendum
Posted to YouTube by Bloomberg Quick Take, June 28, 2022.
I don’t really want to introduce this lift of my own words 🙂 because it’s telegraphed well as is. Let’s try this that way.
From the Awesome Conversation
The World Wide Web is in civilizational terms still a new communications technology, and about 14 years ago, broadband and the advent of powerful search engines and networks made it an ideal tool for political friends and enemies alike. Here is the program of one of our enemies — https://conflict-backchannels.com/2020/02/13/active-measures/ Another term (on which I haven’t worked): “Hybrid Warfare”.
I try to sustain our broadest American Freedom of Speech character across partisan lines, but we must be aware — or become aware — of sophisticated agitprop, disinformation, disingenuous information, etc. across partisan lines. The vast majority here are Americans whether Democratic or Republicans. We work things out. We don’t choke down political language or presentations without critical facility of our own and an immense treasure in research capability.
The BackChannels blog is mine and represents probably the most consistently semi-productive thing I’ve been doing for about a decade.
I would view the former politically correct fascists on campus and the emerged Far White Right in Charlottesville as projects that have simmered beneath the former political surface and simply amplified and coalesced their national political presence by way of both surface and “dark web” social channels. They’re the “violent radicals” of our day and most of us should want to repopulate the positions around the aisle.
We have had enough bullying from extremists Far Out Left and Far White Right.
Additional Comment
Unlike our Russian counterparts who cannot today choose between lives in a modern and vibrant authentic democracy, Americans may choose at this time to live with modern demand for integrity and responsibility in their speech and thereby inhabit an authentically modern and revolutionary ever new world.
“The claim that a Palestinian was wounded by live ammunition is known and the incident is being investigated,” the IDF said.
Channel 12 reported on Friday night that an initial investigation indicated that Abu Aram was shot unintentionally when the weapon of one of the soldiers at the scene discharged accidentally.
Screen capture at 0:31 seconds on January 3, 2021.
The generator and its owner had been separated, albeit not entirely in the IDF’s direction. Still, what would have been the point?
I’m inclined to leave the original header in place on this post even while changing its course, a reminder to myself to have the hard independent look first and shill neither Left nor Right.
While “Palestinian Resistance” picks up with its habitual protests — and those are certain to draw others toward injury — the facade covering Iranian involvement (backed by Moscow) will slip mightily as Sunni Arab states further cement their both new and strategic relationship with Israel. Those that have done that are no fans of Hezbollah or the Muslim Brotherhood. They’re not behind the Red-Green Far Out Left either. That pack of howling hyenas has worked as hard as the Palestinian “leadership” to encourage and sustain Palestinian self-destruction via abuse and corruption, disingenuous (the fix is always in!) speech, old Soviet communist (KGB) alliance, and deep exploitation (from use as “Pallywood” actors to child tunnel diggers to human shields).
In the Middle East as well as elsewhere across the world’s conflicted regions, appearances may be deceiving. Here, however, I would be surprised if IDF investigation were to refuse IDF fault in the injuring of Harun Abu Aram. The case now seems other — at least at this desktop — than a my-side-your-side thing. Still, states and territories have their agreements and understandings for the everyday working of their respective societies, and the suspended Palestinian semi-state and its residents should know better than to build where Israel has refused permit.
If there’s another fact irrefutable on the Palestinian side, it is just exactly that.
On Facebook and on YouTube, Ibtidah (The Beginning), the presence appears to represent the modern argument for intellectual freedom and integrity in states in which politics have been bound to religion and the state and others control education in the cause of medieval intellectual enslavement.
Personal Note on the Issue of Education in Transitioning Medieval Societies
I shared this note with the editor of Ibtidah —
Broad spectrum of choice should yield toward reason in the dissemination and uptake of information, but as some societies remain medieval in relation to power and worldviews, the medieval within societies may choose to cling to what becomes with greater knowledge simply archaic information. That doesn’t help anyone and least of all fanatical adherents to reactionary political or religious dogma.
Our species boasts the possession of about 4,300 religions with atheism quite low in percentage against believers in God or gods. Having become conscious as human (see Genesis chapters two and three as depicted in the Tenach and read without presumptions), we appear to have come equipped with imagination and moral sense that reliably, far more than less, extends into metaphysics. If we hadn’t, we would handle bodies — or perhaps presence — as we do animal nuisances and trash. That we don’t speaks to greater consciousness in the way of awareness and self-awareness: within our separable cultures, we wish children to be born and ourselves married and buried in customary ways fit to sustained cultural and social precepts.
With such ways, we take cultural form.
We may even believe ourselves beautiful by doing so.
🙂
By comparison, science may be crude in its marriage with reality and practical issues, but given the want of a compassionate modern world, the accurate conveyance of scientific information becomes all the more important for the broad and broadly distributed services we may bring to ourselves globally.
BackChannels 