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BackChannels

~ Conflict, Culture, Language, Psychology

BackChannels

Category Archives: Political Spychology

The Teflon Don’s Company

08 Saturday Oct 2022

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Political Spychology, United States of America

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Tags

corruption, DJT, Donald Trump, Espionage, foreign influence, malignarcs, Political Criminals, Questionable Character, Trump's Rogues

Published 9/19/2022-https://t.co/Qd3E38yCvZ Another Trump lawyer.

Paul Manafort
Allen Weisselberg
Michael Flynn
Steve Bannon
Rick Gates
George Papadopoulos
Roger Stone
George Nader
At least Michael Cohen turned around 180-degrees, served his time, and has regained his integrity.

— J. S. Oppenheim (@JS_Oppenheim) October 8, 2022

I know this blog seldom presents first-hand (primary) reporting and that the reference lists I create (drudgery!) hardly represent “writing”, but having gone to the very minor bother of looking up and thinking up names as well as coming up with related articles, what’s an old blogger to do?

Chris Zillizza’s piece for The Point (July 21, 2021) provided some helpful reminders, but I didn’t simply copy and list for not recognizing the names Tom Barrack or Elliott Broidy. I’ve added reference for each. I was also sorry about having to list Michael Cohen in the gallery of rogues although as Trump’s fixer I’m sure he was no picnic either. Nonetheless, as an instantly transformed witness and apparently recovered Trump goon, mention feels like throwing a perfectly good carrot back into a festering stew of rotten vegetables.

If the “festering stew” of Don’s rogues were to take hold and one were to ask about the gelatinous substance holding all of them in the same pot, there might be just the two ingredients: greed and a most American vainglory that would bring all back to the here familiar “Malignant Narcissism“.

Related Online

I’ve remained loose with BackChannels as regards discipline and style . . . perhaps it’s been an old hippy’s blog…. Nonetheless, the entries are alpha but from time tot time I present one or two (or more) as a quotation with reference. Among the enduring themes to be associated with Donald John Trump in history will be those pertaining to character, criminality, errant political psychology, integrity, loyalty, and trust both in relation to himself and in relation to his country and America’s national character.

Cillizza, Chris. “11 Trump associates have now been charged with crimes. 11!” The Point, CNN Politics, July 21, 2021.

Clark, Dartunorro, Michael Kosnar, Dareh Gregorian, and Tom Winter. “All four Roger Stone prosecutors resign from case after DOJ backpedals on sentencing recommendation.” NBC News, February 11, 2020.

Hoffman, David. “Paul Manafort: Handmaiden to dictators.” Op-ed. The Hill, December 24, 2020.

Millhiser, Ian. “The 4 major criminal probes into Donald Trump, explained.” Vox, September 21, 2022.

O’Brien Rebecca Davis. “Trump Adviser’s Trial May Shed Light on Foreign Influence Campaigns.” The New York Times, September 19, 2022.

Oppenheim, James S. “Trump Lawyer Christopher M. Kise, Registered Foreign Agent.” BackChannels, September 19, 2022.

Shamsian, Jacob. “Rober Stone and his wife are trying to settle the Justice Department’s lawsuit over $2 million in unpaid taxes.” Business Insider, July 12, 2022.

Schmidt, Michael S., Maggie Haberman, and Katie Benner. “Justice Dept Is Said to Believe Trump Has More Documents.” The New York Times, October 6, 2022.

Smith, David. “‘The perfect target’: Russia cultivated Trump as asset for 40 years’ – ex-KGB spy.” The Guardian, January 29, 2021.

Shaw, Conor. “President Trump’s staggering record of uncharged crimes.” Crew, September 27, 2022.

U. S. Department of Justice. “Elliott Broidy Pleads Guilty for Back-Channel Lobbying Campaign to Drop 1MDB Investigation and Remove a Chinese Foreign National.” October 20, 2020.


Defendants PAUL J. MANAFORT, JR., (MANAFORT) and RICHARD W. GATES Ill
(GA TES) served for years as political consultants and lobbyist’i. Between at least 2006 and 2015,MANAFORT and GATES acted as unregistered agents of the Government of Ukraine, the Party of Regions (a Ukrainian political party whose leader Victor Yanukovych was President from 2010 to 2014), Yanukovych, and the Opposition Bloc (a successor to the Party of Regions that formed in 2014 when Yanukovych fled to Russia). MANAFORT and GATES generated tens of millions of dollars in income as a result of their Ukraine work. 111 order to hide Ukraine payments from United States authorities, from approximately 2006 through at least 2016, MANAFORT and GATES laundered the money through scores of United States and foreign corporations, partnerships, and bank accounts.

U.S. Department of Justice. PDF. “United State of America v. Paul J. Manafort, Jr. and Richard W. Gates III.” Case 1:17-cr-00201-ABJ Document 13, October 30, 2017.

Nader has had several run-ins with the law over the years related to sexual abuse of children. He was convicted in the 1990s of transporting child pornography publications, and imprisoned in 2003 for sexually abusing ten boys in the Czech Republic.[6] He pleaded guilty in early 2020 to flying a 14-year-old boy from Europe to the US for sex, and transporting pornography depicting child sexual abuse and bestiality.

Wikipedia. “George Nader”.

Wikipedia. “George Papadopoulos”.

Wikipedia. “Michael Flynn”.

Wikipedia. “Paul Manafort”.

###

Nordstream Explosions: Putin’s Probable False Flag

28 Wednesday Sep 2022

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Political Psychology, Political Spychology

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Tags

Nordstream False Flag Operation, Nordstream Sabotage, Ukraine v Russia

Putin probably ascended to office on the excitement, fear, and hope associated with the “Moscow Apartment Bombings”, quite probably a KGB/FSB false flag operation to produce his presidency. Best paired supporting reference: Satter, David. “The Unsolved Mystery Behind the Act of Terror That Brought Putin to Power.” National Review, August 17, 2016; Politkovskaya, Anna. A Small Corner of Hell, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003–create violence ascribable to Chechen Rebels; promote the war by unleashing the same now familiar Russian Army barbarism on Chechen villagers; “win” the war (by putting in place an Islamist warlord–Ramzan Kadyrov–to contain it; and become a national “hero” thereby. Call it Putin’s modus operandi and linked firm to his “malignant narcissism“–(related process)–and related penchant for political theater and the perceptual control of others from which he derives power.

Call it madness too.

September 28, 2022.

Chances are Putin will “slow walk” on repairs, forcing Europe to intercede in stopping the leak while investigating it.

Russian President Vladimir Putin neither advances Russia’s conventional interests nor defends them: what he does is indulge in his own “messianic delusions of grandeur”, which ties to his malignant narcissistic psychosis, to project and sustain his own heroic image, cover and fend off personal humiliation, and in the end obtain unlimited “narcissistic supply”, i.e., the adoration of a mob too ignorant to comprehend either his evil or his sickness (essentially Narcissistic Personality Disorder).

Related Online

Bertrand, Natasha and Katie Bo Lillis. “US warned European allies this summer that Nord Stream pipelines could be attacked.” CNN Politics, September 28, 2022.

Pronczuk, Monika, Melissa Eddy, Oleg Matsnev, Johanna Lemola. “The top E.U. diplomat says the Nord Stream Leaks resulted from a ‘deliberate act.'” The New York Times, September 28, 2021.


Addendum

Addressing the Helsinki Security Forum on Friday, 30 September 2022, the NATO Deputy Secretary Mircea Geoană said that the damage to two pipelines in the Baltic Sea this week are of “deep concern” and noted that all “currently available information indicates that this is the result of deliberate, reckless, and irresponsible acts of sabotage”. He said that NATO supports the investigations underway to determine the origin of the damage; and that “allies have been exchanging information including with Finland and Sweden in this sense”.

NATO. “Deputy Secretary General at the Helsinki Security Forum: Finland and Sweden will make our Alliance stronger.” September 30, 2022.

AP, from September 27, 2022 and posted to YouTube October 2, 2022.

###

#DJT The Success! (At Failing): Two Tweets

27 Tuesday Sep 2022

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

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Tags

East-West Rivalry, medieval v modern, Medieval v. Modern, Putin, Trump, TrumpPutin

Ain’t he neat?/ See him working up a tweet/ Hasn’t had his breakfast yet/ That helps with workin’ up Donald’s debt/ ain’t he neat?

🙂

Humor helps.

And it’s evident (old bachelor, empty apartment), sigh, that I must say so myself (attaboy)!

Sad story, this guy “The Donald”.


Previous tweets-#AmericaWorks #DJT doesn't-e.g., https://t.co/dG0PCOTRHC; https://t.co/TojuSPAHwH; https://t.co/nUNbtLJeQj; https://t.co/ZxoolG2g6A; https://t.co/v7PwUPk3er; https://t.co/sW9dyYa0At; https://t.co/4X7D7s7Zyv; https://t.co/b88PdIkZ0A; https://t.co/PYl7VNglTu. Done

— J. S. Oppenheim (@JS_Oppenheim) September 27, 2022

#DJT and related to previous epic 🙂 tweet-https://t.co/ifJZMVbxnl; https://t.co/lvK2y9x9zR

America understands #AmericanCharacter but it appears to have some problems discerning sophisticated criminality (fraud & theft), #MaligNarcs, and #PoliticalCriminals like #DonTheCon.

— J. S. Oppenheim (@JS_Oppenheim) September 27, 2022

Possibly, from Donald Trump’s perspective, he only loses or takes other people’s money (without return), and rather like the feudal-medieval king he’d like to be in the still revolutionary and evolving modern United States of America, he expects the ginormous junkyard of disappointments left to others to just go away.

How did we get here?

It appears to me that Moscow had a revenge story for the bankrupting of the Soviet Union: https://conflict-backchannels.com/2022/07/19/detecting-post-soviet-russias-black-narrative-of-revenge-for-89-and-91/ .

I has appeared to The Guardian that Moscow had also a “Manchurian Candidate” in Donald John Trump: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/29/trump-russia-asset-claims-former-kgb-spy-new-book .

It has occurred to BackChannels (sometimes I growl and whine after saying “ChewbaccaChannels”) that KGB, FBI, TS/SCI boxes, folders, and whatnot may have a bridge with Registered Foreign Agent and Trump’s lawyer Christopher M. Kise via his relationship with the Russia friendly Maduro regime in Venezuela, happy host in the Western Hemisphere to Russian nuclear warhead ready TU-160 jets.


###

Russian Power (Back) to the Russian People for Russian Democracy, Development, Humanism, Progress, and Rule of Law

24 Saturday Sep 2022

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Europe, Extreme Brown vs Red-Green, Facsimile Bipolar Political Sociopathy, Great Britain and United Kingdom, North America, Northern Europe, Political Psychology, Political Spychology, Psychology, Russia, Ukraine

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Fascist Russia, medieval v modern, Putin's goons, Putin's Kleptocracy, Russian New Fascism, Torture in Putin's Russia, Why Democracy

This story posted today on YouTube turns out as much about OSINT detective work from within Russia as about the internal brutality of the politically criminal and thoroughly kleptocratic regime of Tsar Vladimir the Small.

Posted by the BBC to YouTube September 24, 2022.

Tweeted earlier this morning —

#PutinLiesToRussia #RusNazis #RussiansFreeRussia #VladolphPutler #RusNazisTortureRussian https://t.co/gJZOPqhWba #PutinEnslavesRussia

— J. S. Oppenheim (@JS_Oppenheim) September 24, 2022

While the United States has its own Russian infection with Trump’s own anti-democratic and demagogic and delusional fascist nationalist base, he has yet to turn American national and state military defense and police security services into his own personal goons, Americans on the way to mid-term elections are not waiting for him or his cult to amass that kind of power. Trump represents a diminishing base of corrupt or diminished or greedy Americans who crave his “power” — his appearance of it, in any case — in relation to their own damaged psyches and penchants for absolute and sadistic personal and political control — under cover of Christian zealotry, no less — of all that surrounds themselves.

Also on BackChannels

Page: “Paranoid Delusional Narcissistic Reflection of Motivation”.

By date published–

A Note on the Demise of the Medieval Rus, May 9, 2022.

FTAC: Russia’s One Big Step Backward-Why Ukraine Must Prevail to the Four Compass Points of Its Pre-Crimean Annexation, June 5, 2022.

Detecting Post-Soviet Russia’s Black Narrative of Revenge for ’89 and ’91,June 19, 2022.


Addendum

UATV #UATV_English #UkraineNews
Destroyed homes and tortured residents: Consequences of Russian occupation of Kupiansk, September 24, 2022.


###

Trump Lawyer Christopher M. Kise, Registered Foreign Agent

19 Monday Sep 2022

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Political Psychology, Political Spychology, United States of America, Venezuela

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

American Political Absolutism, Democracy in Peril, DJT, Donald John Trump, Donald Trump, Kise, medieval v modern, Trump and Dictatorship

On January 24, 2020, the Foreign Agents Registration Act unit of the National Security Division of the Department of Justice received from Christopher M. Kise, now the lawyer representing Donald John Trump in his defense in relation to the FBI’s investigation of Trump’s holding documents stamped as Top Secret/Secure Compartmented Information (TS/SCI), FARA registration #6787. In the form, Kise had listed as his principle Reinaldo Munoz Pedroza, the Attorney General of Venezuela appointed by the dictator Nicolas Maduro. At that time, Pedrozo had been sanctioned by the U.S. Department of the Treasury for undermining democracy in Venezuela and related election interference.



News of Kise’s registration as a foreign agent broke two days ago, and as interesting as that may be, the development of public and official interest in both the Conflict of Interest implied and the breathtaking scope of potential national security compromises–all those boxes of TS/SCI data!–appears slow. However, this by Ben Meiselas showed up on YouTube this morning:

Posted by MeidasTouch to YouTube, September 19, 2022.

For Trump’s base, the idea of achieving patriotic honor in association with his support appears belied and eroded by not only the former president’s authoritarian, belligerent, and obstreperous character but his connections–and one step removed is not far enough–to the tools, literally, so it would seem in the case of Mr. Kise, of at least one dictatorship. While it would seem fair for President (for Life) Maduro to have representation in the United States, the same would seem more than heinous for Trump to share with him the same lawyer.

Should the Kise-Trump story take down almost-candidate-(again) Trump, it would make a nice bookend for Trump’s first big yellow caution flag: Paul Manafort.


To make sense of the president’s pardon of Paul Manafort, it helps to understand the man Trump selected to run his 2016 campaign. On one hand, it seems inconceivable that an American presidential candidate would choose as his campaign manager someone whose last job was political strategist to a dictator in Ukraine who had recently been overthrown in a popular revolution. On the other hand, it makes perfect sense. Paul Manafort made a fortune helping tyrants and would-be tyrants appear legitimate. He was the ultimate symbol of the corruption of democratic political systems. His evolution from establishment wonderkid to handmaiden to dictators is a story of how corruption perverts democracies.

Hoffman, David. “Paul Manafort: Handmaiden to dictators.” The Hill, December 24, 2020.

With his latest hire in lawyers, Trump has only confirmed what all Americans, much including his base, must now see, i.e., the darkest of fallen real princes by contemporary business and class standards, a man who cannot keep himself separate from America’s enemies, Russian criminals, and assorted (other) dictators.


Note: since publishing this post, Trump has been reported as removing Christopher M. Kise from the leading role in Trump’s defense before related Federal investigation:

Kise is expected to remain on Trump’s legal team but is not leading the work related to the federal government’s investigation into how the former President handled 11,000 documents seized from his Florida home in August following a lengthy effort by the government to retrieve them. The reason for the shift in Kise’s role remains unclear and he may instead focus his efforts on the other investigations Trump is facing, which range from his business practices to the January 6 insurrection.

Collins, Kaitlan. “Newest addition to Trump’s legal team sidelined in Mar-a-Lago search case.” CNN Politics, September 27, 2022.

Related Online

Cohen, Marshall, Oliver Carcy, and Zachary Cohen. “How Team Trump used Fox News as a laundromat for unverified Russian information about top Democrats.” CNN Politics, October 12, 2020.

Davis, Wynne. “TS/SCI: What an abbreviation reveals about the files seized from Mar-a-Lago.” NPR, August 16, 2022.

Gans, Jared. “Save America PAC advances $3M to Trump lawyer to cover legal fees.” The Hill, September 16, 2022.

Hoffman, David. “Paul Manafort: Handmaiden to dictators.” The Hill, December 24, 2020.

Myers, Steven Lee and Andrew E. Kramer. “How Paul Manafort Wielded Power in Ukraine Before Advising Donald Trump.” The New York Times, July 31, 2016.

Nicol, Ryan. “Attorney Christ Kise to help Nicolas Maduro administration fight U.S. sanctions.” Florida Politics, January 28, 2020.

Oppenheim, James S. “Trump’s America in Retrospect: Russian Real Estate Entanglements.” BackChannels, October 9, 2021.

Smith, David. “‘The perfect target’: Russia cultivated Trump as asset for 40 years – ex-KGB spy.” The Guardian, January 29, 2021.

Unger, Craig. “Trump’s businesses are full of dirty Russian money. The scandal is that it’s legal.” The Washington Post, March 29, 2019.

Unger, Craig. “Trump’s Russian Laundromat”. The New Republic. July 13, 2017.

U.S. Department of the Treasury. “Treasury Sanctions Maduro Regime Officials for Undermining Democratic Order in Venezuela.” September 4, 2020.

Wikipedia. “Reinaldo Munoz Pedroza”.

–33–

A Note on Marching Forward Into the Past

15 Friday Jul 2022

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Epistemology, Extreme Brown vs Red-Green, Political Psychology, Political Spychology, Religion, United States of America

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

American Medieval Christian Front, Dobbs, Medieval America, medieval v modern, Modern America, Post-Cold War Russia, Putin and Trump, Soviet/post-Soviet Russia

Abortion

#GOPofGreed #AmericanMedievalChristianFront Most draconian? Old slave states: Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas. https://t.co/02habQoS5g #SCOTUS abrogated Federal power and responsibility with Dobbs. It also defeated Lincoln and reversed the cause of the Civil War.

— J. S. Oppenheim (@JS_Oppenheim) July 13, 2022

In the United States, it would seem the Federal state has some retrograde constituencies, politicians, and now Supreme Court judges who would rather not have a credible and mighty democratic republic but rather a collection of backward and parochial cesspools operating along callous and ignorant–or ignorant and sadistic–lines of power, and at that the kind of power accustomed to imposing suffering on others in the name of religious righteousness and related malign and narcissistic will, for religion serves often as a cover for hypocrites, their abuses, and the crimes.

In Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, there was no real reason–forget the hair-splitting with the Constitution: the earlier Roe v Wade had been affirmed and reaffirmed across more than 50 years of equally contentious debate–but that involving the political lust for power and magically-thinking Christian zealotry. What I refer to in general as the “American Medieval Christian Front”–there are a lot of organizations that may be included in the nation’s “Far White Right” and “Christian Nationalist Movements”–has proven that America’s extraordinary secular-humanist democracy (start with Thomas Paine‘s writing) may be degraded and perverted in purpose by a medieval mob fully willing to impose its will on less passionate others, i.e., ordinary Americans of many faiths, quite absent of any consistency in reason.

Putin’s Trump naturally played the medieval card and in packing the Supreme Court left an odious present that fairly gutted common faith in the protections of the Constitution. In effect, the former president returned power to the kind of people–and the kind of scoundrels–who didn’t really like it in the first place.


Soviet/Post-Soviet Russia and Attempted “Positive Channeling”

https://t.co/4kCQ8gKqJ7 | https://t.co/h22jLnYloP

Putin projects an heroic image of himself to hide his damaged little person, so he has no real purpose and won't stop at or for anything until stopped.

The west offered positive channeling practically all the way to Ukraine.

— J. S. Oppenheim (@JS_Oppenheim) July 12, 2022

The Cold War Is Over

The cold war of poisonous Soviet-American feelings, of domestic political-hysteria, of events enlarged and distorted by East-West confrontation, of almost perpetual diplomatic deadlock is over.

The we-they world that emerged after 1945 is giving way to the more traditional struggles of great powers. That contest is more manageable. It permits serious negotiations. It creates new possibilities–for cooperation in combating terrorism, the spread of chemical weapons and common threats to the environment, and for shaping a less violent world.

The New York Times. “The Cold War Is Over”, April 2, 1989.

The Cold War may not have ended quite as well as the hope and optimism displayed and promoted in the west had promised and, to a large extent, operationalized. In fact, Western-launched investment and cooperation were set in place with earnest good feeling all the way to the ferocious eruption of civil war in Syria in 2011, after which it appears detente served to defend western stability. Ten years later — and do note the significant years 1991, 2001, 2011, 2021/2 — the invasion of Ukraine transformed any sense of enforced balanced in power that the west had believed in into plain containment and push-back through a western-leaning alley.

Of course, all of that above might be the crayon, large and messy, version of history. The details turn up cooperation masking the greater arc linked to criminal KGB and their soon-to-be President–Vladimir Putin.


In the beginning (Byzantine)-https://t.co/3z7Hgmdvcf; Okhrana & Tsar-https://t.co/vq273mq7w6; White Russian emigre-https://t.co/lBhnpdgrsv; and in the end (Ukraine) & KGB revenge for '89/'91-https://t.co/kUzOfebEkx

Putin's Accusation in a Mirror points back at himself & Russia.

— J. S. Oppenheim (@JS_Oppenheim) July 11, 2022

Within the Soviet/Post-Soviet sphere, I have used the following references to suggest the Big Picture “narrative arch of history”–i.e., the 30 years of taking revenge for the Soviet Army’s retreat from Afghanistan and the dissolving of the Soviet Union that followed three years later:

Nekrasov, Andrey. Director. Poisoned by Polonium: The Litvinenko File. 2007. The documentary suggests disaffected KGB had pried their way back into power by the mid-1990s.

Politkovskaya, Anna. A Small Corner of Hell: Dispatches from Chechnya. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003. Before her assassination, Politkovskaya had reported on the brutalizating of Chechen villages by an unbridled and somewhat deranged Russian Army.

Satter, David. “The Unsolved Mystery Behind the Act of Terror That Brought Putin to Power.” National Review, August 17, 2016. Satter details the KGB false-flag operations undertaken to heighten the demonization of the Chechen People while framing Vladimir Putin as the hero who would defend Russia from them.

Schindler, John. “Exploring Al Quaeda’s Murky Connection to Russian Intelligence.” Business Insider, June 10, 2014. Ayman al-Zawahiri would return to Afghanistan from “detention” in Russia over the winter of 1996/7 and make compact with Osama bin-Laden for the staging of the attack on the United States referred to as “9/11”, i.e., September 11, 2001 (in Wikipedia, “September 11 attacks”).

Wikipedia. “Felix Dzerzhinsky”. Putin has made his affection for Stalin and the Soviet Union quite clear, but the head of the Cheka secret police has held a special place in his heart, e.g., “Putin Renames Police Unit After Bloody Cheka Founder Dzerzhinsky”. So why include the note here? Felix Dzerzhinsky was born September 11, 1877. Coincidence? Or just very interesting?

No intellectual somersault should be needed to connect 9/11 with the heightening of awareness and focus on Islamic Terrorism worldwide as well as with the concurrent development of western patriotism, nationalism, and xenophobia that would in turn become the “New Nationalism” in EU/NATO, the foundation for the strengthening of politicians on the Right and movements further to the Right in support of authoritarianism, isolationism, cultural chauvanism, racism, revolution, and terrorism.

Related defense and security related term of art: Reflexive Control.

Reprise: Medieval or Modern?

On Facebook and Twitter, I have now and then posed the rhetorical question, “In which world do you wish to live: Medieval or Modern?

The feudal-medieval realm of absolute and exclusive power often commanded by brutality on one hand and excessive unaccountable reward (but without power) on the other?

Or democracy or constitutional monarchy in which power has been attenuated by balancing the interests of the powerful and wealthy of the state with the views and powers of elected legislatures and courts, including high courts, nominated and confirmed through elected representatives?

If you’re of the 21st Century and cognizant in relation to its other issues, the most clear, reasoned, and responsible answer to “medieval or modern?” would seem that of rejecting the “charms” of the medieval mode.

For the most part, our species leans — and needs must lean — forward into the future.

Alas, some portion develops elaborate fantasies about a yesteryear in which their ancestors were great in battle and at leisure in wealth, perfectly comfortable with the degradation and enslavement of others to keep themselves as if gods deeply admired and always obeyed. These days, those who try to impose that archaic, delusional, and ugly-for-others reality on the space around themselves encounter in the west resistance loaded with derision. Those who may accept it where they have been made to feel they must have only to feel their own souls diminished, enslaved, and rendered meaningless.

In the family . . . it might work, but most people may remove themselves from an oppressive family and have the protections of the state to forestall recapture.

Within and surrounding an entire state: disaster!

Cited Above (Inconsistently) or Also Related Online

Associated Press. “Putin: Soviet collapse a ‘genuine tragedy’.” NBC News, April 16, 2005.

Gutterman, Steve. “The Week in Russia: ‘Ghastly Zealot’ Or Medieval Prince? Neither One Will Stand On Lubyanka Square As Statue Vote Abruptly Stopped.” RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty (RFERL), February 26, 2021.

Oppenheim, James S. “A Few Keys Related to ‘East-West Rivalry’.” BackChannels, July 2, 2022.

Oppenheim, James S. “FTAC: Endemic Russia Anti-Semitism–A Note.” BackChannels, February 1, 2021.

Oppenheim, James. S. FTAC: Middle East Conflict: Back to Max Erwin von Scheubner-Richter and Forward to the Plundering of Palestinian Misery by Palestinian Leadership Elites.” BackChannels, December 29, 2017.

Oppenheim, James S. “Syria–Russia’s Barbarism–The Hospitals.” BackChannels, November 18, 2016.

Oppenheim, James S. “Syria: The Horror: 2011.” BackChannels, December 29, 2017.

Oppenheim, James S. “War | East-West | Abomination | Syria | Bombing Hospitals.” BackChannels, February 24, 2018.

Nemtsova, Anna. “Stalin’s Monsters Resurrected in Statues and Public Portraits in Putin’s Russia.” The Daily Beast, January 26, 2021.

Smith, David. “‘The perfect target’: Russia cultivated Trump as asset for 40 years–ex-KGB spy.” The Guardian, January 29, 2021.

The Moscow Times. “Putin Renames Police Unit After Bloody Cheka Founder Dzerzhinsky.” September 23, 2014.

Thomas Timothy L. “Russia’s Reflexive Control Theory and the Military.” PDF. Journal of Slavic Military Studies: 17: 237-256, 2004.

Wikipedia. “Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization”.

Wikipedia. “Thomas Paine”.

Wikipedia. “Roe v. Wade”.

U.S. Department of State. “United States Relations with Russia: After the Cold War: 1990-1991.” Archive. Office of the Historian.


“First and foremost it is worth acknowledging that the demise of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century,” Putin said. “As for the Russian people, it became a genuine tragedy. Tens of millions of our fellow citizens and countrymen found themselves beyond the fringes of Russian territory.

“The epidemic of collapse has spilled over to Russia itself,” he said, referring to separatist movements such as those in Chechnya.

Associated Press. “Putin: Soviet collapse a ‘genuine tragedy’.” NBC News, April 16, 2005.

Posted to YouTube July 15, 2022.

–33–

Malignant Narcissistic Process Distilled

10 Sunday Jul 2022

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Political Psychology, Political Spychology, Psychology

≈ 6 Comments

Having approached this topic quite a few times over the years, I’m loath to either repeat myself after this or in the way of academics elaborate and make a career on top of a kernel of bullet points or terms of art. Here is how I believe a malign narcissism develops and then extends into the feudal-medieval aspects of power and greater political life and, ultimately, cultural and civilizational tragedy–and let’s be done with that.

Narcissistic Mortification: experiences of humiliation or shame to the extent that the identity and self feel damaged, impotent, and small. The discomfort–for what it is to do to the person–may be considered remarkable.

Covering/Splitting: “Covering” refers to the hiding of the damaged self and the packing away of an awful experience; “splitting” refers to the creation of an heroic undamaged self to be both asserted and defended at all costs. With “MaligNarcs”–expressed through authoritarian, dictating, and sociopathic manipulation–the appreciation or recognition and respect for normal boundaries and limits fade before the objectives of the self in hiding damage and asserting extraordinary power.

Control of the Experiences and Perceptions of Others: most well known: “gaslighting”. However, add deceptions and lies without ends or limits. Whatever works . . . works.

Messianic Delusions of Grandeur: Although the “MaligNarc” creates the chaos–no different from the fireman who sets the fire, so he may show up and put it out as a hero–the vision is to stand astride the same heroically saving his class, creed, gender, race, and religion from all who would diminish any part.

Unlimited Narcissistic Supply: adoration and love unlimited.

Whether you recognize all or part of the above from personal or political life, take the experience into account and put it to use. In effect–bully in the family; the butcher of his own state–the monster has been found out and has no place to hide.

For a pejorative, “MaligNarc” suits.

–33–

A Few Keys Related to ‘East-West Rivalry’

02 Saturday Jul 2022

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, Epistemology, Europe, North America, Political Psychology, Political Spychology, Russia

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

21st Century Neo-Feudalism, East-West Rivalry, political psychology, Post-Cold War History, Russia, Russia Takes Revenge for '89 and '91

As a blogger drifting along the contours of institutions and media concerned with defense and national security, I’ve encountered two primary challenges: how to condense, distill, and package strong material for public overview and impact; and, sigh, how to give the “pebble” sufficient weight to get a firm small wave bouncing back and force across the Internet pond.

Without further ado . . . .

.Felix Dzerzhinsky, born September 11, 1877
.Dawisha (RIP) Soviet Nomenklatura Mid-1980s Transition Plan for the Distribution of State Assets
.Nekrasov’s documentary
.Zawahiri in Russia, ’96-7
.Satter On The Moscow Apartment Bombings
.9/11 Reflexive Control->New Nationalism EU/NATO
.Sustained Active Measures | Russian Mafia State | Syrian Barbarism | Trump Ascendancy
.Ukraine, 2014 Crimean Annexation, Invasion 2022

*Section mentioned in “Russia Full Tonto Kleptocracy, Mafia, and Terrorist State” (BackChannels, June 28, 2022) and lightly edited for presentation in this post.

Do you see what I see?

Of course not.

You haven’t been on my specific poli-sci/poli-psy/poli-spy tour, but the clues in events and personalities don’t reside only my mind: they are all here on the web. My guess: the knowledgeable, say at GCHQ or NSA, have already put them together (well, those cats have got to have better resources and more interesting conversations), but the ordinary public appears to me to be struggling with what has happened–and with what may be happening if it doesn’t come to grips with a strong true representation of cultural and political reality.

Premise-Thirty Years Revenge for ’89 and ’91

I believe Bolshevik criminal elements within the Soviet KGB wasted little time prying their way back into power and prestige sufficient to bend the Russian Federation’s democracy and justice to their own will and for their own ends (ref.: Nekrasov documentary on Litvinenko, Rebellion: The Litvinenko Case AKA Poisoned by Polonium: The Litvinenko File).

In addition to focusing on self-enrichment and power, the cohort appears to have been bent on vengeance for the Soviet Army’s defeat in Afghanistan in 1989 and the dissolving of the Soviet Union itself at noon on December 25, 1991, an implication drawn by the manner of Vladimir Putin’s ascent to Russia’s presidency, his legendary affection for Felix Dzerzhinsky, Joseph Stalin, and Soviet Era Russia, and the inadequacy expressed through his “malignant narcissism” (see “Liar, Thief, and Tyrant”, February 20, 2022, on this blog) and related devotion to supporting his own Russian messianic heroic image through artifice (because that’s all he really has). The emperor may have no clothes but neither Russians nor the west are dwelling on that as he has Russia focused on his greatness (or else!) and everyone else his destructive threat.

Moscow’s Development of the East-West Rivalry Narrative

I believe conventional western financial and political leadership took the familiar tack of wanting to help the defeated get back on its feet through the extension of capital, the hand of cooperation, and patient tolerance or understanding for the Russian travail that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union. Only at the turning point of the Syrian Civil War (2011) did western detente return to play–and then containment. Today, for having accepted the position of responding to Russia’s initiatives and rollout of its own and quite evil narrative arc, EU/NATO have found themselves in various ways somewhat compromised; a little incoherent about corruption, legacy, power, and realpolitik in each state’s own way (for related review, have a look at authoritarianism or nationalism in Hungary, Italy, Poland, Turkey, and the United States) ; and finally brought to face once again a most dangerous confrontation with Moscow and its criminal Soviet-post-Soviet character now on full display in the ethnic cleansing and “rubbling” of Ukraine.

Perhaps Washington thought it progress to have worked on the “War on Terror” with Moscow, but in the end, the Pentagon and State Department found the Taliban kept in business by Russian arms and materiel–and both would leave Afghanistan with the Taliban guarding Russia’s embassy in Kabul.

Avarice, Inferiority, and Greed–Russia and Trump

Russia and Russia’s leadership may have a “special” narcissism and enormous compensating vanity, but I am certain that among nations and their full collection of political experiments that it has no “special truth”, for at every opportunity, Moscow has supported criminals, dictators, fanatics, and terrorists–and it has through its Active Measures and destabilization operations put to work similar elements in its targets.

The poster displayed in this tweet appears to have been a gesture of support from within Russia following Trump’s 2016 election win. One may take it as a comment on the medieval mentality and related methods popular with both leaders and their respective followers.

@AccountableGOP @ProjectLincoln @RpsAgainstTrump@AmbDanFried @NSLforBiden @natsechobbyist @SenatorDurbin @SteveScalise @Ink8Judy
2016
–https://t.co/TpcoyQ6Ij3
–https://t.co/MwCurViW3I
–https://t.co/Me2afiVrKl
–https://t.co/asnQEvnT3E
–https://t.co/68kbZtcmq6

— J. S. Oppenheim (@JS_Oppenheim) March 15, 2022

Donald John Trump as Malignant Narcissist

The steps and terms-of-art I’ve picked up in relation to “Malignant Narcissism” have been these, and while practically self-explanatory, academics and analysts have spent serious verbiage on each. I’ll step in most informally to convey the gist.

Narcissistic Mortification: experiences of humiliation or shame to the extent that the identity and self feel damaged, impotent, and small. The discomfort–for what it is to do to the person–may be considered remarkable.

Covering/Splitting: “Covering” refers to the hiding of the damaged self and the packing away of an awful experience; “splitting” refers to the creation of an heroic undamaged self to be both asserted and defended at all costs. With “MaligNarcs”–expressed through authoritarian, dictating, and sociopathic manipulation–the appreciation or recognition and respect for normal boundaries and limits fade before the objectives of the self in hiding damage and asserting extraordinary power.

Control of the Experiences and Perceptions of Others: most well known: “gaslighting”. However, add deceptions and lies without ends or limits. Whatever works . . . works.

Messianic Delusions of Grandeur: Although the MaligNarc creates the chaos–no different from the fireman who sets the fire, so he may show up and put it out as a hero–the vision is to stand astride the same heroically saving his class, creed, gender, race, and religion from all who would diminish any part.

Unlimited Narcissistic Supply: adoration and love unlimited.

The best example I’ve read and repeatedly distributed in relation to Vladimir Putin has been David Satter’s investigation in the National Review — “The Unsolved Mystery Behind the Act of Terror That Brought Putin to Power” (August 17, 2016). For Donald John Trump, one may explore the web for “Trump, Malignant Narcissist” and find the long list of both learned and light psychobabble. Here’s a passage just plucked off the web:

According to psychologist John Gartner, Trump clearly exhibits four key symptoms of malignant narcissism — the “most destructive” personality type — including paranoia, narcissism, antisocial personality disorder and sadism. “

This type of leader pops up all throughout history, and they’re always extraordinarily disruptive,” Gartner told AFP, noting that the same label has been applied to Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini.

“What is so strange is that we’re not used to seeing this type of leader in America.”

Raynaldy, Romain. “Psychologist-backed documentary labels Trump ‘malignant narcissist’.” The Jakarta Post, September 1, 2020.

You can tell the condition’s gotten really bad when it expresses as the “Paranoid Delusional Narcissistic Reflection of Motivation“, which has been myself just calling it as I’ve seen it.


PBS, June 28, 2022.

And for political theater . . .

This was January 6th.
This is not “legitimate political discourse.” pic.twitter.com/lKgbVyVcJr

— Rep. Liz Cheney (@RepLizCheney) February 4, 2022
That’s a mob–or it was a mob, a heavily armed one too.

Medieval leaders love mobs, also secret gangs, behind-the-curtain deals with other “nobility”, dumb but loyal armies, and the idea above all of being as if gods, blessed by religious power, and free to define the law of the lawless land–and in Russia’s absolute “patrimonial authoritarianism”, apparently free to treat persons and property as alike and to destroy either at will and with impunity.

Modern leaders do all they can to minimize and eliminate that mentality from their districts, regions, and states, for the modern world in every facet relies on complex cooperation and the integration of large systems. It may help if they’re devoted to the health and well being of their respective constituencies and not solely the representatives of one patrician class or another.

Thematic on this blog has been “Medieval v Modern”, and, of course, it or I, or the same 🙂 , has posed the question, “In which world do you wish to live? Medieval? Or Modern?”

As the European Union and NATO see more clearly what Moscow has “accomplished” with its barbarous medieval ambitions (or delusions) over the past 30 years of support for the post-Soviet but still Soviet spheres of control and influence–and, finally, in the so-far “ethnic cleansing” of Ukraine–both will have to determine to take apart the Putin’s Olde Regime and nurture in its place a modern Russia that Russians too (as it dawns on them what has been and is being done to them and their children) might appreciate and embrace. In this passage where every day is agony for Ukrainians and an eternity for diplomats and politicians, that day’s on a seemingly far horizon, but it’s there and will become more visible with time. So-called “leaders” like Putin and Trump have made themselves impossibly archaic and in cultural, ethical, and moral terms, if not financial (yet), bankrupt.

Truth be known: neither Putin nor Trump has anything–apart from a little money or laundering service–to offer anyone.

–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

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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