Category Archives: Regions

Also in Media: “Putin’s Real Long Game” – POLITICO Magazine | Molly K. McKew | January 1, 2017

02 Monday Jan 2017

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Also in Media, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Political Psychology, Politics, Russia

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What both administrations fail to realize is that the West is already at war, whether it wants to be or not. It may not be a war we recognize, but it is a war. This war seeks, at home and abroad, to erode our values, our democracy, and our institutional strength; to dilute our ability to sort fact from fiction, or moral right from wrong; and to convince us to make decisions against our own best interests.

Those on the Russian frontier, like my friends from Ukraine and Estonia, have already seen the Kremlin’s new toolkit at work.

Reading highly recommended: Putin’s Real Long Game – POLITICO Magazine – 1/2/2017.

Related in Media

4. Don’t listen to “realists.” Self-described “realists” have suggested that Russia be given a free hand in the former Soviet republics in return for cooperation on issues that are vital to U.S. and Western security. This call to make a “deal,” in addition to its blatant immorality, ignores the fact that it makes sense to reach an understanding only with those who will keep their side of the bargain. The fact that the Russians are seeking to deny the former Soviet republics their rights as sovereign nations is all the indication one needs that an unenforceable “gentleman’s agreement” to cooperate with the West will be violated the minute it ceases to be to Russia’s advantage. The rejection of a moral framework for relations, meanwhile, will set the stage and help provide the justification for new and more outrageous Russian demands in the future.

Satter, David. “Obama and Russia.”  Forbes, November 24, 2008.

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FTAC – Opinion on the UN Vote Hostile to Israel (Resolution 2334 / 2016)

29 Thursday Dec 2016

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

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The fingers were erect and wagging at Obama as anti-Semite and turncoat, which I found a bit radical.

Of course, other analyst-pundits have been weighing in on the UN’s latest gang-up on the world’s One Jewish State and the Administration’s dithering abstention, and that cacophony doubtless includes similar charges (or language) from Right side of the aisle.

Be that as it may, the chorus was heard with the original poster’s complaint that no dissent had been heard.

Well, at least let there be an argument.

I’ll dissent.

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/12/24/ftac-moscows-presence-in-the-middle-east-conflict/

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/11/23/moscows-rules-a-module/

If there is, has been, or will be a contest between “medieval political absolutism” and the “modern democratic and checked distribution of power”, the same involves meeting the challenges posed by the “Phantoms of the Soviet” (the Union died 25 years, Dec. 25, 1991).

I think the west too quick to march on in post-Cold War glory — and the rush to do business with the reforming new Russia — and it got taken in by Moscow while Moscow, as represented by “Vertical-of-Power” Putin has gently but firmly twisted the state’s narrative from “Glasnost” all the way back to proto-fascist ultra-nationalism and neo-imperialism — backed by the demonstration of barbarism (in Syria), aggression (in Ukraine), and the possession of nuclear arms and updated weapons systems.

Is anyone feeling lucky?

While it’s true the Obama Administration has avoided direct confrontation with Moscow (how unseemly that would look! And I say that as cynically as any here), it has weakened Moscow’s ability to project and sustain military aggression in the near abroad. It will then be left to President Trump to address Putin and either abet, contain, or push back against what the Moscow Revival presents to western interests.

The UN resolution was execrable in every dimension!

https://www.un.org/press/en/2016/sc12657.doc.htm

However, the true target in east-west relations and in the middle east conflict remains a recalcitrant Moscow. A dangerous Moscow. A dictator’s Moscow (and check out the alignments on the voting).

Between Trump (Manafort, Millian, Kilimnik) and Putin, let’s hope the superficial media-relayed “bromance” is over — or it will be our lives more organized along more feudal principles in conflict with modern (democratic) ones.

Loosely related but from another conversation —

I wanted to suggest to you that a working “secular democracy” actually enables the full expression of religious passion as a private and private community matter. The system supports boundaries and a common agreement on the prudence and sensibility of good law, i.e., law that sustains a free and vibrant social order.

Jihad, provocation, and terrorism mean to upset civil order — and they can do it!

When will the west again push back against criminal, fascist, and proto-fascist aggression, I don’t know but know that as it loses its principles and values, if it does, it will have to respond to absolutism.

 

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Also in Media: “The Collapse of the Soviet Union: 25 Years Later” | Frontpage Mag | Jamie Glazov Interviews David Satter, December 26, 2016

29 Thursday Dec 2016

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Also in Media, Political Psychology, Politics, Russia

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The ironies of absolute power were evident in Tsarist Russia. In the 19th century, the Russian philosopher Pyotr Chaadaev said that Russia existed to teach the world how not to live. He was referring to Russia’s contempt for the individual. “Alone in the world,” he wrote in his First Philosophical Letter,”we gave the world nothing and have taken nothing. We have in no way contributed to the progress of human reason and everything that came to us as a result of this progress, we distorted.”

Source: The Collapse of the Soviet Union: 25 Years Later | Frontpage Mag – 12/26/2016.

A little further on —

Satter: Soviet rule was based on lying as a substitute for truth. What mattered was not what was true but what could be made to appear to be true and the criterion for this ersatz truth was whatever was in the interest of the regime.

Against this background, the introduction of genuinely truthful information as a result of Gorbachev’s policy of glasnost could only lead to the destruction of the system. The elements of truth that were introduced as a result of glasnost became part of a delusionary system with which they were totally incompatible. The result was a confrontation over core principles and either the system or the truth had to be destroyed. Fortunately, it was the system that collapsed. In the end, massive falsification was formidable only as long as it was unchallenged. Once the truth was allowed in a limited form, the dykes holding back the reality of the outside world ruptured and the system became part of the past.

Related on BackChannels:

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/11/23/moscows-rules-a-module/

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Triple Vision – Iran – From Nazanin Fatehi to Nazanin Afshin-Jam to Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe- 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012, 2016

29 Thursday Dec 2016

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Great Britain and United Kingdom, Iran

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Nazanin Fatehi appears to have committed a murder in self-defense as a 17-year-old girl in 2005.  The regime initially found her guilty of murder and sentenced her to death by hanging.  The human rights community took up her cause and the lunatic processes of what passes for justice in Iran released her (with financial obligations) in 2012.  She has disappeared.

Nazanin Afshin-Jam, an Iranian-Canadian possessed of gorgeous looks and multiple talents took up Fatehi’s cause on top of the cause of freedom in Iran and became part of the run-up to the 2009 challenge to the regime. As an advocate for Nazanin Fatehi, she published a book, The Tale of Two Nazanins (2012).

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is today a British citizen held by the regime on secret charges — an affront to British Power, a potential casus belli — and part of an absurd diplomacy involving provocative behaviors (e.g., seizing patrol boats in open waters) that appears to play out between Iran and its western marks with fair regularity.

Posted to YouTube December 22, 2006.

Posted to YouTube April 27, 2007.

Posted to YouTube June 21, 2009.

Posted to YouTube June 3, 2012 (22-minute interview).

Posted to YouTube May 10, 2016.

Posted to YouTube December 19, 2016.

As of July 2012, the whereabouts of Fatehi, age approx. 25, were reported as unknown by individuals in the West with whom she had prior contact, with current contact being only the most sporadic.[2][6][10] A book from Canadian supporter and activist Nazanin Afshin-Jam appeared in 2012 chronicling the divergent lives of these two Iranian Nazanins, whose lives intersected during the period of Fatehi’s trial;[11] media responses to the book were generally positive

Nazanin Fatehi — the “Nazanin” referred to in the 2012 interview with Zaghari-Ratcliffe.

Nazanin Afshin-Jam, Canadian Human Rights Activist

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, British Citizen capriciously and currently imprisoned by the Iranian Regime

Related ‘Fast-Link” Reference

http://news.sky.com/video/nazanin-zaghari-ratcliffe-is-serving-five-years-in-prison-for-charges-that-remain-secret-10667803 – 11/22/2016.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/12/22/british-woman-jailed-iran-must-take-two-year-old-daughter-prison/ – 12/22/2016.

Change.org Petition

https://www.change.org/p/free-nazanin-ratcliffe

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Also in Media: “Putin Using All Means Against The West – Including Islamist Terrorism – Piontkovsky Says” | December 12, 2016

28 Wednesday Dec 2016

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Politics, Russia, Syria

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“There is a mass of evidence about the strategic cooperation of the Kremlin and ‘the Islamic State,’ about the conscious dispatch by the FSB of Caucasus militants into its ranks, about the use by Moscow of terrorists as an instrument for weakening and destroying the West” and also about Putin’s use of terrorism to build his increasingly vicious state at home.

Source: Putin Using All Means Against The West – Including Islamist Terrorism – Piontkovsky Says 12/12/2016

BackChannels has seen a related reference online recently:

Satter, David.  “Putin is No Partner on Terrorism: It’s a Mistake for Washington to Count Moscow an Ally.”  Foreign Affairs, December 22, 2016.

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Also in Media: “Vienna: How Vienna produced ideas that shaped the West” | The Economist | December 24, 2016

27 Tuesday Dec 2016

Posted by in A Little Wisdom, Europe

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In 1933 Engelbert Dolfuss seized power in the name of Austrofascism, which gave way to Nazi fascism in 1938 with the Anschluss. Hitler, who moved to Vienna from Linz in upper Austria, had been transfixed by Schoenerer and, particularly, Lueger. He hungrily absorbed all his hero’s complaints about the Jews and the mixing of “races”; he called the Viennese a “repulsive bunch”. Thus liberal Vienna had produced its exact opposite: militant nationalism and anti-Semitism. During the interwar years these forces gradually took hold of the new Austria and from the 1920s onwards many began to flee abroad. One of the last out, in 1938, was Freud.

Source: Vienna: How Vienna produced ideas that shaped the West | The Economist – 12/24/2016

Magnificent article on Vienna’s most glorious days and its lasting contributions to western art and culture.  As this is BackChannels, the note, however, picks up on the irony of developing a liberal state only to find it encouraging a transformation in the direction of fascist enterprise.

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Also in Media: “András Kósa: The speech of the chief, Őszöd ten years later, Part III” – Hungarian Spectrum – December 24, 2016

26 Monday Dec 2016

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Also in Media, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Hungary, Political Psychology, Russia

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. . . it has to be noted that in the mid-to-late 2000s, the European Union and the Obama administration viewed Putin as a leader who was democratizing cautiously. During his first visit to Berlin, the entire Bundestag gave him a standing ovation. Then, in the Russian parliamentary elections in the fall of 2011, he had to pilfer 17 percentage points to be able to win. In the spring 2012 Presidential election, he again needed to cheat to attain a “victory,” though less so this time. I think these things have changed Putin. He realized that the policies he had pursued up until then did not automatically expand his power, so he launched a campaign of harsh repression at home (including the killing of journalists and political rivals, remaking the Russian criminal code, and restricting the freedom of assembly), and again began to assert the conquering pursuits of Great Russia.

Reading highly recommended!

András Kósa: The speech of the chief, Őszöd ten years later, Part III – Hungarian Spectrum – 12/24/2016.

FTAC – Anti-Semitism – Horseshoe Theory – Amplification of Far Left / Far Right Politics

26 Monday Dec 2016

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

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An Israeli with weight on the Left foot swung Right and noted the presence of anti-Semitic thought in both in quarters outside of the Jewish community.

BackChannels felt some explanation due.

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

The encouragement and promotion of anti-Semitism may be viewed as an emblem of the medieval world, for it has been used to control mobs and, sadly, thieve from and murder Jews.

Today, Moscow may represent the major remnant analog for the “medieval political absolutism” that exploits such tools, and while President Putin appears to have been friendly toward Israel, KGB history, .e.g., https://conflict-backchannels.com/2015/10/12/ftac-tip-to-the-kgbs-amplification-of-middle-eastern-anti-semitism/ and Moscow’s anti-western turn in Syria, replete with, at minimum, “talk-to” relationships with PFLP, Hamas, Hezbollah, and Tehran may suggest another story running at the same time.

KGB-style political theater may be also a part of the Syrian tableaux:

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/12/09/syria-assad-isil-background/

“Allahu Akbar” Terrorism has encouraged patriotic nationalist responses wherever it has taken place, and so has heightened both a “New Nationalism” and a corresponding Far Left reaction to that. On my blog, Back-Channels, I refer to to “Brown” (Nationalists) vs “Red-Green” (Old Comrades, Neo-Islamists). In effect, Islamic terrorism has opened a large crack (right down the center of the aisle in U.S. politics) in the cohesion of EU and NATO states.

Notably, Putin has encouraged both Far Left and Far Right political movements, organizations, and personalities and his choice of partners beyond “Assad-Khamenei” may include Marine Le Pen, Viktor Orban, and Recep Tayyip Erdogan. I’ll leave Donald Trump out of this for the time being, but, in essence, Putin, himself rather medieval, has encouraged conditions for amplifying the medieval worldview — and it’s on display in Syria.

I have been following these post-Cold War politics for some time and feel the Big Picture perception — not conspiracy or fear mongering but analysis backed by strong sources and careful reasoning — may be helpful.

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