Also in Media: “War Against the West” by Ian Buruma – Project Syndicate – March 13, 2017

20 Monday Mar 2017

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, Also in Media

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assault on liberal democracy, authoritarianism, fascism, New Nationalism

There is at least one good test of where people stand: their view of the international investor and philanthropist George Soros. Like Kolnai, Soros is a Hungarian-born Jew, and has lived his adult life in Britain and the US. After the collapse of the Soviet empire in the late 1980s, Soros has done more or less what US government agencies did after World War II. He has spent large chunks of his personal fortune on the promotion of liberal democratic values in former Communist countries. One of the many beneficiaries of his largesse is the current prime minister of Hungary, Viktor Orbán, who studied at Oxford on a Soros scholarship.

Now, biting the hand that fed him, Orbán recently called Soros’s “trans-border empire” a vicious threat to Hungary’s national identity. Soros, in his view, is a “predator” backed by “tons of money.” Orbán is a fiery advocate of “illiberal democracy,” as are other elected autocrats in former Soviet satellites. “In every country, they will want to displace Soros,” he declared in December.

Orbán is right about a few countries at least . . . .

Read what comes before and after the excerpt: War Against the West by Ian Buruma – Project Syndicate

Also in Media: “Open Letter of European security experts to Federica Mogherini: | European Values Think-Tank” – n.d., from preface to petition

20 Monday Mar 2017

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, Also in Media, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Eastern Europe, Europe, Russia

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21st Century Neo-Feudalism, anti-totalitarianism, European security

Open Letter of European security experts to Federica Mogherini:
Please start taking the Russian disinformation threat seriously!

The aggressive actions of the Kremlin are unprecedented in the modern era.

Invasion of neighbouring countries, massive bombings and killings of civilians, and the first annexation of a foreign land by force in Europe since World War II, constant violations of other states’ borders, kidnapping foreign citizens, harassment of foreign diplomats, or massive cyber attacks are all in Russia’s current regime toolkit.

(Photo credit: copyright by World Economic Forum, Photo by Remy Steinegger, CC BY-SA 2.0).

All these offensive incidents are accompanied by a massive, persistent, ongoing, brutally aggressive disinformation campaign.* A campaign that has been active in Europe for at least three years, establishing its channels, finding the right amplifiers and multipliers for its message – which is aimed at destabilising our societies, meddling in our elections and referendums, misleading our political leaders and breaking up the EU unity by supporting those who want to destroy it. It has been building a wide range of communication structures in most of the EU Member States, platforms that have already been functioning for a long time and have reached considerable results that cannot be erased without significant long-term counter-effort.

Read the whole thing — Open Letter of European security experts to Federica Mogherini: | European Values Think-Tank — and consider signing the petition.

*Bold and italics added by BackChannels.

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FTAC: Worlds Closer Together

17 Friday Mar 2017

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

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21st Century Neo-Feudalism, geopolitical, geospatial relationships, Internet political impact, politics

Inspiration for the response came from the “blame America first” community intent on demonizing the same for past horrors, and in this instance the horror was the “Halabja chemical attack” ordered by Saddam Hussein against the Kurdish community at the end of the Iran-Iraq War.

In the second part, an accusing and conspiratorial view of the United Nations came through in a question about its origins. It’s BackChannels’ opinion that by way of sufficient financial loss and immense suffering, that the UN has provided deflection from “Great War” — not “Low Intensity Conflict” — as so much talk seems to want to precede and inform the same with a significance that matches design. Failing that achievement, we, for the most part, refuse once again to destroy the world despite the common abundance in arms capable of doing so. Instead, at this time, we have one state being eaten alive, as it were, and that would be Syria by way of nefarious design, and then on the western plate is another free state, Ukraine, fending off an aggressor proud of its own criminal mischief in the world, which same has become the consistent cause of the suffering of the greater portion of its population.

— The know-how and material for developing chemical weapons were obtained by Saddam’s regime from foreign sources.[23] Most precursors for chemical weapons production came from Singapore (4,515 tons), the Netherlands (4,261 tons), Egypt (2,400 tons), India (2,343 tons), and West Germany (1,027 tons). One Indian company, Exomet Plastics, sent 2,292 tons of precursor chemicals to Iraq. Singapore-based firm Kim Al-Khaleej, affiliated to the United Arab Emirates, supplied more than 4,500 tons of VX, sarin and mustard gas precursors and production equipment to Iraq.[24] Dieter Backfisch, managing director of West German company Karl Kolb GmbH, was quoted by saying in 1989 that “for people in Germany poison gas is something quite terrible, but this does not worry customers abroad.”[23] —

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

The Wikipedia entry goes on to cite U.S. involvement, but the basic principle in both geopolitical evil and transnational crime would seem to have applied: people in one place would not care too much about people far removed from themselves x space x culture x time.

Conditions involving boundaries and separation have changed.

—
http://www.un.org/en/sections/history/history-united-nations/

Moscow continues to explore and exploit war evidently believing it pays off financially and redounds to its glory. Here’s a BBC radio piece about Soviet Era manipulation to that effect — http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03pk9c1 .

Today: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/04/syria-war-showroom-russian-arms-sales-160406135130398.html

A not too long ago yesterday for Ukraine: http://www.holodomorct.org/

Ukraine under assault today: http://uaposition.com/maps/russian-troops-attacked-ukrainian-position-donbas-197-times-past-48-hours-1-soldier-killed-10-wounded/

Greed expressed in lax regulation (first), then corruption outright followed by political or mercenary crime (“transnational crime” — all “black market” all of the time) may turn out the scourge of our own age. Boundaries and limits disintegrate before it where “actors” — engaged as here; powerful elsewhere — lose the internal brakes that involve conscience and empathy in relation to others.

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FTAC: A Comment on the Usefulness in Time of the United Nations

13 Monday Mar 2017

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, International Development, Islamic Small Wars, Politics

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21st Century Neo-Feudalism, medieval v modern, United Nations, War in Time

Inspiration: the common conservative American claim that the United Nations has proven consistently anti-Semitic and anti-Western: why fund it?

Think of the UN as having organized an institutionalized tug-of-war, i.e., a war between the medieval world and the modern one. It is the medieval world that culturally preserves and leverages anti-Semitism. It does so to deflect attention from power while it mightily exploits its deeply subjugated constituents. The situation is no different for the Arabs of the Kingdom who support the absolute power of the royals; the poor of Russia, a class once again growing by the day, whose wealth in the patrimony of the land has been swept into the hands of the patronized by the “Vertical of Power” (Putin) who are spending it elsewhere; the whites of South Africa, all of a sudden, but who have been the target of communist-aligned Jacob Zuma’s ire; and, though you may not believe me, the Palestinians whose KGB-trained Arafat and KGB-affiliated Mahmoud Abbas have kept most right where they are because for political leadership and powerful clans, the middle east conflict has turned out a spectacularly good business!

The modern world fights the medieval world at the UN.

It’s a long process, or one best approached a little bit at a time, for “the world left behind” may well swallow the one that has advanced with increments of violence from everywhere. It’s better to have one place where the truth can be dragged out into the light whether or not the representatives of so many nations wish to accept it.

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FTAC – “Lost for Representation” – A Comment on the Plight of America’s Moderate Political Rank

13 Monday Mar 2017

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Extreme Brown vs Red-Green, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Political Psychology, Politics

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21st Century Feudalism, 21st Century Neo-Feudalism, American politics, Brown vs Red-Green, extremism, New Nationalism, political manipulation, Political Polarization, politics, racism, Reflexive Control

Inspiration: the canard repeated by foreign politico that America’s Republican Party represents the white, wealthy, and racist of the nation.

Actually, Lincoln was the Republican way back and the southern states Democrat, and so bad as regards race that it led the front for racial politics for many decades.

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

Credit Texas school teacher, first, and American President, later, Lyndon Baines Johnson and the launching of the Great Society programs with stealing the Republican cause and transforming the Democratic Party into the party best redressing equality issues and fighting toward the modern popular democracy that has proven an inspiration elsewhere — and been surpassed elsewhere as well.

The employment of Islamic Terrorism to drive the New Nationalism — that’s just the way I see it from Moscow’s feudal enterprise — seems to indeed have taken root among America’s conservative Republicans (while the the “Red-Green” response has holed up with the Democrats). Such politics seem foreign to Americans of my advancing age — as a class, we may be appalled with the depth of polarization and viciousness displayed during the past election season, and having our two major parties pushed toward extremes, those of moderate temperament would seem at the moment lost for representation.

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Also in Media: “Trauma Surgeons Report ‘Profound’ Racial Disparity in Philadelphia Gun Violence” – Forensic Magazine – March 9, 2017

12 Sunday Mar 2017

Posted by commart in American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Political Psychology

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cultural forensics, firearms injuries

With colleagues from the Penn Injury Science Center, Beard and Sims have been researching the epidemiology of gun violence in Philadelphia. In a study published in the March issue of the American Journal of Public Health, the Penn team analyzed statistics on firearm assaults in Philadelphia during 2013-14. Results showed that the gun murders and injuries were much more strongly associated with race than with neighborhood income levels. People living in relatively high-income black neighborhoods, for example, suffered a rate of firearm assault almost 16 times higher than that experienced by people living in white neighborhoods with the same income.

According to police data analyzed by the researchers, more than 80 percent of victims of firearm injuries reported in Philadelphia were black, and less than 6 percent were non-Hispanic whites.”

This racial/ethnic disparity is the ‘elephant in the room’ of firearm injury epidemiology,” Beard said. In the new essay, she and Sims argue for more research and scientific resources to explain this disparity, which they suggest may be rooted in structural inequality and other social factors that are amenable to policy interventions.

Source: Trauma Surgeons Report ‘Profound’ Racial Disparity in Philadelphia Gun Violence

Reflexive Control Process: “Allahu Akbar Terrorism” -> New Nationalism –> Neo-Feudalism

11 Saturday Mar 2017

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

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21st Century Feudalism, 21st Century Neo-Feudalism, Democracy and Transnational Business, Islamic terrorism, malignant narcissism, New Nationalism, political manipulation, Political Polarization, political theater, Reflexive Control

The prize of science: prediction with increasing certainty AKA “predictive validity”.

Why should models in the social sciences, much including political science, differ from those proven useful in biology or physics?

And what if apparent terrorism — the act as defined by the most immediate actor — were to mask another design altogether?

When the Fireman Sets the Fire

In 1999, the KGB appears to have been caught close to the elements involved in rigging an explosion to bring down an apartment building, an event that would have matched similar attacks blamed on Chechen rebels and that provided the causus belli for the Second Chechen War. Candidate for president Putin then praised those alert enough to notice the dead-of-night activity but eluded suspicion. Over time, the persistent of the press and academe combed back through the event and developed independent conclusions adverse to Moscow’s telling.

Journalist David Satter has recounted the event well in The National Review (“The Unsolved Mystery Behind the Act of Terror that Brought Putin to Power”, August 17, 2016).

Miami University scholar Karen Dawisha, author of Putin’s Kleptocracy (Simon and Schuster, 2014) and others have weighed similarly on the subject of the “Moscow Apartment Bombings”, and although the attempted bombing may never be dragged before a jury in Moscow, the sleuths of academe and the press have submitted their public versions of amicus curiae.

What is one to make of the fireman who sets the fire — or the candidate whose probably true false flag operation sets up the greatest national protection racket ever witnessed?

And why stop there?

In 2015, journalist Kyle Orton published “How Russia Manipulates Islamic Terrorism” (September 8). In that piece, Orton focused on Assad’s exploiting terrorism to manipulate greater public perception in his own favor:

Last year I wrote about the murky role Russia was playing in the Syrian war, bolstering the Assad tyranny while facilitating the rise of the Islamic State (ISIS) and other Salafi-jihadists as a means of dividing and discrediting the Syrian opposition. Moscow’s action were in line with the strategy it had used to defeat the separatist movement in Chechnya, infiltrating the insurgency, driving it into extremism, and facilitating the arrival of al-Qaeda jihadists who displaced the Chechen nationalists. In Syria, Russia’s actions accord with the strategy adopted by the regime and its Iranian masters to present Assad as the last line of defence against a terrorist takeover of Syria and a genocide against the minorities. New evidence has emerged to underline these points.

BackChannels has also long noted Assad’s incubating of ISIL, e.g., “Syria – Assad – ISIL – Background” (December 9, 2016), and the use of the same as a tool for blackmailing and goading the west (forced mass migration works in much the same way).

At the time, so focused seemed the western public on “Allahu Akbar Terrorism”, then Syria — and President Putin’s own return to what President Obama referred to as the “KGB Playbook” — and then Ukraine, that it may have missed Moscow’s ends or purposes in bringing barbarism back to the front pages.

Application of Reflexive Control – The Inspiring of Renewed Patriotism (and Nationalist Fervor)

None who ran off to fight jihad with al-Baghdadi could have imagined the same drawn into existence by being allowed to express itself under the watch of the more powerful, but that may have been what happened, for along with the development of ISIS accompanied by a healthy network of “jihad portals” or “jihad media”, the west has been made to respond repeatedly to “Allahu Akbar Attacks” and in part with predictable authoritarian, patriotic, and xenophobic nationalism.

Those pro-BREXIT and anti-NATO may commence with feeling duped not only by Moscow but by the projection of Islamic Terrorism as the Great Bogie — not that it isn’t an issue — on the part of conservative authoritarian leaders certain to justify the kind of defenses to be launched in transitioning the world’s most open democracies into the more distinct Feudal Estates preferred by Moscow: seal the borders; eject the foreigners; end broad cooperation with the stupid (and liberal) neighbors (if there are any left [after having been colonized by Islam]); pull up the national portcullis, such as it may be, and commence with renewed national “competition” for world domination.

There’s a rub: the knowledgeable of the open democracies and NATO and elsewhere (as in Ukraine) may well comprehend Moscow’s game and gotten just ahead of it, enough so to contain Moscow’s military flexing while it continues drawing down its cash reserves in the self-destructing limbo in which it has gotten itself in both Ukraine and Syria.

Still, Navalny’s most recent revelations tell about how Moscow works, and what it wants in the world and from it, i.e., an Orwellian politics designed for the support of excessive privilege and wealth through the expanded ownership of key assets in other states.

Moscow’s display and approval of brutality on two fronts — Syria and Ukraine — and the developing spirals of poverty in Russia itself tell how the regime regards “the masses” — ordinary people — as being of little account.

Wealthy of the World: Unite!

No need to shout — private global business competition and cooperation are today fait accomplis as regards the deals of the wealthy made while their nations appear at peace.

As has been apparent with transnational corporation for decades, the money goes where it is best suited, i.e., most productive (profitable), most safe (best parked), best entertained, and best enjoyed. In the condition of peace, there would seem no cause to keep an ambitious neighbor from investing in one nation’s own uranium mine or another’s vineyard.

MedvVineyard-802x

Interpretation: screen capture from Navalny’s documentary on Medvedev’s reach and control of expensive personal assets within Russia and beyond. Source server for capture: UAZMI citation listed in reference. Image edited for color by BackChannels.

How should an American president (sworn to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America) respond to the challenges posted by the reinvigorated upstart of a 19th Century imperial aristocracy?

Better still: how should the American public respond to the prospect of the development of a “post-constitutional” feudal state in which private business dominates government and a small cabal of wealthy dictates to the public what its interests are and will be?

All kinds of things spin through our minds with but a little information — or too little information. “The rich rub each other’s backs” or “The rich look out for one another” or “The rich make sure they remain so as a class” — true? Let’s not be so certain. What BackChannels may suggest is that Moscow’s “political absolutism” and related architecture — secret police state | centralized control | aristocracy and its systems of patronage — requires keeping cemented in place the feudal worldview: wealth is beautiful; people may be treated as a cheap commodity without intrinsic worth, much less inherent dignity or rights.

As so often mentioned here on BackChannels, the proofs of those assertions appear on display in Syria (undeniable barbarism) and Ukraine (continuous and “hybrid warfare”) — and often as well in old communist aligned states (Zimbabwe, South Africa) whose governments remain ever kleptocratic and for the leadership personally self-aggrandizing beneath the banner of one or another messianic cause (BackChannels trope regarding dictators: “Different Talks — Same Walk!”).

The American writ in governance has been (so far) very different from the feudal path, and so it may behoove America’s own transnational wealthy to keep in mind the ideals, values, and ends of their home nation’s modern democratic and ultimately humanist ends.