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~ Conflict, Culture, Language, Psychology

BackChannels

Category Archives: Political Psychology

FTAC: Being “Global Elite” and . . . Nothingness

05 Tuesday Dec 2017

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

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authoritarianism, enfranchisement / disinfranchisement, global business and financial elites, medieval v modern, political subjugation, politics

“For the global elite socialism is a tool to control the masses. Use government to provide enough stuff to keep passions in check. If a guy has an apartment, access to free porn and beer he likely won’t revolt. “

Almost “ouch”!

One becomes less interesting as well as pernicious with time and since when has the other been free?ย 

“Soma” and “The Feelies” are the drug and entertainment experience featured in _Brave New World_ (something else I should now re-read).

It’s true that as a nation, we have loaded up on material comforts, which trade produces our economy, so good, and “adult pacification systems”, which may include the downers, uppers, and mellowing agents prescribed by physicians (I want the roll-eyes emoticon for just such phrases) or naughtily accessed by the over- and under-enthused (and generally so for good reasons).

I would argue that business and political global elite are neither capitalist nor socialist nor much of anything apart from immense egos that tend toward authoritarianism in their own right!

Carnegie essentially quit — and then made sure to attach his name to a nation’s libraries . . . .

For touring in political science and with some focus on the Russian civilizational experience, I would suggest strongly that dogma, ideology, and religion serve power by leveraging the enthusiasms of “masses” and mobs.

Free radicals ย ๐Ÿ™‚ are perhaps not so welcomed . . . . ใ€€

Note: I was surprised recently to find the term “liberal conservative” in Pipes’ history of the Russian Revolution, and were I alive then, that is where I would place not only myself but possibly most good willed and responsible Americans. ย There has been nothing wrong with making ourselves modestly comfortable and being apprised and attentive to the needs of others less well accommodated. Whether we should then lose our heads (a now interesting phrase) to serve a “global elite” at the expense of our “ethics, ideals, principles, and values” — and sentiments! — seems a fair question for asking.


–33–

FTAC: Political, Racial, Religious Singularity and Purity / Distribution x Equilibrium

04 Monday Dec 2017

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Anti-Semitism, Asides, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Philosophy, Political Psychology, Politics, Religion

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bigotry, ethnic co-evolution, ethnolinguistic co-evolution, identity politics and equilibrium, political psychology, political self-concept, spatial distribution

Perhaps by way of the editor’s accidental tourism in poli-sci and poli-psy, BackChannels has from the start been about the distillation of basic concepts and values. ย That’s evident down the column of the left sidebar (which hasn’t been updated in some time): there are the universals ย —

Compassion

Empathy

Justice

Humility

Inclusion

Integrity

The six are what matter within ourselves if we are to support goodness and grace against the evil of a behavioral and moral vacuum.

They are perhaps the argument against the malign narcissism of politically absolute and inevitably sadistic systems of power.

In relation to a conversation about barbarism, cultural relativism, and civilizational superiority, the following moved mind-to-keyboard and out into a closed Facebook space:

Argument here has essentially to do with the civilizational character of cultural ethics, principles, and values and that is a little complicated by the fewer than 7,000 living languages extant that suspend and replicate thought from one generation to the next — or become muddled or die out.

Not to rapid-shift here, but when Mongol power receded from conquest in Russia, the princes, according to Pipes, had ingested and adopted the idea that the ownership of property and persons was natural and alike, and one test of sovereignty involved possession of the freedom to destroy either at will and with impunity. The modern Greco-Roman Judeo-Christian soul might consider that philosophy of absolute power / absolute ownership just a little bit . . . barbaric.

Whatever it is, it’s on display in Syria and Crimea, and as there seems to be a small cultural pride –how pure and pretty we may be! — theme in this forum, I would suggest this about the preservation of separable but not exclusive cultural, ideological, racial, and religious differences in appearances, ideas, and traditions:

Core X –> | Mixed XYZ –> |Fringe WXYZ x Primary Variable of Interest

No “theme” disappears but each has its core, its mixer, and its fringe and all have the freedom to choose what is most important in the character of their own survival.

There’s an old joke for intellectual youngsters: “Time exists so that everything doesn’t happen all at once; space exists so that everything doesn’t happen to you.”

As a political concept, what is important about ideas, including matters associated with self-concept and self-regard, is their distribution in geopolitical space and the equilibrium established or maintained between them.


So the world offers some small space for everyone who cares to assert that which is most important to himself as regards self-concept or identity.

There’s an old saw — and on the web attributed both to Dorothy Parker and Woody Allen without proof at the source! — “”The Jews are like everyone else, only more so.”

๐Ÿ™‚

To answer the mother’s question, “Why can’t you be like everyone else!?” — we are all like everyone else, but we do choose some aspects of ourselves for highlighting, packaging, and presenting, and so may we all continue searching for — or finding — our individual space and time with, one may hope, a few others.


It has often been said that the Jews are like everyone else, only more so. And today, that is more true than it has ever been!

The world of our parents and grandparents was one of exclusion from the wider society. Living apart from the Ukrainians, Russians, and Poles was expected in the old country; when our forebears immigrated to this country many of them maintained their distinct dress, language, foods, songs, and of course religious rituals for a generation or so.

But my grandmother, who was 8 years old when she came to Boston in 1921 from the province of Volhynia in the Ukraine, did not want to be a โ€œgreenhorn.โ€ She refused to speak Yiddish. She soon learned that she loved to eat lobster and clams, like so many other Bostonians. She wasnโ€™t so interested in Jewish life. And so she, like many other immigrants, began to shed the ethnic attributes of the old world.

Adelson, Seth. “The Simple Child Sees Only the Past: Kol Nidrei 577.” Sermon. ย The Modern Rabbi,ย October 1 2017.

–33–

Battered, Jaded, Numbed? Here’s An Old Tonic

01 Friday Dec 2017

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, A Little Wisdom, Also in Media, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Journal, Philosophy, Poetry, Political Psychology

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decency, Don Quixote, humanism, idealism, universalism

As have many days for many years, this one started with a glimpse at conflict and crime news, some searched up, some by way of Facebook forum conversations: Mexico’s national addiction to drugs and money (in that order); a look at human trafficking — it appears China receives from Columbia a steady stream of duped women to be forced into prostitution and then takes little action against the trade.

Web surfers visiting here have probably had their own fill of experience or news — or both — vomited up from the evil and ugly world. ย For those so offended but in themselves good and noble and perhaps in need of a refreshed idealism and inspiration, I offer an old memory.

Here’s a trailer.

And here — from another company — the greater quotation.


Related On the Web

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1977/08/20/richard-kiley-at-55-the-once-and-present-man-of-la-mancha/30d559ae-bac1-47f6-b7f4-cffc93304468/ – 8/20/1977

https://www.broadwayworld.com/board/readmessage.php?thread=1088321 — 11/21/2015 Message board topic: 50th anniversary of the musical.

–33–

Khaliji Qaumi Ittehad Tribesmen Protest Threat of Expulsion, Qetta, Balochistan, Pakistan, November 22, 2017

23 Thursday Nov 2017

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Epistemology, Islamic Small Wars, Pakistan, Political Psychology

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Khiliji Qaumi Ittehad, Pakistan, protest against expulsion

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

In the above slideshow, Khaliji Qaumi Ittehad tribesmen in Quetta, Pakistan protest the threat of expulsion to Afghanistan posed by Pakistan’s government and military, according toย BackChannels’ contact in the region.

Source claims that Pashtun tribes have been ordered to produce “proof of locality” before 1976, and toward that end, the state has sent out notices ordering tribesmen to submit national identity cards to the government. ย In response, the Khaliji Qaumi Ittehad have undertaken a hunger strike — after four days of that, readers may see that the ambulance had to show up to rescue those who had essentially victimized themselves through that action — and related street protest.

Here follow a few excerpts from correspondence (lightly edited for readability and sense).

Historically all Pakhtoon are Afghans.

There were Indians and Afghans in the region.

Then the so called Durand Line was drawn in1893 that divided the Afghans…After Pakistan csme into being Pakhtoon on their own land were living. ย Thus assumed the nationality of Pakistan which they heartedly not accept today. ย However with passage of time they merged into Pakistani society. ย Now they are seen as alien people .

The Afghan migrated after Soviet invasion is also the factor.

It is hard for Pakistani government to differentiate between immigrants and original Pakistani tribes.

Today, as a whole, they treated like animals

Wars make a mess of cultural and social relationships, and the Durand Line region separating Afghanistan from Pakistan while sitting astride the Pashtun tribal belt has seen more than its fair share of disruption through criminal and martial violence.

Request for National Identity Card Submittal, Quetta, Pakistan,

Above: “This is the form of chic (STET) which requires attestation of two grade 17 govt officers. Which is hard to find two officers.”

Below: “Now despite completing the process they are still denied.”

Rejected Residency Documents, Quetta, Pakistan, November 23, 201

This note comes from earlier in the conversation:

If one marry to lady, the lady also has to prove herself Pakistan and provide the evidence of 1970.

In number of families the male is considered Pakistani but his wife with so many children is declared Afghani.

Most of tribesmen have stopped visiting bazaars or the main cities and remain at hope to avoid the danger of arrest by the state security agencies


A web search for the Khiliji Qaumi Ittehad will show that the tribe has been active in anti-western protests involving drone strikes as well as anger with former General and President Pervez Musharraf, and one may find online images of the same burning American ย and British flags.

Source notes the following:

Pakistan still think Taliban is strategic assets for it. ย Pakhtoons are so dependent economically that even I can recruit thousands for any ill cause for very less amount. ย Most of low rank Taliban fight it as holy war while their high ranks fight for money.

We the local see that war is the most costly exercise. ย If they are not supported by state, they would never be able to challenge the mighty NETO —ย by state supported Taliban I mean those fighting in Afghanistan and those killing the Pakhtoons.

Madrassah is main factor for cheap recruitment. in madrassah they r only taught religious text. ย They live in a controlled environment. ย I live in the area where Taliban are kept and trained.

BackChannels shared David Satter’s coverage of the false-flag Moscow Apartment Bombings with the source, who responded, “Wow Putin and our rulers are so similar in action.”

BackChannels would question the conclusion; however, here is the bottom line as regards a part of Pashtun tribal attitude toward the State of Pakistan:

Sir I’m hopeless here. How would we survive since we r short of basic needs and education. ย I know Russia backing Taliban. But the US role in the region is skeptical too. A country spends 700 billion dollar on defense and not able to defeat Taliban?

…

Quetta, the capital of Balochistan sees protest on the part of tribals live on their land even before the emergence of Pakistan.

They in all grounds of life were kept backward by state of Pakistan. They are economically poor and less educated. ย Since last ten years they are being deprived of national identity.

Now these tribals receive notice from govt of Pakistan to submit back the identity cards that were issued to them. Give says that the state secret agency has declared them aliens.

Now an organization of these tribes under Tribal leader Nawab Salman Khilji (STET) is observing hunger strike till death. It’s 4th day of the strike but no govt official has contacted the hunger camp. They may turn violent if someone dies in this hunger strike.

Their camp is at door of Quetta Press Club but receives no media coverage . . . because media here is state controlled

While BackChannels may relay the above testimony as regards conditions, it may not — or not yet — from its desktop independently verify all of the source’s claims. ย Nonetheless, comments on the depth of poverty in the region, presumptions about the character of the Pakistani State as experienced by “tribals”, and related beliefs about State — and American — culpability for terrorism would seem to ring true with other domestic and xenophobic mistrusts.

The Pashtun have been rudely treated in their remote and semi-autonomous areas, and it may be difficult for the earnest to convey a more accurate state of affairs.

With the Soviet / post-Soviet “toolkit” involving criminal activity, anti-western disinformation campaigns, and false-flag operations designed to channel political perception, it may be especially difficult for remote Pashtun to develop reliable conclusions about the political states of affairs that surround them.

–33–

 

FTAC: Sentiment for the Clintons

17 Friday Nov 2017

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

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Authentic American Representation, Civic Mindedness, Clintons, Constituent Care, democracy, Political Slavery

Prompt: scraping up the Clinton scandals one mo’ time.

Response regarding cultures of power and the powerful politician:

There also are and have been multiple political cultures feeding up to but also drawing on the manners of the powerful of state.

Should we dredge all the way back to Henry VIII? Or Louis XIV? Or Thomas Jefferson?

Regarding the Clintons and perhaps others, I would rank accomplishment in authentic community care and concern far above personal peccadilloes and incautious personal stupidity for the purpose of voting. I’d rather have a good civic spirit in office than a seedy authoritarian of the kind too common in the world.


–33–

FTAC: Absent of Boundaries; Absent of Conscience: Dictatorship

17 Friday Nov 2017

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, China, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Europe, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, North America, Political Psychology, Politics, Russia

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Active Measures, agitprop, aristocracy, authoritarianism, Chinese and Russian Totalitarianism, dictatorship, Global Information Space, information space, information warfare, malignant narcissism, oligarchy, propaganda

The prompt from my conversational partner: “. . . to solve these problems, we need cooperation, not war. And the main question is why does the government not understand this?”

The response:

Paper, scissors, stone, ย and “paper” (money) covers and suffocates all beneath it while “liberating” those who have it and, perhaps (I don’t want to find out!), those who might believe themselves above it – or those of merely modest material ambitions.

My personal approach has been “Money Matters!” but is not everything; however, and this especially with our health care industry, there are forces producing polices I can’t field, and of course that inspires a yet impotent resentment.

Our government should be Christian, good-willed, and muscular (academic term “muscular Christianity” works in this regard), but it’s bending toward the criminals in the great mansions and penthouse suites, and I’ not talking about Bill Gates or most “plutocrats” but rather those who believe there are no boundaries between their perfect embodiment of the “isness” (I will find the word, literally) of their state and themselves. The businesses, the courts, the military and paramilitary elements, and legislatures are all theirs to exploit and manipulate on behalf of their preferred . . . associates. That’s dictatorship.

Let me see if I can find the word for existence as the authentic expression of spirit . . . .

“Esse” and “essence” were not what I was looking for but for an esoteric term having to do with the being of the thing within the thing. Believing in the singularity of person and state (as Ceausescu had; as Erdogan and Putin do) may comprise part of the messianic delusion suffered by dictators but unfortunately visited (with fist in the velvet glove, at best) on their subjected people.

I’m finding my reading of Russian history steeped in punitive control, and that doesn’t come with interest in “the masses” half so much as in the developing and sustaining of wealth beneficial to the image and power of the central figure in power.


Related, Recent, and Singular

On today’s Chinese and Russian totalitarian aggression in Global Information Space:

Walker, Christopher and Jessice Ludwig. ย “The Meaning of Sharp Power”. ย Foreign Affairs, November 16, 2017.

BackChannels maintains a brief bibliography of accessible and general volumes on Russia’s political history in the “Russian Section” of this blog. ย For greater insight into the authoritarian-patrimonial experience of the political culture from the 9th Century forward, I would recommend Richard Pipes’ fine history, Russia Under the Old Regime.

Punitive control: in geopolitical space and in the various ages of the “rule of the strong”, including for Russia and surrounds domination by the Mongols, the power to control space produces arrangements with in to produce wealth. ย Pipes’ — in the above cited volume — steps off with economic variance in the productivity of Russian land compared to soil fertility to the south to explain motivation for the social arrangements that would ensue in history and effect Russian political arrangements to this day. ย What Pipes appears to find essential — and what most concerns this blog — is the prince’s (or equivalent or greater in power) considering the ownership of property and persons the same thing. ย Worse — the test of sovereignty becomes the permit to engage in the wholesale destruction of both!

Now have another look at Assad’s destruction of Syria and incubation of ISIS as a useful foil and political toolย (“Reflexive Control’s” little helper)ย as well as the very emblem of the worst of the worst of destructive forces.

Who has the control of it?

Moscow-Tehran.


Note: keyword tags are related this time but not directly addressed except beneath the category that is “Dictatorship” and its essential and unfailingly malign narcissism.

–33–

Also in Media: “Western Worries About Russian Disinformation ‘Just Fits of Hysterics'” | Hungarian Spectrum | November 15, 2017

16 Thursday Nov 2017

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

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Active Measures, post-Cold War, post-Soviet Era, Russian disinformation, Soviet / post-Soviet politics

Of course the title of the Hungarian Spectrum article is ironic, not dismissive.

Moscow’s manipulation of “Information Space” beyond its boundariesย is serious stuff, and the American public and other western democratic constituencies need to know it down to and through their grassroots.

Good examples of Russian manipulation can be seen in the Catalonian independence referendum and Brexit. Spanish Foreign Minister Alfonso Dastis announced that his government had confirmed that a propaganda campaign intended to destabilize Spain came from Russia and Venezuela. They used Twitter, Facebook, and other internet sites to publicize the separatist cause and swing public opinion to support it.

Researchers at the University of Edinburgh identified 419 accounts operating from the Russian Internet Research Agency (IRA) that attempted to influence British politics. Russian hackers also spread anti-Islamic sentiments in Great Britain after the recent terrorist attacks. According to The Guardian, hundreds of paid bloggers work around the clock at IRA โ€œto flood Russian internet forums, social networks and the comments sections of western publicationsโ€”sowing disinformation, praising the countryโ€™s president, Vladimir Putin, and raging at the west.โ€ On Monday Theresa May addressed the issue in a speech, saying that Russiaโ€™s actions were โ€œthreatening the international order on which we all depend.โ€

http://hungarianspectrum.org/2017/11/15/western-worries-about-russian-disinformation-just-fits-of-hysterics/


Related on BackChannels

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2017/10/01/the-active-measures-links-page/ – a short and goofy primer that probably should have a more formal twin.

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2017/10/23/fake-news-genuine-fake-news-the-real-fake-news-get-your-fake-news-here/ – American mainstream journalism is “high-integrity professional” by design and training. ย BackChannels believes it has been an authoritarian ruse with some P. T. Barnum thrown in to sell alienated or struggling white Americans (for the most part) on the distrust of the mainstream (NOT “lamestream”) media.

Reliable, verifiable, and trusted news — “clear, accurate, and complete” — forms the very foundation of public impression and related decisionmaking, and to smear the entire industry bids only for absolute and tyrannical power. ย Around the world, however, what governments may withhold as secret from the press may not be known, or easily known, and from that comes a contest in democracies between governments and Real Press for general constituent and voter confidence in their elected government.

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

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/11/23/moscows-rules-a-module/ย – a good natured primer on the world’s most cynical political regime.

https://conflict-backchannels.com/library/russian-section/ย – a backgrounder in the form of a bibliography listing the most accessible and enjoyable volumes on Cold War history and related political mafia and disinformation (and much else). ย Highly recommended: Disinformation by Pacepa and Rychlak and the Agnia Grigas work on Crimea.

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/11/28/a-short-page-referencing-works-by-or-associated-with-ion-mihai-pacepa/

Call BackChannels the work of an obsessive curiosity by the most accidental tourist in political science and political psychology. ย I’d say the editor would be a senior in high school, perhaps a junior in college, at this point . . . perhaps a little more sophisticated for breadth of awareness of related elements across regions (“culture, conflict, language, and psychology”) and ability to get the connections just about right.

https://conflict-backchannels.com/coins-and-other-terms/anthropolitical-psychology/paranoid-delusional-narcissistic-reflection-of-motivation/ – if ever there was a psychological phenomenon or method accompanying the aggression of the murderous and tyrannical, the title gets it.

Related in Wikipedia

For the once-Soviet inspired, manipulated (and paid) Hard Political Left whose most privileged of the Party would regard the same with contempt for being pliable and useful idiots:

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

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

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

–33–

On the Fates of Authoritarian Figures . . . .

15 Wednesday Nov 2017

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, Also in Media, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Political Psychology

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authoritarianism, conscience, democracy, democratic revolution, dictatorship

impeachment-and-coup

Top:ย https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rep-steve-cohen-introduces-new-articles-of-impeachment-against-trump/ – 11/15/2017.

Bottom:ย http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/pictures-president-zimbabwe-robert-mugabes-rise-fall-1647387ย – 11/15/2017.

Add for contemplation:ย http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/photos-brief-bloody-anti-soviet-hungarian-uprising-1956-1644224ย – 10/23/2017.

–So he’s a thug.

–Which one?

–It doesn’t matter: why not let him have his little state?

๐Ÿ™‚

BackChannels will demur here from commenting on the standing President of the United States but may note that little things like stiffing dozens of subcontractors, building hills around a golf course in-holding, selling off a $42 million property for about $94 million to meet a few debts (Harry Homeowner: try to beat that for obtaining a favor — and note: the buyer razed the property: it’s a field by the Atlantic Ocean today), sabotaging American universal health care, deriding the most professional news organizations in the world as “Fake News!” may not endear the same to all ordinary Americans who despite their many vulnerabilities may enjoy a modicum of dignity and protection through true democratic representation.

Poor Robert — this editor has long suggested that Mugabe’s long presence in power not only proves that a ruthless and wily dictator may not only get away it but perhaps pass away in an untroubled sleep somewhere in his 90s. ย Nope. ย Well maybe. ย In any case, BackChannels didn’t see this coup a-comin’, but there it is and fair cause for becoming desktop-addicted newsie.

Hungarian Uprising, 1956: I was looking for Soviet officers hung from lamp posts, a detail reported in a BBC video about Vladimir Putin’s cultural memory (perhaps I was looking at the wrong event, so will look again) but found the visual record formed by the collision of the deeply resentful against the then militarily powerful. ย Similar images may be dredged up from the web for the end of Mussilini and the Ceausescues.

Related in Wikipedia: “Russianโ€“Hungarian relations, 1945โ€“1991” —
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian%E2%80%93Hungarian_relations,_1945%E2%80%931991


Historic photograph, 1956 Hungarian Revolution against Soviet occupation.

Historic photograph, 1956 Hungarian Revolution against Soviet occupation (source: Wikimedia Commons).

–33–

 

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Epigram

Hillel the Elder

"That which is distasteful to thee do not do to another. That is the whole of Torah. The rest is commentary. Now go and study."

"If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am not for others, what am I? If not now, when?"

"Whosoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world. And whosoever that saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world."

Oriana Fallaci
"Whether it comes from a despotic sovereign or an elected president, from a murderous general or a beloved leader, I see power as an inhuman and hateful phenomenon...I have always looked on disobedience toward the oppressive as the only way to use the miracle of having been born."

Talmud 7:16 as Quoted by Rishon Rishon in 2004
Qohelet Raba, 7:16

ืื›ื–ืจื™ ืกื•ืฃ ืฉื ืขืฉื” ืื›ื–ืจื™ ื‘ืžืงื•ื ืจื—ืžืŸ

Kol mi shena`asa rahaman bimqom akhzari Sof shena`asa akhzari bimqom rahaman

All who are made to be compassionate in the place of the cruel In the end are made to be cruel in the place of the compassionate.

More colloquially translated: "Those who are kind to the cruel, in the end will be cruel to the kind."

Online Source: http://www.rishon-rishon.com/archives/044412.php

Abraham Isaac Kook

"The purely righteous do not complain about evil, rather they add justice.They do not complain about heresy, rather they add faith.They do not complain about ignorance, rather they add wisdom." From the pages of Arpilei Tohar.

Heinrich Heine
"Where books are burned, in the end people will be burned." -- From Almansor: A Tragedy (1823).

Simon Wiesenthal
Remark Made in the Ballroom of the Imperial Hotel, Vienna, Austria on the occasion of His 90th Birthday: "The Nazis are no more, but we are still here, singing and dancing."

Maimonides
"Truth does not become more true if the whole world were to accept it; nor does it become less true if the whole world were to reject it."

"The risk of a wrong decision is preferable to the terror of indecision."

Douglas Adams
"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?" Epigram appearing in the dedication of Richard Dawkins' The GOD Delusion.

Thucydides
"The Nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools."

Milan Kundera
"The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting."

Malala Yousafzai
โ€œThe terrorists thought that they would change our aims and stop our ambitions but nothing changed in my life except this: weakness, fear and hopelessness died. Strength, power and courage was born.โ€

Tanit Nima Tinat
"Who could die of love?"

What I Have Said About the Jews

My people, not that I speak for them, I nonetheless describe as a "global ethnic commune with its heart in Jerusalem and soul in the Land of Israel."

We have never given up on God, nor have we ever given up on one another.

Many things we have given up, but no one misses, say, animal sacrifice, and as many things we have kept, so we have still to welcome our Sabbath on Friday at sunset and to rest all of Saturday until three stars appear in the sky.

Most of all, through 5,773 years, wherever life has taken us, through the greatest triumphs and the most awful tragedies, we have preserved our tribal identity and soul, and so shall we continue eternally.

Anti-Semitism / Anti-Zionism = Signal of Fascism

I may suggest that anti-Zionism / anti-Semitism are signal (a little bit) of fascist urges, and the Left -- I'm an old liberal: I know my heart -- has been vulnerable to manipulation by what appears to me as a "Red Brown Green Alliance" driven by a handful of powerful autocrats intent on sustaining a medieval worldview in service to their own glorification. (And there I will stop).
One hopes for knowledge to allay fear; one hopes for love to overmatch hate.

Too often, the security found in the parroting of a loyal lie outweighs the integrity to be earned in confronting and voicing an uncomfortable truth.

Those who make their followers believe absurdities may also make them commit atrocities.

Positively Orwellian: Comment Responding to Claim that the Arab Assault on Israel in 1948 Had Not Intended Annihilation

“Revisionism” is the most contemptible path that power takes to abet theft and hide shame by attempting to alter public perception of past events.

On Press Freedom, Commentary, and Journalism

In the free world, talent -- editors, graphic artists, researchers, writers -- gravitate toward the organizations that suit their interests and values. The result: high integrity and highly reliable reportage and both responsible and thoughtful reasoning.

This is not to suggest that partisan presses don't exist or that propaganda doesn't exist in the west, but any reader possessed of critical thinking ability and genuine independence -- not bought, not programmed -- is certainly free to evaluate the works of earnest reporters and scholars.

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