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Category Archives: Political Psychology

Putin, While Messing With the West, Grows a New Russian Economy

09 Thursday Jun 2016

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Eurasia, International Development, Political Psychology, Politics, Russia

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Tags

21st Century Neo-Feudalism, aristocracy, political psychology, Putin, Russia, Russia vs NATO

Two points of reference:

Medetsky, Anatoly, Matthew Campbell, Yuliya Fedorinova.  “Putin is Growing Organic Power One T-34 Tank-Tomato at a Time.”  Bloomberg, June, 7, 2016.

Shinkman, Paul D.  “Beware Appeasement With Russia.”  U.S. News & World Report, June 9, 2016.

Keep in mind the extreme duality presented by the Concert in Palmyra, for example, and the savaging of Syria by a tyrant accompanied by the incubation and encouragement of ISIS as a useful foil and poker chip for playing over the course of perhaps the World’s Grandest and Most Romantic Political Theater.

While burdening the west (and NATO) with the fallout in refugees and terrorists from the Syrian Tragedy and pestering the same through its activities in Ukraine, an assortment of “frozen conflicts”, and its investment in “information warfare” online, Russia has been also (as Obama long ago suggested) growing its economy, the first fruits of which have been given pretty good play in Bloomberg.

About to this point, the image of a Moscow hard hit by dramatically reduced oil revenues and sanctions and by years of capital flight driven by corruption has held steady, but now we see The Bear has been planting all along.

Neither Russian artistic and intellectual high culture nor developing business success (finally!) can or will ethically or morally offset what Putin’s regime has done to degrade the lifestyles of Russians en masse (so far) nor erase the barbaric and contemptible way it has measured the worth of the lives and freedoms of others in Crimea, Syria, and elsewhere.

For whatever may have happened to Putin early in life, one may glimpse a Putin’s revenge taken against the enemies of the Soviet, perhaps old imperial Russia as well, and what he might brand as traitors to Russia in Eastern Europe — those who have joined with NATO — for while he has delivered refugees and terrorists and the confusions of RT and other state-controlled media operations to their lands and airwaves (and computers), he has placed the productive capacity of the state in the state-controlled private hands, and as the same wish to make a lot money, the tomatoes are going to be pretty good for eating (or throwing).

Note too that in the encouragement of Far Right and Far Left political organizations worldwide, Putin & Co. have blended with the tomatoes a heady mix of hippie values — what could be more pure than tomatoes irrigated by mountain waters? — and fascist nationalist dreams rooted in ethnolinguistic pride.

While NATO may prepare for and block greater Russian imperialist adventure, its more immediate and perhaps more real headache may involve meeting the challenge posed by Moscow’s autocratic, barbarous, and criminal “allowances” within Russia and far beyond its borders.


Posted to YouTube 2/3/2016.

Reference

AFP.  “Millions more Russians living in poverty as economic crisis bites.”  March 21, 2016.

Orttung, Robert and Christopher Walker.  “Putin’s Frozen Conflicts: Each of Russia’s reform-minded neighbors is plagued by separatism.  It’s no coincidence.”  Foreign Policy, February 13, 2015.

Pomerantsev, Peter.  “Russia and the Menace of Unreality.”  The Atlantic, September 9, 2014.

Ragozin, Leonid.  “Putin’s Core Support Begins to Waver.”  Bloomberg Businessweek, June 9, 2016.  (Added 6/10/2016).

Tolokonnikova, Nadya. “Criminal Godfathers and Dirty Birds.”  Huffington Post, February 3, 2016.

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FTAC – Haaretz’s Noticing the Anti-BDS Community

02 Thursday Jun 2016

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Anti-Semitism, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Political Psychology, Politics, Syndicate Red Brown Green

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

America Left, American Far Left, American politics, anti-Semitism, middle east conflict, New Left, New Old Now Old Far Out and Lost Left, Old Left, politics, Soviet Influence in America, United States

The Soviet was not only a power structure. It had a mentality — and the same has been transitioned by Putin into the nationalist format — that served the intellectual and political engines of the Far Left. The Tired Old Politics of the New Old Now Old Far Out and Lost Left grind on absent of the Soviet, and Haaretz.com, among others, may be dropping those politics while flailing around for a distinct new social liberalism.


Article of Interest: David, Ariel.  “In anti-BDS Move, Italy Bringing Huge Academic Delegation to Israel.”  Haaretz, May 30, 2016.

Inspiration for the writing: “Ironic that Haaretz is reporting this story, considering that most of the BDS animus is fueled and justified by Haaretz writers.”

Those “Tired Old Politics of the New Old Now Old Far Out and Lost Left” keep duped and misdirected possibly millions of well-intentioned Americans (as well as anti-Semites) sitting politely in dozens to hundreds of organizations hooked up to representatives of the the BDS Movement, the International and Palestinian Solidarity organizations, and every other post-Soviet comrade tank.

What has been done to, say, the Unitarian Universalist Association to produce the hallucinating Unitarian Universalists for Justice in the Middle East (UUJME) should be the subject of scandal, especially since most today either know or may easily know the Soviet KGB history involved in the creation of Yassir Arafat and Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) plus the promotion of the terrorism of that day (and Moscow has continued to meet with such as the PFLP and continues to refuse to designate either Hamas or Hezbollah as terrorist organizations despite the evidence over decades of their crimes, including, lately, the use of human shields, the practice of summary executions within their bailiwicks, and for Hamas the deaths of child tunnel diggers, among other abuses).

The Presbyterian Church USA has similar fallen for the same bunk (December 2014).

(Each story has now close historic play online.  As an accompaniment to the above statement, readers might enjoy Jeanne Bishop’s Presbyterian pro-Israel argument in Huffington Religion, “Why Proposed Presbyterian Divestment from Israel is Wrong” – August 10, 2014).

While BackChannels continues to note that this year will mark the 25th year out from the dissolving of the Soviet Union, the notion that inherently anti-Semitic pro-BDS furor represents the ghosts of another era, one may find online (with relation to “Cold War — Cold Struggle“) a most cynical partisan-to-Moscow approach the modern world’s wrestling with the medieval mind:

https://newcoldwar.org/

Here’s a declaration on the publication’s “About” page:

‘Independent’ does not mean non-partisan. You can find a statement of our broad views in the antiwar declaration approved at a conference in Yalta, Crimea approved on 7 July 2014 at a meeting of activists from Ukraine, Europe, Russia and North America. We believe great injustices are being committed by the government installed in Kiev in February against the whole Ukrainian people.

On the web, it’s too easy to surf off the BDS issue (in America and globally) and over to Moscow’s maneuvering in Syria and Ukraine, and yet these very different themes — BDS, Cold War, Syria, Ukraine, and Politics on the Left — would seem very much connected by a massive update on old agitation and propaganda methods.  (As always, the sense of how the Soviet state worked may be obtained through any number of volumes relayed in the “Russian Section” of this blog).

The poison — anti-American, anti-Semitic, anti-Zionist; pro-mob, pro-power without warrant — spreads down to American villages in countless “activist” newsletters.  Here’s a glimpse from the calendar page of the Hudson Valley Activist Newsletter:

Friday, June 3, KINGSTON: There will be a 7 p.m. screening of the documentary The Occupation of the American Mind: Israel’s Public Relations War in the United States at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the Catskills, 320 Sawkill Rd. This film offers a sophisticated analysis of the Zionist strategy to keep Washington policymakers and the U.S. public on Israel’s side despite its subjugation of the Palestinian people.

Oh, please, End the Preoccupation!

http://www.alhaq.org/advocacy/topics/palestinian-violations

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/5019/hamas-palestinian-authority-human-rights (1/9/2015).

http://www.timesofisrael.com/human-rights-watchdog-hamas-pa-tortured-hundreds-in-2014/ (1/29/2015).

Eastward across the pond, the Brits on the Left seem to be waking up — or at least pushed toward introspection with both Naz Shah’s apology for earlier and mindless anti-Semitic cant and the election of London’s first Muslim mayor, Sadiq Khan.

How come the American Left doesn’t get it?

Hamas governs Gaza — from examination of its constitution to human rights to billionaire status for both Ismail Haniyeh and Khaled Mashaal, there’s no lack of information online or in books for its goals, its history, its methods, its human rights record, and so on.

Similarly, the Palestinian Authority is the political authority in the West Bank.  While Israel and its Defense Forces have defensive control over who and what moves in the disputed territory, the working police serve Abbas.  In fact, the timbre of life — how things work within — are defined by the behavior of the Palestinian Authority in concert with others with whom it does business.

Reduction: Hamas occupies Gaza; the PLO / PA occupies the West Bank.

And those “poor Palestinians” may be read about on websites like these: Palestine Real Estate Investment Company, Padico Holding — find the boards of directors online and follow each mogul to related career terminals within the region.

For the Hate-America-Firsters”, perhaps some Americans should take another look at America.

Start here: “USAID: West Bank and Gaza“.

Also on BackChannels — Loose URL Reference

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/02/09/ftac-on-why-the-jews/

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/05/07/ftac-on-the-soviet-contribution-to-contemporary-left-side-anti-semitism/

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/05/07/ftac-on-the-soviet-contribution-to-contemporary-left-side-anti-semitism/

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/05/18/ftac-mec-thin-wall/

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/05/16/ftac-longitude-the-hebrews-judaism-and-law/

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2015/04/29/soviet-anti-semitism-an-example-from-andrew-and-mitrokhins-the-sword-and-the-shield/

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2015/10/22/ftac-approaching-anti-semitism-and-the-medieval-revanch/

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

https://conflict-backchannels.com/coins-and-other-terms/new-old-now-old-far-out-and-lost-left/

https://conflict-backchannels.com/syndicate-red-brown-green/

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/04/24/reference-two-articles-bds-on-campus-bds-and-related-networks-undercover-investigative-reporting/

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

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_Back to the Ethic_ Author Diane Weber Bederman to Appear on Janet Mefford Today — Today!

02 Thursday Jun 2016

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Political Psychology, Religion

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

author interview, Diane Weber Bederman, divinity, ethics, faith, Janet Mefferd Today, Judeo-Christian, morality, PSA, religion

6-2-16 – On the next JANET MEFFERD TODAY: The Bible is the blueprint for the values of Western Civilization. And yet, our culture has neglected the very framework that holds our liberties intact. How do we rescue it? Diana Weber-Bederman joins me to discuss that and her book, “Back to the Ethic.” Plus: The Left’s new attacks on Christian colleges — and how some Christian colleges are undermining their own mission. That and more on Thursday’s JANET MEFFERD TODAY.

Announcement link: http://janetmefferd.com/podcasts/

Local Affiliate Radio Stations and Showtimes for Janet Mefferd Today: http://janetmefferd.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/JMT-Stations.pdf

Previously on BackChannels: https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/02/11/rediscovery-renewal-of-devotion-bedermans-back-to-the-ethic-reclaiming-western-values/

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FTAC – A Response to Advocacy for Putin’s Russia

27 Friday May 2016

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Political Psychology, Russia, Syndicate Red Brown Green, Ukraine

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

anti-Semitism, dictatorship, Judaism, liberation teleology, liberation theology, political corruption, political criminality, political psychology

Re. democracies and monarchies: a dozen European states remain monarchies but tempered by their democratic complements in power (parliamentary systems).

Re. bigotry in the west — the point is the people fight it in concert with their governments. The real tension is between ethnolinguistic cultural majorities and their interest in preserving themselves and evolving as they themselves determine. As much has given rise to what I call the “New Nationalism” and, like Viktor Orban in Hungary, “New Nationalists”. Those on the Far Right in relation to those movements are often anti-Semitic, which goes with the defensiveness and, probably, patronage. Even in Hungary, however, such as Jobbik may become prominent but make the final climb into political leadership.

https://conflict-backchannels.com/…/a-note-on-hungarys…/

With Jobbik in Hungary, the revision is just weird, but explained some by the persistence of Soviet politics in the post-Soviet Era.

Regarding Ukraine, Alexander J. Motyl has been arguing for the ceding of Donbas, but it’s not about being Russian in any case. The truth is ordinary people resent state-enabled criminality and related criminal aggrandizement. Yanukovych worked to get himself shoved out of office, and some of Russian heritage with whom I’ve spoken — and some I have read about in Grigas’s book, resent being used by Moscow as “compatriots”. The claim of protection is seen as a pretext for aggression that either expands or strengthens Russia’s area of control and influence or that results in a “frozen conflict” lending itself to criminal enterprise (where there is no effective and functioning sovereign, there’s a lot of space available for mischief).

Even while posting about Nadiya Savchenko’s liberation, I have wondered about both inherent and legacy politics plus what the effect of fame and public interest may have on her political vision as she necessarily updates herself.

In the British sphere, I’ve unconditionally accepted Naz Shaw’s “turnaround” or present stance and, with either, her repudiation of the anti-Semitic facet of the Labour Party.

Finally, regarding criminality, we have all got some vanity, and our personal mixes of “reparative” and “malignant” narcissism generally fill out a moderate life. With the criminal class, immoderation becomes either desirable or habitual, partly because of what we think of as criminal has lost its brakes in conscience, busted through normative boundaries, and, here invoking the Islamic concept, “exceeded limits.” When these people are small and surrounded by a lawful society, the wind up in jail; when they’re large, they may go a long time in business before hitting any walls; and in politics, they can ruin states — and they do that in profound ways.

The want of the power to impose suffering on innocent others with impunity becomes, I believe, a facet of that political criminality we call “dictatorship”. It’s not just the firm hand that one may dislike to the point of loathing: it’s the dispensing of sadism that comes through those that the good find aberrant and abhorrent.


Welcome to Virtually New World.

Now that we’re all here and furiously chatyping, what are we (and leaders old and new) going to do with it?

We may try to recognize some things we don’t like about our Newest Age.

Also deeply related on this blog: “Why the Jews?”, a piece that is at bedrock about one human response to “absolute power” — within which concept BackChannels would include the power to make others suffer with impunity — that has worked its way around the world.

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Two Videos Juxtaposed – Son of Hamas on Islam; Jacob Olidort on Variance in Salafism

26 Thursday May 2016

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Israel, Middle East, Philosophy, Political Psychology, Politics, Religion, Saudi Arabia

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Islam, medievalism, modernity, religion, Salafism

# # #

FTAC – A Comment on Obama, The Islamic Small Wars, and the Syrian Tragedy

25 Wednesday May 2016

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Iraq, Islamic Small Wars, Middle East, Political Psychology, Russia, Syria

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Tags

foreign affairs, Iraq, ISIS, Islamic Small Wars, Russia, Russian political and military strategy, Syria, Syrian Tragedy

Let’s try this model . . . .

We, including Muslims, have before us the archaic manifestation of a legacy in religion owned by about 1.6 billion souls. Some, and for reasons ranging from how they were raised to the possession of the adolescent messianic narcissism known to dictators, would place themselves somewhere beneath the Muslim Botherhood (intentional) umbrella.

Wouldn’t the moderate and peaceful, truly peaceful, want the hotheads and the improvident to get up and go where they might be seen and subjected to the horrors of their own dreams?

As I have argued elsewhere (any may feel welcome to ask), the incubating of the al-Qaeda types, including ISIS, in Syria appears to have been designed as political theater — a theater of the very real — to both blackmail and goad the west into concessions before the Assad regime. It was a good KGB-style plan, and, please note, Russia got to channel the worst of its own Chechnya rebels to the fighting (and it slipped in a few spies as well); however, update: NATO may sting post-Soviet neo-feudal Russia and its alignments (Damascus, Tehran) with its own wasps.

While ISIS has been growing or distilling out of other populations those most prone to join the fight as 7th Century barbarians in Syria, the greater world has been witness to the we’re-not-those-Muslims Muslim repudiation of the al-Qaeda types, the common use of the terms “Islamist” and “jihadist” and such to separate the same from the greater Ummah going forward, and, of late, the appearance reform-minded discussions (e.g., New Age Islam) and organizations (e.g., Muslim Reform Movement). Expect traction to take some time.

There are other facets . . . like that of getting the Iraqi military to hold itself together against not only ISIS, from whom it has been wresting territory this past month, but also from Khamenei’s aggression through Iraq’s more “fiery” Shiite militia, long infested with Revolutionary Guard officers.


Archaic | Feudal-Toward-Modern Main Body | Cultural Avant Garde –>

Quite possibly for the public accustomed to ironic simplifications, what Moscow, Damascus, and Tehran have developed in Syria looks a little like the mirror image of CIA’s support for the Taliban in association with Zia Haq’s own conservative Islamism pitched against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.  In today’s Syrian Tragedy, it’s Moscow, essentially, that appears to manipulate the Sunni-aligned jihadists munching away on the landscape (and enriching itself with oil sales by way of whoever hands over the cash for it).

Be that as it may, it’s looking like the west has been neither blackmailed nor goaded by “Assad vs The Terrorists” has instead absorbed the fallout in finger-wagging (for not intervening) and refugee migration, and may well stick Moscow (Damascus and Tehran) with “The Terrorists”.  It may be toward that purpose that the Russian military has strengthened it presence in Syria.

The inspiration for the response: claim that ISIS had been strengthened under the Obama Administration in relation to the Administration weak response to terrorism.

BackChannels counterpoint: the strategy to move the medieval world (and the representatives of political absolute power) toward the modern one (and distributed, checked, and representative power) has a slow track, and in relation to the Islamic Small Wars involves making the feudal world sufficiently visible for fighting.  IF that idea works, THEN the post-Soviet axis (Moscow-Damascus-Tehran) has done a right thing for the wrong reasons: intending to get at the west, it has helped produce an enemy in space that can be addressed with conventional forces from every side opposed to it.

Reference

BackChannels.  “Syria — ‘Assad vs The Terrorists’ — How ISIS Defends Assad.”  October 2, 2015.

BCC.  “Syria conflict: IS ‘destroyed helicopters’ at Russian base.”  May 24, 2016 —  (breaking story today, May 25, and still frequently updated).

Bender, Jeremy.  “Russia’s war against terrorism isn’t what it seems.”  Business Insider, August 24, 2015.

Berlinger, Joshua.  “Did ISIS attack Russian military equipment at key Syrian base?”  CNN World, May 25, 2016.

Fox News.  “ISIS claims female Russian spy infiltrated terror network.”  May 9, 2016.

Martinez, Michael.  “ISIS video claims to show boy executing two men accused of being Russian spies.”  CNN, January 15, 2015.

McInnis, J. Matthew.  “Is Iran’s Iraq policy coming apart?”  American Enterprise Institute, May 17, 2016.

Osborn, Andrew.  “Putin ally says Chechen spies infiltrate Islamic State in Syria.” Reuters, February 8, 2016.

Pleitgen, Frederik.  “Russia’s military in Syria: Bigger than you think and not going anywhere.”  CNN World, May 9, 2016.

Sanchez, Raf.  “Iran-backed Shia militia says it will fight US Marines deployed to Iraq.”  The Telegraph, March 21, 2016.

Vice News and Reuters.  “Notorious Iranian General Makes Cameo as Iraqis Push to Retake Fallujah From the Islamic State.”  May 24, 2016.

Weiss, Caleb.  “Iranian Qods Force leader reportedly in Fallujah.”  Threat Matrix, The Long War Journal, May 23, 2016.

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FTAC – MEC – Thin Wall

18 Wednesday May 2016

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, Anti-Semitism, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Gaza Suzerain, International Development, Political Psychology, Syndicate Red Brown Green

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

MEC, middle east conflict, political science, Soviet influence

One has not to choose sides at all: one may choose integrity.

This is about where the modern Palestinian alternative narrative began: https://conflict-backchannels.com/…/quote-manipulation…/

The world’s community of “Kremlin watchers” well know the history of domestic political policing and the manipulation and stage managing of foreign conflicts, and that not much more different than what we’re witnessing today in Syria.

While Putin has been charming in Israel and inclined to accuse Ukrainians of anti-Semitic drift, one of the ploys involved in “information warfare” in the Crimean Stall, Russia has unfortunately had a long history with that brand of hate, and it surfaced in the Soviet’s approach to middle east politics.

https://conflict-backchannels.com/…/ftac-tip-to-the…/

International and Palestinian Solidarity continue to preach and promote “Sovietese” — the tired language of the Far Left and what I’ve called the “New Old Now Old Far Out and Lost Left” — and that’s coming from a modern liberal’s voice.

This a listing of the Board of Directors of a wealthy real estate development corporation anchored in Gaza:

http://www.padico.com/Public/English.aspx?Page_ID=631…

They are each real persons, profit minded, some educated in the United States. The public generally doesn’t hear much about the extent and nearness of private wealth in Gaza. There are embarrassing financial reasons for that — there are no ethical or moral arguments for not increasing investment levels throughout Gaza in the cause of peaceful trade.

Final note regarding the true economics of the privileged in socialism: both Ismail Haniyeh and Khaled Mashaal have developed reputations as billionaires. “Arafat’s millions” remains a popular look-up on the web, and “Abu Mazen” may be following in similar steps.


What would be wrong with having “Two Narratives for Two People”?

🙂

One of them would remain forever hateful and wrong — and manipulated by the most heartless bastards on the planet, the kind that produce child soldiers, that force noncombatants into harm’s way, that skim up their wealth from legitimate businesses, that run smuggling operations not in their people’s interests, and that create and spread lies guaranteed to keep their people muzzled and truly occupied (by themselves) and preoccupied (with “the Jews”).

In the title of this piece, “thin wall” refers to a boundary in information warfare.  It is the boundary between the creation, promulgation, reach and protection of Soviet-style propaganda under the cover of socialism and human rights and the potential intrusions of political observation and analysis naturally generated by the democratic and open societies.

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FTAC -Longitude – The Hebrews, Judaism, and Law

16 Monday May 2016

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Islamic Small Wars, Political Psychology, Politics, Religion

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

despotism, ethics, foreign affairs, freedom, idolatry, Islam, malignant narcissism, mutuality, political philosophy, political psychology, politics, reform, The Jews, totalitarianism, tyranny

While Judaism, Jewishness, and Zionism combine in the interest of Hebrew ethnolinguistic cultural and spiritual survival, the religion probably should not be confused with the practical motivation for related ethnic survival. For anti-Semites only, it’s all the same — Jews, Jewish faith, Israel, Zionism — but attacking Zionism in the age of tolerance becomes the more sustainable ploy.

In contemporary animus and conflicts targeting Jewish life, there are four themes:

1. Absolute Power — political power consolidated in one ruler;
2. Capricious Law — because the ruler is the law;
3. Idolatry – the ruler lays claim to divine right or historic inevitability for his legitimacy in power, and progressively conflates his image with God or the State, and expects followers to respond appropriately — or else!
4. Sadism — with confusion as to what is God and what is human, the permit to exercise a singular will to make others suffer with impunity comes into play.

However any may care to think about any number of political and religious figures in history, I feel the above describe the character of tyrants, small or large, or men or women on the way to becoming tyrants.

The Jewish program embedded in Christianity and Islam — attractive in Rome and useful in consolidating the Arab world — unfailingly promotes (from the git-go in Genesis) human consciousness, self-consciousness or self-awareness, and, most important of all, the possession of a human conscience. Moses later becomes the lawgiver who would oppose Pharaoh in the exercise of his contention that he himself was as if a god.

Game over.

The defense and transfer of concept over thousands of years has been apparently painful. The Jews, we Jews, are a mixed lot, including the atheist portion, but common to all has been mutual good regard, from Adam to Netanyahu, and the development of a conversation through time about divinity, ethics, and morality. We know discipline and order too, but Torah-derived or induced argument (regarding Isaac, should Abraham have talked back to God?) has led to a compendium of law sufficient for living, working, and trading in peace worldwide.

As an ethnolinguistic cohort, the Hebrews could grow only so much in numbers as Hebrews, but the uptake in Christianity and Islam fills in the story.


The “Abrahamic Faiths” should get off the bloody medieval and tribal merry-go-rounds and revisit their “operating instructions” line by line and in the context set by time — BCE, CE, feudal, medieval, mercantile, possibly “post-modern” — and eject the absurdity of global competition based on being born with a few labels in place.

As time is spacious and timeless, what other work than that of fostering ethnolinguistic cultural survival and co-evolution by producing a global political atmosphere in which mutual good regard matters.

Reference Off to the Side

Oppenheim, Lassa.  “International Law: A Treatise.”  London, New York: Longmans, Green, and Co, 1905.

While “The West” draws its shape also from Greek and Roman civilizations, the “Judeo-Christian” contributions in thought and in woefully bloody history serve to have produced so far deeply desired and survivable codes of conduct and of law.  Whether we’ll be able to enlarge the familiar term to “Judeo-Christian-Muslim” contributions remains to be seen, for as implied by way of the awesome conversation, what Baghdadi has put on demonstration smacks of absolute power, capricious law, idolatry, and sadism, all of which greater portions of Islam seem to be rejecting as I type.


American Islamic Forum for Democracy.  “Declaration of the Muslim Reform Movement / Signed by AIFD (December 4, 2015).

Berman, Ilan.  “Morocco’s Islamic Exports: The Counterterrorism Strategy Behind the Mohammed VI Institute for the Training of Imams.”  Foreign Affairs, May 12, 2016.

Varagur, Krithika.  “World’s Largest Islamic Organization Tells ISIS to Get Lost.”  The World Post / Huffington Post, December 3, 2015.

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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

אכזרי סוף שנעשה אכזרי במקום רחמן

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
“The 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.”

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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