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Category Archives: Regions

FTAC: Encouragement for Palestinian Democracy

22 Friday Nov 2019

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Gaza Suzerain, Islamic Small Wars, Israel, Middle East, Palestinia

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Palestinian Democracy

Inspiration: the claim that Palestinians are struggling to end the occupation and establish peace and democracy.


From the (Still) Awesome Conversation

Fatah and Hamas should then establish peace and democracy where they live and govern by holding fair and free elections with regularity; by eliminating political repression for ordinary Palestinians who question policy; by addressing widespread corruption and related thuggery; by policing and neutralizing invasive terrorist organizations with agendas of their own; by working as hard for Christian and other faith communities as has been done for Muslim ones; by investing in Palestinian entrepreneurship — I, of all people, have been approached for that (Rx. given: international “crowd funding”, and it worked); and perhaps by encouraging an open public discussion about image, power, and wealth and what it means to look powerful while leveraging others and what it means to be powerful by being authentically good, noble, and virtuous; and, finally, by keeping earmarked Palestinian funding at home in the Palestinian Territories, Principalities, or Unified State rather than parked abroad.


The litany of keyword searches seems seldom good: “Palestinian Corruption”; “Palestinian Human Rights”; Palestinian Political Repression”; etc. Is it so strange to think that all of that might be reversed by Palestinian popular insistence on democratic governance, free and fair elections, human rights, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, Palestinian internal investment and development?


Further on in the conversation, and from BC’s side of it:

Israel in no way bars Palestinians in the Preoccupied Territories from enjoying the benefits of democracy, rule of law, and responsible and responsive governance. Palestinian “leaders” — or related personalities and organizations — do.


The conversation moves along, and I am fully standing on my boards in this part of the world’s virtual open mall —

Then let US address the “Eastern” side of the “East-West Conflict” to which any nascent Palestinian polity has to refuse further power to be itself authentically liberated — and from what? A) the Palestinian role in serving as a block and goad to the West, its faith in mankind, and its consequent and related civilizational liberalism; B) some propensity in Arab and other feudal realms to dominate and plunder the politically weak by evading law (all but one’s own) and aggrandizing one’s self — the leader’s self – at the expense of all.

I’ve been able to visit a certain surface in history — the Roman anchorage and expansion far into Europe from the south of the continent x the Norse — the Viking — push from the north bearing south and raiding and trading east at least to Baghdad. It’s a helluva story even in outline — but fast-forward to this day, and it turns out the Palestinians that have borne the weight and press of the same / similar civilizational tectonics.

The truth is the “Middle East Conflict” has been engineered and milked for all it has been worth, and the base of the Palestinian Community has paid the price for being on the border between the FOUR distinctly different worlds — the Medieval and the Modern; the Arab and the Greco-Roman/Judeo-Christian West — but with the exception of some who have gotten a good deal of money (plus ersatz political family and cachet) out of it.


Note: I hit enter inadvertently, but it’s about right. The Big Picture bears down on the small one. 😦 IMHO, the Palestinians should pursue a course independent of the concerns of so many powerful global players. Eject old polemic and everyone might ask, what would be cautious, prudent, and good today for peace, for work with dignity, for trade, and most of all a modern, responsive, and responsible governing culture?

We should have a new conversation.


–33–

Norms! Impeachment Inquiry – The New World Still Battles the Old

21 Thursday Nov 2019

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, North America, United States of America

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Impeachment Inquiry, medieval v modern

The adjectives come easily enough: autocratic, authoritarian, bombastic, bullying, capricious, dictatorial, disingenuous, imperious, etc. The same may be wrapped into one unifying wrapper: “malignantly narcissistic”.

The case fits the object that has become America’s most unrelieved subject of interest.

Posted to YouTube by Daroslaw Toorek, August 23, 2018.

There once was a day in which the power of the sovereign was precisely the power to destroy property or persons — or both — with impunity, and that same power would have been defended by barbaric, cruel, and ruthless machination and violence provided the sovereign could assemble the compacts and raise the army and security necessary to rule by force — or, as above, take care of business himself.

Ours is not that day — or at least not that day in the liberal and open democracies of the west — and very much not a day to be welcomed back.

In the parallel and surreal universe opposed to the west and marching forward into the past, however, the politically absolute may continue to deceive and gas light their hapless populations while making themselves — precisely: their “glory” (rather the effects) of their own brutality mistaken for virtue — of primary importance beneath the dispassionate gaze of God, nature, and the universe. From their most on-high positions, each will violate every last aspect of conscience by lying most freely, destroying most wantonly, thieving most brazenly, and, generally serving themselves most of all without restraint.

And why not if each malignantly narcissistic personality can seize the kind of self-glorifying power dreamed of for itself and achieve — true to form — “unlimited narcissistic supply”?


Posted by Bloomberg Politics to YouTube, November 21, 2019.

One might suggest that Putin, Assad, Khamenei, and, sigh, of late, Erdogan, and Orban, at least, have been living within or toward deeply retrograde dreams, but while empire, dictatorship, theocracy, and dynasty may prevail for Russians, Syrians, Iranians, Turks, and Hungarians, the same will not for Ukrainians — or Americans — for whom medieval power is no longer wanted, need be no longer tolerated, and will be resisted — and that, God willing, to the end of time.


Regarding President Trump

Count the now felonious associates (if you can); take in the bankruptcies and stiffed subcontractors; count the marriages (add in the lovers and spice with the “Grab ’em . . .” remark); consider the cruelty of the betrayals, including the firing of long-term alien labor right along with the tragic Michael Cohen’s sore abuse; think about the lies, especially having to do with his (denied) Russian relationships.

Related Online

Benen, Steve. “All the president’s (convicted) men.” MSNBC, November 15, 2019.

Bump, Philip. “Roger Stone joins the remarkable universe of criminality surrounding President Trump.” The Washington Post, November 15, 2019.

Goldberg, Jeffrey. “The Man Who Couldn’t Take It Anymore.” The Atlantic, October 2019.

Jacobs, Jack. “Trump’s former generals, from James Mattis to Joseph Votel, sound an unprecedented warning.” NBC Think, October 22, 2019.

LeBlanc, Paul. “Retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal hits Trump as immoral, dishonest.” CNN Politics, December 31, 2018.

Morello, Carol. “Tillerson calls Trump undisciplined. Trump calls Tillerson ‘dumb as a rock.'” The Washington Post, December 7, 2018.

Walters, Greg and Cameron Joseph. “‘Talk to Rudy’: How Trump Let Giuliani Hijack the State Department into Chasing Conspiracy Theories.” Vice News, November 5, 2019.

Quotations

The BackChannels process has turned out one that might be distilled to “collect” (media), “select” (quotations, references, videos), and “opine” — i.e., stand on the virtual Hyde Park soap box and declaim. Be that as it may, here are a few of the more notable “moments” in text 🙂 provided by references noted.


“So often, the president would say, ‘Here’s what I want you to do, and here’s how I want you to do it,’ ” Tillerson said at a fundraiser for the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

“And I would have to say to him, ‘Mr. President, I understand what you want to do. But you can’t do it that way. It violates the law,’ ” he said.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/tillerson-says-trump-directed-him-to-do-things-that-violate-the-law/2018/12/07/2e8623dc-fa34-11e8-863c-9e2f864d47e7_story.html

Once Mr. Trump treated the military with a level of reverence that he extends to few other American institutions. Peppering his cabinet with retired senior officers enabled him to allay the concerns within the Republican Party about his own lack of experience and preparedness for the role of president. He has spoken admiringly of “my generals” and talked about those who looked the part.

“They were like from a movie,” he said on Wednesday, describing a recent Pentagon briefing. “Better looking than Tom Cruise, and stronger.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/02/us/politics/trump-mattis-defense-secretary-generals.html

. . . Mattis and Tillerson had together smothered some of Trump’s more extreme and imprudent ideas. But now Mattis was operating without cover. Trump was turning on him publicly; two months earlier, he had speculated that Mattis might be a Democrat and said, in reference to NATO, “I think I know more about it than he does.” (Mattis, as a Marine general, once served as the supreme allied commander in charge of NATO transformation.)

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/10/james-mattis-trump/596665/

WASHINGTON — When President Trump’s top advisers on Ukraine gathered in the Oval Office in May, Trump gave them a simple, clear directive: “Talk to Rudy.”

Since then, a mountain of evidence has emerged to show just how deeply Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal attorney with no official government role, penetrated American diplomacy toward Ukraine — and turned it toward pressing the country to announce an investigation of Democrat Joe Biden.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/zmj7za/talk-to-rudy-how-trump-let-giuliani-hijack-the-state-department-into-chasing-conspiracy-theories

LiveUA screen capture, November 21, 2019.

–33–

Protection Racket – ‘Quid Pro Quo’? Yes | Shiff asks, ‘Is There Any Accountability’?

20 Wednesday Nov 2019

Posted by commart in American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, North America, Political Psychology, United States of America

≈ Leave a comment

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Impeachment Inquiry Hearing, medieval v modern

Rep. Adam Schiff’s Closing Impeachment Hearing Remarks Posted by C-Span to YouTube, November 20, 2019.

It’s all over.

Or is it “all over”?

The question is not whether or not he was responsible for holding up the aid. He was. The question is not whether everybody knew it. Apparently, they did. The question is what are we prepared to do about it? Is there any accountability? Or are we forced to conclude that this is just now the world that we live in — when a President of the United States can withhold vital military aid from an alley at war with the Russians, an alley fighting our fight to defend our country against Russian aggression. Are we prepared to say in the words of Mick Mulvaney, “Get over it”? Or “Get used to it”. (Pause) We are not prepared to say that.

Quotation starts at 10:56 from the cited video.

Well, there is history made, and while this editor left the Democratic Party with consideration for candidate Obama’s relationship with old Far Left radical Bill Ayer’s, any good feelings toward the Republican Party have been dimmed by its seemingly endless bullying, contemptuous, disingenuous, and rancorous approach to the deceiving and handling of ordinary American voters.

President Trump’s “Shifty Schiff” didn’t shift an inch in this afternoon’s final remarks.

Wanted by Either Party: A Few Radical Moderates.

BackChannels hopes it is not the only lonesome blogger sickened by the aggrandizing and bellicose conservative reactionary rhetoric led in tone by a President to whom rules –not in business, not in marriage, not in politics — seldom, if ever, apply.

Related Online

Fandos, Nicholas and Michael S. Schmidt. “Sondland, Defiant, Says He Followed Trump’s Orders to Pressure Ukraine.” The New York Times, November 20, 2019.

Kessler, Glenn and Salvador Rizzo. “The Fact Checker’s guide to impeachment hearing spin.” The Washington Post, November 12, 2019.

–33–

FTAC: American Civil Service Patriots and President Trump’s Impeachment Hearing

19 Tuesday Nov 2019

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, United States of America

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Civil Servant Loyalties and Obligations, Trump Impeachment Hearing

They’re the civil servants of our Federal government sworn to uphold the Constitution. They recognize the Presidency and its powers as a position in constitutional terms as well as their obligations in relation to that. As such, their loyalty may be to the position but not the occupant who dares to challenge the boundaries and contours of power as set by the Framers.

James S. Oppenheim, editor of this blog, via sub-thread comment during PBS live coverage of the impeachment hearings on November 19, 2019.

They — Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman; Jennifer Williams.


Posted by PBS NewsHour to YouTube November 19, 2019.

Posted by C-Span to YouTube November 19, 2019.

Badgered to give up the name of the “whistle blower” during the open hearing, Lt. Col. Vindman refused to deliver the name or discuss any of the intelligence personnel charged with the keeping of each their portion of the nation’s secrets, which certainly seems sensible to this editor if not his Republican interrogator.

Related on BackChannels

United States of America – Basic Training


Posted by PBS NewsHour to YouTube on November 19, 2019.

Related Online

Fonzone, Christopher. “What the Law of Military Obedience Can (and Can’t) Do — What Happens if a President’s Orders are Unlawful?” Just Security, May 4, 2018.

Hakim, Danny. “Army Officer Who Heard Trump’s Ukraine Call Reported Concerns.” The New York Times, October 28, 2019.

Jacobs, Jennifer and Justin Sink. “Trump Orders Substantial Cut to National Security Council Staff After Whistle-Blower Complaint.” Time, October 5, 2019.

–33–

Marie Yovanovitch – The Kind of Person President Trump Fires From His Administration

17 Sunday Nov 2019

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

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

American Backbone, American Patriotism, authoritarianism, Marie Yovanovitch, medieval v modern, Trump Administration, Weakening the Federal Government



The military-based oath taken by America’s diplomats, military officers, and other officials may be found on BackChannels beneath the title, “United States of America — Basic Training” (specific reference in the law for the oath taken by the nation’s civil servants may be found here (PDF, Title 5, Section 3331 “Oath of Office”).


“She understood that corruption was the ‘Achilles heel,’ so to speak, of Ukraine,” a former State Department official who knows Yovanovitch told CNN Thursday prior to the release of the complaint. “And so Masha, by doubling down on corruption and making it kind of her leitmotif of her tenure as ambassador, was doing exactly what she should have been doing and what US policy has been in Ukraine for quite some time.”

Hansler, Jennifer. “Diplomats express alarm over Trump’s treatment of former Ukraine ambassador.” CNN, September 26, 2019.

Marie “Masha” Yovanovitch had been doing her job as prescribed by law, and yet President Trump chose to have her removed and out of his way.


Sworn in as ambassador to Kyiv in August 2016, Yovanovitch has been at the forefront of U.S. efforts to help stabilize Ukraine’s shaky economy and push reforms to root out endemic corruption.

She’s also been at the forefront of U.S. backing for Ukraine in its ongoing fight with Moscow over Russia-backed fighters battling Ukrainian government forces in eastern regions since 2014.

Yovanovitch drew attention in early March when, weeks before Ukraine’s March 31 presidential election, she called on Kyiv to fire the country’s special anti-corruption prosecutor. The speech was notable not only for its timing but also its bluntness.

Miller, Christopher. “U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, Openly Criticized by Top Ukrainian Prosecutor, Departing Early.” Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, May 6, 2019.

Lutsenko alleged that she made a “do-not-prosecute” list and disseminated it in Ukraine, an accusation that she strenuously rejected and which Lutsenko himself retracted.

Lutsenko is himself deeply implicated in the Ukraine scandal and has been accused of colluding with Giuliani to launch investigations in Ukraine into Trump’s political enemies, specifically Joe Biden’s son Hunter.

Knight, Ben. “Who is former US Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch?” DW, September 15, 2019.

The Washington Post has a December 2018 piece on those who have been fired or positioned to resign from their posts in relation to President Trump’s decision-making or handling. Causes cited range from attempts to damage the Mueller Investigation to dismissal for abuse of Department funds for personal security and travel. Be that as it may, disruptions involving America’s Justice and Security systems may be most disturbing, from the firing of James Comey at the FBI to the resignation of General Jim Mattis as Secretary of Defense.

Perhaps President Trump listens to his inner voices and no one else’s — and now he has few educated, experienced, and powerful others of the first rank to whom to listen.

Over time and with energies dispersed by curiosity and a great range of interests — the editor cannot “track” the whole world and every dimension of it 🙂 — BackChannels has kept folders for others now absent from the Trump Administration: John Bolton, Dan Coats, Nikki Haley, and Sue Gordon (“the highest-ranking career intelligence official in the country” according to CNN’s Samantha Vinograd in her analysis, “Sue Gordon’s departure is bad news for Trump and country” [CNN, August 12, 2019]). Conclusion: Trump has been either abandoned by or removed quite a few of America’s best and brightest in the assessment of threats domestic and foreign.

With the dismissal for Marie Yovanovitch, President Trump has notably removed a most dedicated, experienced, patriotic, and well prepared and talented diplomat of note and, above and beyond those attributes, one possessed of great integrity and spine.

Related Online

AllGov. “U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine: Who is Marie Yovanovitch?” September 11, 2016.

Diehm, Jan, Sam Petulla, and Zachary B. Wolf. “Who has left Trump’s administration and orbit?” CNN Politics, October 21, 2019.

Ghitis, Frida. “Real hero takes down phony corruption fighter.” Op-ed. CNN, November 15, 2019.

Hansler, Jennifer. “Diplomats express alarm over Trump’s treatment of former Ukraine ambassador.” CNN, September 26, 2019.

Knight, Ben. “Who is former US Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch?” DW, September 15, 2019.

Mettler, Katie, Callum Borchers, and Nick Kirkpatrick. “‘You’re fired’: A timeline of Team Trump departures.” The Washington Post, December 20, 2018.

Miller, Christopher. “U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, Openly Criticized by Top Ukrainian Prosecutor, Departing Early.” Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, May 6, 2019.

U.S. Department of State. “Marie L. Yovanovitch”. Archive.

Vinograd, Samantha. “Sue Gordon’s departure is bad news for Trump and country.” CNN Opinion, August 12, 2019.

Wikipedia. “Marie Yovanovitch”.


Posted to YouTube by The Washington Post, November 15, 2019.

–33–

(Putin) | Erdogan | Trump

13 Wednesday Nov 2019

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, North America, Political Psychology, Turkey, United States of America

≈ Leave a comment

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authoritarianism, Democracy RIP, dictatorship, east-west amity, Erdogan and Trump

Posted by RT for the Dedication of Moscow’s Grand Mosque – 2015.

Posted by CBS News to YouTube November 13, 2019.

Is “Winter” coming — or is it already here?

Listen to the high notes: Arms Deals, Trade Deals, Expanding Markets.

Mentioned: Turkey’s participation in the building of the F-35 air frame. While that mention may score points with the less informed public, Turkey’s participation in NATO defense manufacturing in relation to the American fighter jet program has created heat and a now discomfiting defense relationship. The following description of the depth of Turkey’s participation in the F-35 Program tells why:

Eight Turkish companies make parts for the fuselage, landing gear and cockpit displays of the aircraft, according to Lockheed Martin. Some of them have been producing F-35 parts since 2004. For example, Fokker Elmo manufactures 40 percent of the F-35’s electrical wiring and interconnection system.

These companies are set to do $12 billion in work on the F-35 program over the life of the jet, according to USNI News.

https://www.upi.com/Defense-News/2019/05/13/Pentagon-looks-for-new-vendors-to-replace-F-35-parts-made-in-Turkey/7021557756044/

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is preparing to transfer Turkey’s industrial participation in the F-35 to other countries unless Ankara reverses course on its plans to buy the Russian S-400 air defense system.

The move — which in early 2020 would end contracts with major Turkish defense contractors such as Turkish Aerospace Industries, Roketsan and Tusas Engine Industries, among many others — is just one of many steps the U.S. Defense Department intends to take to strip Turkey from the F-35 program, according to a June 6 letter from acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan.

https://www.defensenews.com/air/2019/06/07/turkish-suppliers-to-be-eliminated-from-f-35-program-in-2020/ – June 7, 2019.

On the F-35 matter, the White House noted in July, ” Unfortunately, Turkey’s decision to purchase Russian S-400 air defense systems renders its continued involvement with the F-35 impossible. The F-35 cannot coexist with a Russian intelligence collection platform that will be used to learn about its advanced capabilities.”


Freedom House metrics involving civil liberties and political rights rates Erdogan’s Turkey as “Not Free”. On the matter of Freedom of Speech, a matter that President Trump has baldly attacked with the accusation “Fake News!” aimed at America’s responsible mainstream media, Erdogan’s state has made itself notorious for the inhibition and jailing of Turkey’s journalists. Wikipedia’s “Censorship in Turkey” tells that story.


Long overdue to give up fiction that Erdogan’s Turkey is an ally in practice. US should withdraw all nuclear weapons, reduce reliance on Turkey’s bases, and restrict intelligence sharing and arms sales. Should also articulate red lines in Syria. https://t.co/rWB0AhwRS3

— Richard N. Haass (@RichardHaass) October 13, 2019

More recently, Jay Nordlinger writing for The National Review (“Turkey, NATO, and a Shifting World”, November 12, 2019), notes that Erdogan, perhaps responding to Putin’s lead in the encouragement of xenophobia in the still liberal and open democracies of EU/NATO, has leverage:

Erdogan has a card to play against Europe, as he confirmed in a speech on October 10. That card is a refugee card, the threat of a flood. There are 3.6 million Syrian refugees in Turkey. “Come to your senses,” he told the EU in that speech, given to his party in Ankara. “I will say this once again: If you try to label our current operation an occupation, our job becomes easier: We will open the gates and send the 3.6 million refugees to you.”

Despite this threat, several EU nations have responded to Operation Peace Spring, imposing arms embargoes on Turkey. These nations include Germany, France, Sweden, and Finland.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/11/turkey-nato-shifting-world/ – 11/12/2019

Reference: Related on BackChannels

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2017/03/11/reflexive-control-process-allahu-akbar-terrorism-new-nationalism-neo-feudalism/ – 3/11/2017

Regarding Moscow and Terrorism

BackChannels has long maintained a quick reference list for copy-paste relay of Moscow’s post-Soviet play in the narrative around Islamic Terrorism. It begins with David Satter’s account of the “Moscow Apartment Bombings”, back-fills with Anna Politkovskaya’s observations on the Russian Army’s brutalizing of Chechen villages, moves through Ayman al-Zawahiri’s whistle-stop in Russia (published in Business Insider), and ends near the U.S. military observation of Russia’s supplying the Taliban (today) with arms and materiel. Here it is*:

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: Dispatches From Chechnya. Chicago: University of Chicago Press Press Books, 2003.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayman_al-Zawahiri

Schindler, John. “Exploring Al Qaeda’s Murky Connection to Russian Intelligence.” Business Insider, June 10, 2014.

https://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/europe/item/15162-defector-putin-s-kgb-trained-top-al-qaeda-terrorists

https://thediplomat.com/2017/08/understanding-the-russia-taliban-connection/ – 8/4/2017

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/03/26/596933077/top-u-s-commander-in-afghanistan-accuses-russia-of-aiding-taliban – 3/26/2018

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2017/04/24/russia-is-sending-weapons-to-taliban-top-u-s-general-confirms/


Moscow’s persistent Orwellian (and paternally authoritarian) character may come through as it dawns on the reader that the state appears to manipulate its public with something like “KGB Theater” (again, read David Satter on the “Moscow Apartment Bombings”).

The production of “The Syrian Tragedy” well displays the form as Bashar “The Butcher” Assad chose to barrel bomb Syrian noncombatants while al-Qaeda types gathered in his space and eventually distilled into “ISIL” or, today “Islamic State” — see https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/12/09/syria-assad-isil-background/ for related argument and the basis for it in references.

Basically, BackChannels believes Assad — as flanked by Putin and Khamanei — chose his enemy, i.e., an “enemy preferred” or a dumb foil he knew he would beat (with Russian assistance), and which victory would redound to his glorious (malign and narcissistic) appearance.

By choosing amity with President Erdogan, President Trump has stepped into the Great Neo-KGB Theater of History, but with one immense issue: a spirited American public and system in part armored against the dawning of totalitarian control and related debasements and indignities. In lieu of the Soviet Communist project that gave up the ghost on December 25, 1991, the (E)State Capitalism — the making and hoarding of money by any means no matter what the costs to humanity — associated with Vladimir Putin appears to be working — and Americans (and the North American and European presses) seem slow to catch on.


*Mixed formatting has to do with the editor’s interest, purpose, and time–for the blog: okey dokey; for a monograph some time in the future, Chicago rules.


–33–

FTAC: A Bid for the Lost and Missing of America

13 Wednesday Nov 2019

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Canada, Extreme Brown vs Red-Green, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, North America, Political Psychology, Syndicate Red Brown Green, transnational crime, United States of America

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

American Fascism, American politics, American Social Conscience, Authoritarian America, democratic socialism

Inspiration for the post: a tirade against the specter of Democratic Socialist America in the fashion of the Soviet Communist sphere of influence and the detritus of the irresponsible authoritarian mafia states left behind for western conscience and vision to address.


” . . . who despite enjoying the benefits and protections of a free society . . . ” (would vote the Democratic ticket).

What happened to these, especially our approximately 490,000 missing Americans under age 21?

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2019/10/04/an-american-report-card/ — the page provides a glance at the numbers associated with America’s most troublesome social pathologies–cocaine use, homelessness, missing persons, opioid addiction, prostitution.

Life has its hooks, ladders, and chutes, of course, and will never be perfect for everyone, but the numbers represent some systematic decimation of a modern — not 1950s white bread — culture. Are those of the middle class and of the privileged supposed to completely turn away from the social epidemiology swirling around the apparently Lost of America?

We should know who is in the mix — and why — and get that unholy street stew separated and channeled in some helpful way.

If Americans hadn’t “social conscience”, there would be no laws involving environment, health, labor, housing, or much else that has brought and held the nation together as a unified polity. Politicians on the Left / Far Left have walked down their own streets and asked about the same questions for the same reasons. Now it would seem up to radically responsible moderates to steal that flame to produce an overall healthier state, not an environment fit to elite, rapacious, and ruthless personalities.


Some Red-Green elements that have flowed down from the Soviet Era machinery have infected America’s Democratic Party with the familiar Far Left cocktail of anti-capitalist, radical, and anti-Semitic (anti-Zionist) cant that in effect poisons their own projects before they can progress. The social conscience of the Democratic Party as stamped by Presidents Roosevelt in the 1930s and Johnson in the 1960s appears well under attack by the vanguard of a bullying old White Right political culture that really doesn’t care to address the misery it has learned to overlook.

Far be it, however, for BackChannels to overlook Hollywood’s role in the glamorizing and promoting of the very scourges that have both enriched the world’s mafia and — with dollars cleaned and spiffy — spilled back into working communities — here: read about Vancouver’s pleasant (not really) influx of wealth — as to make economic retreat and the decoupling from evil virtually impossible.

–33–

FTAC: The Briefest Note on the Regressive Medieval Stance Toward EU/NATO

02 Saturday Nov 2019

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Middle East

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Feudal Absolutism v Democratic Modernity, medieval v modern, middle east

Premise

The inspiration for the following three paragraphs came from an assumptive accusation to the effect that ” No Justice in the Middle East and the US/EU support these dictators, like Egypt and Saudi.”


Response

EU/NATO has no encouragements — of which I’m aware — for dictatorships.

Unfortunately, our geopolitical world having become arranged as it is presents challenges to what we may distill as a common humanity with some universal ethical, psychological, and spiritual qualities. Here, the bludgeons of the medieval worldview and its political methods should be easily recognized against the modern alternative: checked and distributed power x popular participation, representation, and self-determination.

The axis formed by the Putin-Assad-Khamenei alliance remains practically, hopeless medieval and committed to kleptocracy by absolute authority under cover of vacuous brutality or convenient dogma. Well-served: the malign narcissism of so-called “great leaders” who measured by modern standards really are not so great as they may believe themselves to be.

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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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