Category Archives: Psychology

Putin’s Mirror?

15 Wednesday Jul 2020

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

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Authoritarian

Hobbesian

Narcissistic

Nationalist

Reactionary

Shady

Shielded

Thuggish

Wealthy

White

Which of the two or both?

Perhaps all that separates Presidents Putin and Trump are America’s still-intact Constitutional checks and balances and related authentic cultural precepts, tenets, and values having to do with equality, freedom, and justice bound to a modern and spacious appreciation of universal human character and potential.

Posted to YouTube by Republican Voters Against Trump, July 15, 2020.

The tapped popular perception of both of these heavy handed and extraordinarily wealthy politicians is that each exists to protect his image, his power, and his cronies and may be otherwise concerned with the needs of their respective nations overall to only a minimal extent.

The democracy of the United States of America requires — as do others — a soundly educated population on one hand and (it is this one on the other that’s tough) highly experienced and well educated statesmen on the other. The Republican vote coming for Biden, an “old school” politician with a manner familiar from far better days, will represent a mass of voting against the incumbent Donald Trump, but that will not hack it for American democracy except to forestall its dissolving into another shitty pseudo-democratic dictatorship.

Whoever wins 2020, it will be America’s 2024 election that will spell whether Americans will be governed by a fully responsive and responsible leadership or one bent by measures of dogma, excessive narcissism, and greed.

Regarding the psychology of dictatorship, BackChannels offers a page with a few interesting, even novel, concepts (like the “Paranoid Narcissistic Reflection of Motivation“) on it: https://conflict-backchannels.com/coins-and-other-terms/anthropolitical-psychology/ .

“Facsimile Bipolar Political Sociopathy” might be worth a look as well.

At the end of his congressional testimony in February, Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s former fixer, floated a nightmarish possibility.

“Given my experience working for Mr. Trump,” Cohen said, “I fear that if he loses in 2020, that there will never be a peaceful transition of power.”

Block, Daniel. “How Trump Could Lose the Election and Remain President.” Washington Monthly, April/May/June 2019.

Donald Trump falsely accused Democrats of trying to “steal” Tuesday’s special election in California amid the Covid-19 pandemic by adding a polling place in one of the most diverse sections of a district.

But the county actually added the polling location at the request of the area’s Republican mayor.

Levine, Sam. “‘It’s all rigged’: Trump foreshadows how he could undermine presidential election.” The Guardian, May 12, 2020.

The announcement that Russian President Vladimir Putin won last week’s national vote to rewrite the country’s constitution and allow himself to run twice more for president was not exactly a surprise. Putin has a long track record of winning elections through a mix of genuine popularity, electoral skullduggery, and—most important of all—ensuring that no real alternatives are allowed on the ballot. This most recent plebiscite took Putin-era elections to new depths of meaningless.

Miller, Chris. “Lukashenko Is Putin’s Future.” Foreign Policy, July 9, 2020.

Charter, David. “Trump wants meeting with Putin before US presidential election.” The Times, July 15, 2020.

Hodge, Nathan and Mary Ilyushina. “Russian voters overwhelmingly back a ploy by President Vladimir Putin to rule until 2036.” CNN, July 2, 2020.

Lutz, Eric. “Is Trump Setting the Stage to Dismiss the 2020 Election Results?” Vanity Fair, May 20, 2020.

Web search and screen capture, July 15, 2020 at 1 p.m.
Posted to YouTube by Republican Voters Against Trump, May 29, 2020.
Posted to YouTube by Republican Voters Against Trump, July 15, 2020.

Related: Kelly, Mike. “Some in South Jersey have a message for Trump: Pay your old Atlantic City casino bills.” Northjersey.com, January 26, 2020.

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Ai Fen, Chinese Authorities, and the Shame of Hiding Shame

01 Wednesday Apr 2020

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, China, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, COVID-19, Epistemology, Facsimile Bipolar Political Sociopathy, Political Psychology, Psychology

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While C19 moves around the world, the sudden disappearance of Chinese whistle blower Dr. Ai Fen has been moving across the World Wide Web as well.

Carr, Jemma. “Wuhan doctor who was among the first to alert other medics to the spread of coronavirus ‘goes missing’ amid fears she has been detained for speaking out.” Daily Mail, April 1, 2020.

From the Awesome Conversation

What are China’s authorities hiding or trying to hide?

It’s remarkable watching the hiding of shame (or guilt) play out on the global stage.

There are people who believe — and when they’re leaders, they may be the worst of people — that any show of damage, fear, or sentiment weakens them in relation to public perception when, in fact, it is their own “inner eye” (the way the may be forced to view themselves) that cannot stand being seen as weak. In that may be the soul of “malignant narcissism” and related “civilizational narcissism”.

Such types embarrass and shame themselves, for what seems right to them looks wrong to everyone else.

Dogma may no longer serve to cover or excuse less savory designs.

Our species evolves not only physically but psychologically, and we have reached an age with sufficient global and open communications in which authoritarians, criminals, and dictators may no longer brush aside or suppress essentially truthful criticism and data. The same may not stop “black programs” and conversations “behind the curtains” — that kind of feudal and medieval egotism and power may be always with us — but by and large BackChannels believes the world evolves toward greater complexity, interdependence, and freedom. The global public may still be misled, but not for long provided the journalists have integrity and do their work.

Related on BackChannels

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2020/03/19/note-covid-19-biological-warfare-and-the-odds-and-ambiguities/

https://conflict-backchannels.com/coins-and-other-terms/anthropolitical-psychology/civilizational-narcissism/

https://conflict-backchannels.com/coins-and-other-terms/anthropolitical-psychology/malignant-narcissism/

https://conflict-backchannels.com/coins-and-other-terms/anthropolitical-psychology/paranoid-delusional-narcissistic-reflection-of-motivation/

Perspective: Related Online and With the Truth About COVID-19 in the United States

This first preliminary description of outcomes among patients with COVID-19 in the United States indicates that fatality was highest in persons aged =85, ranging from 10% to 27%, followed by 3% to 11% among persons aged 65–84 years, 1% to 3% among persons aged 55-64 years, <1% among persons aged 20–54 years, and no fatalities among persons aged =19 years.

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6912e2.htm

Annual Rate of Death for the United States of America

Number of deaths: 2,813,503
Death rate: 863.8 deaths per 100,000 population
Life expectancy: 78.6 years
Infant Mortality rate: 5.79 deaths per 1,000 live births

Number of deaths for leading causes of death:

Heart disease: 647,457
Cancer: 599,108
Accidents (unintentional injuries): 169,936
Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 160,201
Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 146,383
Alzheimer’s disease: 121,404
Diabetes: 83,564
Influenza and Pneumonia: 55,672
Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome and nephrosis: 50,633
Intentional self-harm (suicide): 47,173

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm

Between the people of the United States and the nation’s most prominent authority on infectious disease and pandemic, the Centers of Disease Control, hide nothing, sugarcoat nothing but report accurately, plainly, clearly, empirically, completely–and that may be the best cure this editor might know for panic and state-driven perceptual control of “the masses”.

In America, at least, democracy has just become more directly responsive and responsible to the People.

–33–

Active Measures

13 Thursday Feb 2020

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

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As BackChannels Would Define It

Active Measures — The collection of Russian Agitation, Disinformation, and Propaganda Methods made evident through covert or subtle Influence Campaigns applied to wrecking the political coherence and cohesion of EU/NATO for the purpose of reestablishing Political Absolutism in the same and then using the most thuggish of feudal and medieval methods to leverage loyalty and wealth from them for contribution to the Greater Imperial Glory of Moscow, the Russian “mafia state” it has come to represent, and the immense enrichment of its oligarchy.

Indeed the west, the melange of classically liberal democratic open societies built and structured around fair dealing, freedom, and integrity and related humanist and liberal ethics, principles, and values has been unprepared for covert agent provocateur, e.g., covert agitators Far Right and Far Left, disingenuous publications, false front organizations, trolls, etc.

I’ve chosen to demur from producing “long copy” and a lengthy reference section for this post. Awareness of “Active Measures” — the kernel of Russia’s covert campaign to degrade and ruin the democracies of the west — should suffice for both the interested and the unwittingly vulnerable.

Related Online

Linville, Darren and Patrick Warren. “That Uplifting Tweet You Just Shared? A Russian Troll Sent It.” Rolling Stone, November 25, 2019.

Lipton, Eric, David E. Sanger and Scott Shane. “The Perfect Weapon: How Russian Cyberpower Invaded the U.S.” The New York Times, December 13, 2016.

Pond, Elizabeth. “The West wakes up to the dangers of disinformation.” The Christian Science Monitor, February 28, 1985.

According to rough Central Intelligence Agency estimates presented in US congressional hearings in 1980 and 1982, Moscow spends some $4 billion a year on overt and covert propaganda, with some $3 billion of this going to Pravda, Tass, and other overt activities and the residual $1 billion presumably going into covert disinformation. Georgetown University Prof. Roy Godson, coauthor with Richard H. Shultz of the book “Dezinformatsia” says the Soviets employ 15,000 in “active measures.”

“Active measures” — the term came into use in the Soviet Union in the 1950s — include international front organizations, agent-of-influence operations, and forgeries. Front organizations straddle overt and covert measures, Godson and Shultz explain. The International Department of the Soviet Communist Party “coordinates the activities of these organizations,” but “the fronts actively attempt to maintain an image of independence.”

The flagship of these fronts is the World Peace Council.

Shane, Scott. “The Fake Americans Russia Created to Influence the Election.” The New York Times, September 7, 2017.

Wikipedia. “Active Measures”.

Addendum — From the Awesome Conversation

Through the Cold War Era and now with Putin leading the Russian Federation, the purpose of Soviet / post-Soviet “Active Measures” has been to fragment EU/NATO for the purpose of Russian expansion and its feudal practices. A video like this one — the same as above on this page — will help a little bit with understanding the greater east-west politics and the tension between the worlds of “Absolute Power” and the open democracies of the west.

Active Measures” represents an international (RF v EU/NATO) dispute over the future, not only an American one.

If we are at one the other’s throat, Moscow will have succeeded in exploiting our natural political arguments and issues by heightening them and undermining our national political cohesion and coherence, thereby weakening our state and degrading our democracy.

Regarding “Far Out Left” and equally distant Far Right tendencies, the related foreign and disingenuous domestic manipulations of political perception targets us all.

Addendum – Miscellaneous Quotations and Reference Having to Do with Disinformation

“It was unthinkable before Trump for anyone to run this kind of disinformation campaign from the White House against the American public,” according to Jonathan Rauch, the author of the forthcoming book The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth. As a result, we live in an era defined by epistemic chaos and noetic disarray, one in which a large portion of the population embraces falsehoods and fairy tales and thinks of them as “alternative facts.”

The deceit being dispensed by Trump & Company is hardly universal, but it is extensive, which is why defeating Trump was essential if we’re going to move away from perspectivism as the interpretive theory in our politics. But objective reality as a concept—truth as something that exists independent of affect, independent of subjective narratives, independent of whatever a partisan information silo claims is true—has been badly damaged. Among the most urgent tasks facing America, then, is to strengthen our regard for what Plato called episteme over doxa, true knowledge over opinion, reality over fantasy.

Wehner, Peter. “Trump’s Most Malicious Legacy.” The Atlantic, December 7, 2020.

–33–

FTAC: Riff on the Sensitivity of the Malign Narcissist to Cartoons – Basics

05 Tuesday Nov 2019

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Political Psychology, Psychology

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Inspiration for the Post

The other party’s recollection of the assassination of political cartoonists.

From the Awesome Conversation

Despots — malignant narcissists — live for “unlimited narcissistic supply”, i.e., the adoration of the public as if a god.

Here’s a portal from my blog:

https://conflict-backchannels.com/coins-and-other-terms/anthropolitical-psychology/

Generally speaking, I believe that excessive and malignant narcissistic process takes off with damage early in life, and there’s a term for that: “Narcissistic Mortification”. The humiliation of the child, negative response to what is good, etc., will do it, and if it’s really bad, the personality will cover the damage (hiding the shame) and split an heroic image for self-concept that may be built with boasts, brags, lies, and the deep and tireless manipulation of others around himself.

Pause: narcissism is natural — most of us take pride in our internal motivations, our appearance, the things we do, and some of the things we acquire. Narcissism is not a bad thing but part of a healthy life. Moreover, not all narcissists are evil; many are reparative — we’re natural do-gooders, lovers, husbands, wives, shepherds, and stewards of what comes into our separate domains. We care, and goodness, integrity, and truth matter.

The malignant — the despotic — put on a show.

The fireman sets the fire, so he may show up to put it out and obtain admiration for his heroism.

Related look-up: “Moscow Apartment Bombings”.

“Gas lighting” goes with a malign narcissism as may “messianic delusions of grandeur” — also loss of those boundaries and limits that account for respectful privacy and natural and normal legal and social tendencies. The malignant lose a good part of their humanity on their way to “greatness” — and their greatness is in their heroic image.

After all these years, I don’t know who else has been mining this seam in relation to political psychology.

I had started with a book by a former CIA profiler — Post, Jerrold M. Leaders and Their Followers in a Dangerous World: The Psychology of Political Behavior. Forward by Alexander L. George. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004.

We may today know more about dictators — how they tick — than we do their followers, but some of the mechanics are known too, and much of the existence of each distills to force, leverage, and money that provides for measures of bribery, induction of dependency, intimidation, and patronage. The inner circles and close followers of dictators would seem generally in on the game with the greater public bought off, fooled, impressed, mollified, and patronized.

Most hated by the dictator: a free press that more accurately conveys his reflection and does so broadly, publicly, universally.

Related Online

Burke, Jason. “The murder that shattered Holland’s liberal dream.” The Guardian, November 7, 2004.

Gathara, Patrick. “The death of the political cartoon: A pillar of journalism is being destroyed by oppressive government, online mobs and profit-oriented media moguls.” Al Jazeera, July 2, 2019.

Hart, Benjamin. “4 Cartoonists Killed in Attack on Charlie Hebdo Newspaper.” HuffPost, December 6, 2017.

Rowson, Martin. “The New York Times political cartoon ban is a sinister and dangerous over-reaction.” The Guardian, June 12, 2019.

Stack, Liam. “London Police Reopen Investigation Into 1987 Killing of Palestinian Cartoonist.” The New York Times, August 29, 2017.

Anderson, Hans Christian. “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” H.C. Anderson Centret.

Wikipedia. “Naji al-Ali”.

–33–

From Democracy to Despotism – Erdogan Takes Turkey East

21 Monday Oct 2019

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Facsimile Bipolar Political Sociopathy, Political Psychology, Russia, Turkey

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Erdoğan says his demand for a safe zone in Syria is rooted in Turkey’s war against terrorism. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), Erdoğan says, is as much a threat as the Islamic State. That is of course nonsense . . . .

Rubin, Michael. “Turkey’s Syria Policy Could Lead to Its Own Destruction.” National Interest, October 21, 2019.

While those both enamored and fearful of power have always played “both sides of the street”, Turkey’s drift from a freely speaking, open, and vibrant democracy to one far from NATO ethics, interests, and values should be clear to the free world. Through the power of President Erdogan’s feudal imagination and thuggery, Turkey has been transformed into a politically absolute polity driven by the narcissism of its leader

Worse for the Turks and even his fans: President Erdogan’s toadying before Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Erdogan may appear strong standing up to the west, which today cannot levy enough sanctions on his project (probably hurting the Turks more than the Turkish President), but how may he appear doing Putin’s bidding while his equally enamored — or captive to Moscow — neighbor, Bashar al-Assad AKA “Bashar the Butcher”, continues destroying and strangling Syria — in Turkey’s direction too — under cover of destroying Sunni Islamists?

When Turkish air power rightly downed two Russian MIGs overflying Turkey’s airspace while refusing communications with Turkish air defense, Erdogan refused apology. And what for? He and his military had done everything right for the purposes of Turkish Defense.

The Su-24 shootdown took place on November 24, 2015.

Eight months later, widely reported on June 27, 2016, Erdogan apologized to Putin.

That has turned out a fair demonstration of Russian “realpolitik” and maddening absolute power.

For those watching — and those who knew the facts — “Sultan Erdogan” may just as well have knelt before “Emperor Putin”.

Perhaps President Erdogan has had some household bills yet to pay, and, beside, has needed a certain supply of energy to heat the house.

I hope the excerpts and videos that follow prove helpful as windows into the love fest developed between Ankara and Moscow.

2014

Posted to YouTube by Erdogan Gönüllüleri (Erdogan Volunteers), October 30, 2014.

The first direct gas pipeline between Russia and Turkey was the Blue Stream, commissioned in 2005. In 2009, Putin proposed a Blue Stream II line parallel to Blue Stream under the Black Sea.[2] The Blue Stream II project did not carry through and the South Stream project took the lead, until it was abandoned in 2014. The TurkStream (then named Turkish Stream) project was announced by Russian President Vladimir Putin on 1 December 2014, during his state visit to Turkey.[1]

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

Related Online

Kenyon, Peter. “Turkey’s President And His 1,100 Room ‘White Palace'”. NPR, December 24, 2014.

2015

Posted to YouTube by Channel 4 News, November 24, 2015.

The Russia Defence Ministry denied the aircraft ever left Syrian airspace, counter-claiming that their satellite data showed that the Sukhoi was about 1,000 metres (1,100 yd) inside Syrian airspace when it was shot down.[5] The U.S. State Department said that the U.S. independently confirmed that the aircraft’s flight path violated Turkish territory, and that the Turks gave multiple warnings to the pilot, to which they received no response and released audio recordings of the warnings they had broadcast.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Russian_Sukhoi_Su-24_shootdown
Moscow’s Grand Mosque Dedication – Published to YouTube by RT, September 23, 2015.

2016

MOSCOW — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan apologized Monday for the downing of a Russian warplane in November and called for Russia and Turkey to mend a bilateral relationship that has become openly hostile over the incident.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/turkey-apologizes-for-shooting-down-russian-warplane-last-year/2016/06/27/d969e0ea-3c6d-11e6-9e16-4cf01a41decb_story.html – 6/27/2016

2019

Gazprom has started to fill the first branch of the offshore section of the Turkish Stream pipeline with natural gas. This is the final stage of testing the pipeline before putting it into operation later this year . . . .

. . . The first line is intended for the supply of Russian gas to Turkish consumers, the second – for gas supply to the countries of southern and southeast Europe.

https://financialtribune.com/articles/energy/100392/russia-begins-pumping-gas-into-turkish-stream-pipeline – 10/19/2019.

Erdoğan says his demand for a safe zone in Syria is rooted in Turkey’s war against terrorism. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), Erdoğan says, is as much a threat as the Islamic State. That is of course nonsense: The SDF formed to fight Al Qaeda affiliates and the Islamic State at a time when Turkey was passively if not actively supporting them. Nor can Turkish officials credibly point to terrorist attacks from Kurdish-governed portions of Syria. Groups that evolved from the PKK are not monoliths: The SDF is progressive and moderate; any visit to the region makes clear that the group does not embrace the PKK’s Cold War-era Marxism. The PKK itself has long sought peace and does not attack civilians. The Kurdistan Freedom Hawks (TAK) splinter group continues to engage in terrorism, but they are based nowhere near Syria nor do they have any links to the SDF.

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/middle-east-watch/turkeys-syria-policy-could-lead-its-own-destruction-89841 10/21/2019

In a recent article in Foreign Policy, my colleague Steven A. Cook argued that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was playing Washington like a fiddle. With a combination of bluffs, threats, and bluster, Erdogan managed to convince the United States to come up with an arrangement in northeastern Syria to prevent a Turkish invasion—an arrangement that comes at the expense of the Kurds, who have carried the brunt of the fighting against the Islamic State. Whatever one thinks of the Kurds, their determination and sacrifice should be treated as an international public good; they have stopped and destroyed one of the most dangerous and homicidal groups the modern world has known. The Turks by contrast have contributed nothing to this endeavor.

If Erdogan has succeeded in manipulating Washington, however, Russian President Vladimir Putin, in turn, has played him to the hilt.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/09/03/putin-plays-erdogan-like-a-fiddle-syria/ – 9/3/2019.

Related on BackChannels

“Civilizational Narcissism”; “Malignant Narcissism”.

Also Related Online

Abadi, Cameron. “Why is Turkey Fighting Syria’s Kurds?” Foreign Policy (FP), October 17, 2019.

BBC News. “Qatar’s emir ‘gives $500m private jet to Turkey'”. September 17, 2018.

How Homeowner Erdogan Looks Online

Posted to YouTube by James Mac, December 28, 2014 – Primary Source: BBC News, “Erdogan presidential palace – in 60 seconds”, November 6, 2014.
Posted to YouTube by Global News, August 27, 2019.

–33–

Sudan’s Bashir: All About “Narcissistic Supply”

20 Wednesday Feb 2019

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Africa, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Facsimile Bipolar Political Sociopathy, International Development, Islamic Small Wars, Political Psychology, Sudan

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Why whole constituencies suffer along with dictators and their criminal regimes, only God and a handful of political psychologists know.

In schematic from childhood to demonhood:

“Narcissistic Mortification” –> “Covering / Splitting” –> “Narcissistic Manipulation” (in practice, “Narcissistic Personality Disorder“; on BackChannels, “Malignant Narcissism“, “Facsimile Bipolar Political Sociopathy” (the author’s own term) –> (“Excess of Joy Weeps“) : Experience of “Narcissistic Supply“.

As BackChannels may use the term “Covering / Splitting”, the reference is to masking over the defective, humiliated, or impotent self — it’s not uncommon for children to suffer — and suffer deeply — at the hands of a powerful and sadistic other in such a way as to demand a coping and defensive route in behavior in response. The “splitting” then may refer to the development of the heroic or heroic-appearing self and the daring exploration and development of congruent behaviors. Not all who would experience “narcissistic mortification” become malign in their response — some may be reparative in response — but some do wish to get the better of their tormentor in one-up mirror fashion.

“Narcissistic Manipulation” –> “Gaslighting” and “Perceptual Control” — in the linguistic or Orwellian sense, control of the target’s information, imagination, organizing (Gestalt functions) and perception plus predictions or prognostics.

What would you do to be loved (by the masses)?

Widely accepted by Kremlin-watching journalists: Vladimir Putin’s beloved KGB bombed several Moscow apartment buildings in the dead of night in a false-flag operation intended to promote fear of Chechen rebels and produce the election of Russia’s ideal man.

The mission proved successful.

In his acceptance speech, Vlad had tears in his right eye, whether from cold or joy, who can tell?

In any case, the Russian Army would go on to “fight” Chechen rebels (see KavKaz Center) in part by terrorizing Chechen villages not previously hooked up with units.

Had history not had “grandiose and messianic” personalities, there would perhaps be very little of human history at all.

Be that as it may, many ages — feudal, medieval, Renaissance, Elizabethan, lol (whatever works) — have passed into a modernity in which knowledge and reason prevail in the fashioning and support of modern democratic, humanist, and secular law and policy. Reflecting that sea change in humanity, Europe has come up with a dozen “constitutional monarchies” bound up in a reasonably coordinated, cooperative, and peaceful “European Union” that should be, so BC opines, quite sensitive about states marching themselves backward into the bloody illusions of the past.

Putin’s way has brought out the dictator in some EU / NATO politicians (Erdogan, Orban, Le Pen, Trump), not all completely successful in their quest to be as if feudal lords in command of their tribes x (criminality), language, race, religion, perhaps wealth, but in someways successful enough. Ironically, and while working opposite the direction of the Russian collusion “witch hunt”, the Trump Administration has taken many measures along the crime- and dictatorship-fighting axis to dull the expansion of nefarious post-Soviet enterprise (on BackChannels, have a look at Venezuela).

BackChannels’ trope regarding dictatorships: “Different Talks — Same Walk!”

So back to Omar al-Bashir who cannot tolerate that Sudanese should get the world’s news coming out about his regime worldwide.

Al Jazeera English, February 19, 2019.

The news, however, does get out, making the dictator’s image increasingly indelible and negative in global conscience and memory.

Also Related Online

Abdin, Latifa. “Protests in Sudan: A primer on the ongoing unrest, two months on.” Open Canada, February 19, 2019.

Since coming into power in 1989, al-Bashir worked to systemically consolidate power by banning political parties, dissolving parliament and actively muzzling political dissent, through arrests, torture and executions, as recent events demonstrate. His government also worked to systematically ban trade unions, which played a key role in two successful popular uprisings in Sudan — one in 1964 and another in 1985.

https://www.opencanada.org/features/protests-sudan-primer-ongoing-unrest-two-months/

Africa News. “Sudan protest hub: Student rallies ramp up pressure on govt”. February 19, 2019.

Journalists – local and international, have been caught in the middle of the protests. Foreign reporters have been deported or ordered out over their coverage whiles local journalists have been arrested and allegedly tortured.
Rolls of daily and weekly newspapers have also been confiscated. A number of varsity professors in the capital Khartoum were recently arrested for attempting to stage a protest.

http://www.africanews.com/2019/02/20/sudan-protest-hub-africanews-updates/

RSF. “At least 79 journalists arrested in two months of protests in Sudan”.

These systematic arrests have targeted not only reporters covering protests in almost all parts of the country but also journalists who themselves dared to protest against the regime’s policy of censorship and arrests of journalists with the aim of restricting coverage of the protests.

https://rsf.org/en/news/least-79-journalists-arrested-two-months-protests-sudan

–33–

FTAC: ALW: Earth Consciousness; Human-Universal Inter-Consiousness

18 Tuesday Dec 2018

Posted by in A Little Wisdom, Asides, Epistemology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Journal, Philology, Philosophy, Psychology, Religion

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When I started my journey around the world Online (In English), I had never even heard of “Partition”.

While I forget much or what I read, I’ve had the wisdom to keep my reading — my books — close by and may rapidly access what I’ve read.

I have 2,000+ close by reading options and could do my own in-house “Great Books” education, languages included, but I have to match age and mission sense with available resources. ??

As a species, our issues on Earth are profound, and that includes not only our search of political reconciliation and the diminishing of war, God willing, but the greater taking up of the stewardship of our planet, so that we may enjoy the image of our survival much farther into the future than the end of, say, Epoch of Oil.

We can and should open our eyes more widely than we do today:

http://thomasberry.org/

From another conversation this day:

Do you believe in the existence of conscience? Empathy?

God also may be described as an “inter-consciousness” between man and nature across the universe.

Thomas Berry has promoted “earth consciousness” with our species as stewards.

I’d go the extra light year and may — or not as Internet publishing appears to promoted promote abbreviation and compression of thought.

Many years ago, I played with Heinrich Böll’s “Murk’s Collected Silences“, a short story about revisionism involving a radio host and his indecision about the invocation of that singular and most Proper Noun, “God”. At the end of his career and interested in shaping the memory of himself, he decided to hedge, and instead of the recorded invocations of “God”, he had his technician cut out the world and replace it with “thou higher being whom we revere”. Murk, the technician, then cut even the resulting moments of silence for splicing together.

Here on BackChannels, this editor has been using as a trope, similarly hedging but advancing a concept at the same time, “God, Nature, and the Universe”.

It may be that we humans merely process chemicals faster than rocks, and that is all that differentiates our species and all else that lives from stardust.

Indeed, one may see pools of blood where spilled become flakes the color of rust (for the same reason) and drops of it diminish to powder dissolving in air.

That is all we are.

When dead.

When living . . . what a piece of work!

As a species, we needs must be or become the stewards of all that lives and all that in addition supports the beautiful and thriving mission of life.

–33–


FTAC: Judge Kavanaugh and Red-Blue Self-Righteous Loyalty

08 Monday Oct 2018

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Political Psychology, Psychology, United States of America

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The article touted in “conservative” circles: http://thefederalist.com/2018/10/04/left-will-never-apologize-brutalizing-brett-kavanaugh-family/  In Federalist writer Nathaniel Blake’s own words:

This ugly truth about us explains what has happened to Brett Kavanaugh. Initially he was hated for being a Republican nominee for the Supreme Court, but it is still not universally acceptable to abominate someone only for being an originalist judge.

“Originalist judge” may not well explain what the nation saw transpire last week.

Here is this blog’s editor’s take on that.

BackChannels believed Ford, and that he (Kavanaugh) lied because he had the power to deny everything negative about himself. As much may be part of an “ambitious” or malign narcissism, and as much fits with the personality and associates of the man who nominated him.

With Red or Blue Right / Left Flag navigation, political identity may force arguments rather than reason, and that emotion drives the demonizing of the other camp as well as the concept familiar to conflicts worldwide: “accusation in a mirror”. “Witch hunt!

The Left has no need to apologize for defending Blase Ford.

The Right has no need to wonder why professional advisement — all those lawyers! — against the confirmation were ignored and the process will be remembers as forced by the Republicans or blocked by the Democrats: for an answer, the power of identity and loyalty will do.

Related on BackChannels

https://conflict-backchannels.com/coins-and-other-terms/anthropolitical-psychology/

Related on the Web

https://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/rwanda/Geno1-3-10.htm (cited here for “Accusation in a Mirror”, a political science concept well known to scholars — and here in association with genocide — but also fit with what may be observed in relation to “malignant narcissism”: the malignant narcissist is never wrong.  BackChannels offers this post from 2013 as an example of the type: https://conflict-backchannels.com/2013/06/11/remember-its-never-the-narcissist-erdogan-blames-woes-on-vandals-and-terrorist-elements/).

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