A Dark Mirror in Language

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The extreme narcissism known to dictators belies an unfortunate process.

More may be involved than being merely vain or having some egotism in need of some judicious but also liberating trimming: most of us–all of us–wish most of all to be what we call “ourselves” at our best, and each according to his own best assessment of abilities–and if we become too full of ourselves (offstage), we may encounter reminders, including from our own self-observing selves, that we are not all that.

Let us sit and sip more quietly.

On the other hand, the clinically (NPD) and politically (malignantly) narcissistic have a tougher self-assignment, and that is to 1) hide the damage done to them when they were helpless or incapable of their own effective defense and 2) cover it with an undamaged and much more competent and greater courageous-heroic image that would be and which becomes their own New Person–The Greatest.

The greater achievement for The Greatest: validation confirmed by love, but a capital-V “Validation!” confirmed by the Applause and Roar of the Crowd–High-Powered VALIDATION!, Limitless and MIGHTY!

We have all the right to transform from children into pretty good adults, but The Greatest want a greatness beyond the boundaries of the good.

Terms one encounters for the malign: delusional, grandiose, messianic.

Behaviors: unconscionable, unscrupulous, ruthless.

In casual description: beyond limits; without boundaries.

Eventually: criminal.


“Those who conceived this war want only one thing — to remain in power forever, live in pompous tasteless palaces, sail on yachts comparable in tonnage and cost to the entire Russian Navy, enjoying unlimited power and complete impunity,” Mr. Bondarev said in his email. “To achieve that they are willing to sacrifice as many lives as it takes.”

Trojanovski, Anton. “‘They basically got everything wrong’: A Russian diplomat speaks out on the war.” The New York Times, May 23, 2022.


In the dark mirror of language, the most primary lie in service to the speaker’s image may be the inverted accusation–on this blog, the “Paranoid Delusional Narcissistic Reflection of Motivation”. The narcissist is always beautiful, good, and right, and the targets unfailingly bent and ugly even though by every objective measurement and view, the narcissist is the evil.

The Greatest must be the greatest as well–not merely pretty good or, son of a gun, lucky!

Image matters and the means to produce it may be obfuscated and covered over, and in the dark mirror, the lies–the lying–really takes off. Putin, poker faced, insists that Russia attacks only military targets.

https://youtu.be/a245RkGUXfk; https://youtu.be/c1xFSCDy8Jo; https://youtu.be/q2nfuIP2tU0; https://youtu.be/8_XCe86resg.

The Greatest lie to aggrandize and enrich themselves, their cronies, families, and networks; to confuse the judgments of others; to perceptually control their fans, marks, and targets–and they lie most of all to hide their crimes.


June 28, 2023.

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A Brief Twitter Exchange on American Themes

I’ve been conversing via Twitter with fellow blogger Benjamin Chayes (History is Now; Pertinent Food), and I want to share it here in a more permanently placed showcase for expression for that reason plus basic cogency and, as always with BackChannels, distillation.

My country, the United States of America, finds itself politically divided, rancorous, and stressed today, and there are reasons for that, including Russia’s “Active Measures” and related “Destabilization and Reflexive Control Operations”–Moscow appears to mess with the U.S. first and foremost, but it does it sideways with cyberwarfare and disinformation. Much coverage falls to specialized OSINT (start with CISA.GOV–and then let curiosity and imagination run wild).

Setting The Bear aside, the quick-thought Twitter platform (and here not yet “Blue” and upgraded for lengthier speech) lends itself to the compression of language and a fast but unhurried parlay.

The replay has some fragmentation but I think the main points are together and unified by the exchange.

The America I both experience and imagine has been a Christian majority but secular enterprise, compassionate and inclusive in its cultural and geographic expanse, and it has been practical about balancing its defense and security obligations, foreign and domestic, with the necessity of building up trade and national revenues as well as the treasuries, corporate and public, that in turn define our national lifestyle.

We have in the way of all nations through time our national underbelly where the degradation goes so far down that whatever hasn’t sunk so low needs must look like some kind of “up”.

















There has been more in the early conversation, but I will stop here for those whose patience may be similar to mine–that’s part of art as well, i.e., knowing when the painting’s done.

Oh, heck….


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Reference: Journalist, Alexander Zhilin, Operation Storm In Moscow AKA Moscow Apartment Bombings

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Fake News?

If only it existed in the Mainstream Press (Fox News excepted at present).

Fake Presidents?

At least two exist and both have represented rival superpowers.

One has been putting on a clown show in the United States.

One remains in power in Russia.


Meanwhile others in Moscow are still wondering whether there is a domestic political aspect to the crisis and whether rogue elements of the security forces are in some way involved in an attempt to provoke a state of emergency in Russia or the cancellation of elections.

There is absolutely no proof of this, but a little noticed article in the Moscow newspaper Moskovskaya Pravda by a respectable journalist Alexander Zhilin is now attracting attention.

Zhilin wrote on 25 August that President Yeltsin’s health was failing and that a plan with the codename “Storm in Moscow” was being hatched in the Kremlin . . . .

Zhilin’s article is interesting because it was written before the bomb explosions.

Waal, Tom de. “World: Europe: Russia’s bombs: Who is to blame?” BBC News, September 30, 1998.

During this fateful summer when Moscow was awash with rumors, I was friendly with a Russian political operative who was well connected to the higher levels of Russian power. When I met him, he told me about the growing fear in the Kremlin about the possibility of losing power and the indications that Moscow would be the scene of a huge provocation. He said that the issue was the security of Yeltsin and his family in the case of a handover of power. He said that if there was no agreement on terms, “they will blow up half of Moscow.”

I sensed the uneasiness but did not know how to assess the prediction of my friend. I had no illusions about Yeltsin and his cronies but it was hard to imagine that a man who came to power as a result of a peaceful anti-communist revolution with massive public support would be willing to murder his own people to hold onto power. Developing events, however, were to change my mind.

At 9:40 p.m. on September 4, a truck bomb exploded in Buinaksk, Dagestan’s second-largest city. It destroyed a five story apartment building, which housed soldiers from the 136th Motor Rifle Brigade.

Satter, David. “How Putin Became President.” American Interest, Hudson, May 19, 2016.

In a curious twist to the story, the liberal bi-weekly Novaya Gazeta published an investigation on Monday into a bomb discovered in the city of Ryazan last year. The FSB eventually said it had planted the bomb but that it was a fake and the incident was part of a training exercise. Local eyewitnesses said the timer and explosives were real.

Cockburn, Patrick. “Russian intelligence produces apartment bombing evidence.” Independent, March 17, 2000.

I’ve ordered John B. Dunlop’s book The Moscow Bombings of September 1999: Examinations of Russian Terrorist Attacks at the Onset of Vladimir Putin’s Rule (Stuttgart: Ibidem Press, 2014) and expect to find some “lovely” devils in the details but no change in the thesis relayed by the above quotations: power in Moscow, Yeltsin’s or Putin’s–or as controlled by Russia’s secret political police, the FSB–has proven itself criminal, ruthless, and unconscionable by bombing apartment buildings in the dead of night while Russian families slept in peace, and they did it in the interests not of real power, but of a display of power, i.e., of their own narcissistic image as controlled in a theater of their own making.

The false-flag operation, “Storm in Moscow”, supported the election of Vladimir Putin (for the length of his life, apparently) and the launching of a barbaric war featuring most of all the brutalizing of Chechen villages, sending the men into the ranks of rebels and putting in control the warlord Ramzan Kadyrov.

The betrayal of ordinary Russian people: unfathomable.

And perhaps ordinary Russians should know the truth.

Cited or Related Online

About Operation “Storm in Moscow” AKA “Moscow Apartment Bombings”

Cockburn, Patrick. “Russian intelligence produces apartment bombing evidence.” Independent, March 17, 2000.

Knight, Amy. “Finally, We Know About the Moscow Bombings.”The New York Review, November 22, 2012.

Satter, David. “How America Helped Make Vladimir Putin Dictator for Life. Tablet Magazine, Hudson, August 30, 2017.

Satter, David. “How Putin Became President.” American Interest, Hudson, May 19, 2016.

Satter, David. “The Unsolved Mystery Behind the Act of Terror That Brought Putin to Power.” National Review, August 17, 2016.

Waal, Tom de. “World: Europe: Russia’s bombs: Who is to blame?” BBC News, September 30, 1998.

About the Barbaric and Malign Narcissistic Character of Russian State Ambition

Olear, Greg. “Vladimir the Terrible.” Prevail. June 12, 2020.

Politkovskaya, Anna. A Small Corner of Hell: Dispatches from Chechnya. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2003.

Nekrasov, Andrey. Director. Poisoned by Polonium: The Litvinenko File AKA The Murder of Litvinenko.

On BackChannels

Oppenheim, James S. “A Note on Tweeting Up Russia’s Barbaric Feudal-Medieval Revanche.” BackChannels, April 12, 2023.

Oppenheim, James S. “Detecting Post-Soviet Russia’s Black Narrative of Revenge for ’89 and ’91.” BackChannels, July 19, 2022.

Oppenheim, James S. “Malignant Narcissism.” BackChannels web page.

Oppenheim, James S. “Malignant Narcissistic Process Distilled.” BackChannels, July 10, 2022.

Oppenheim, James S. “Paranoid Delusional Narcissistic Reflection of Motivation.” BackChannels web page.

Russian power appears to lie first and foremost to Russians while maintaining for itself the burden of truths about which it cannot and dare not speak–at least not until found out. Given the work of many journalists possess of abundant curiosity and integrity, Russia’s powerful have been today well observed, investigated, and reported on extensively, and for the top rank, the same would seem today fully found out.


A few brave individuals did try to investigate the Ryazan incident. When the State Duma, which was controlled by the regime, voted three times against opening an inquiry into the incident, an independent social commission was created that included several deputies, among them, Sergei Yushchenkov and Yuri Shchekochikhin, an investigative journalist with the independent newspaper, Novaya Gazeta. Yushchenkov was shot dead outside his apartment building on April 17, 2003. Shchekochikhin was poisoned in July 2003. Litvinenko and Politkovskaya also investigated the bombings only to be killed. In the wake of these murders, a curtain of fear descended in Russia over the issue of how Putin came to power.

Satter, David. “How America Helped Make Vladimir Putin Dictator for Life. Tablet Magazine, Hudson, August 30, 2017

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Among the Twitterati: Answering Russia’s Big Lies

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Open @clarenafo’s Twitter wall and enjoy the whole well-researched and well-spoken thread from off of this pinned tweet:


Russia’s role in the United Nations seems far out of place to me given its more native habitat: World Peace Council.

Regarding the “situation in the middle east”: “FTAC: Moscow Suffocates the Palestinians” (BackChannels, April 22, 2023).

The inclusion of tweets in blogging helps fix them in cyberspace, for the Twitter River on any subjects moves along rapidly and drowns the last utterance. Anyone’s. Everyone’s. The structure for communicators: the experts in paid professional diplomacy already know the talking points–or what have they been doing otherwise with their careers–and the more general public that cares or might may easily miss the most pointed and succinct analyses on some subjects. In this case, “ClareNafo” (for ease in the transliterating of proper nouns between platforms) has covered five major insults to intelligence in Russia’s array of inventions, lies outright, and disingenuous revisions concerning both Ukraine and NATO. Indeed, “Read the full conversation on Twitter“.

Related Online

NATO. “NATO–Russia relations: the facts.” Last updated April 20, 2023.

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FTAC: Moscow Suffocates the Palestinians

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Remember who handles the Palestinians.

https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-698736 (“Close ties with Russia stop Palestinians from taking sides in Ukraine war” by Khaled Abu Toameh, The Jerusalem Post, February 26, 2022).

Under the guise of “liberation movements”, Russia’s “caretakers”, like Arafat and Abbas, plunder their own communities. The Palestinians remain both too vulnerable as weak parties before western power and its modern character and consequently too egotistical and proud themselves to believe it. In essence, they have imprisoned themselves in the dogma of “resistance”, and there they keep themselves ideologically, intellectually, financially, and, for the most part, physically trapped and suffocated.

“Bogdanov, Palestinians” serves as a useful starting search string on both the assertion, topic, and theme involving Russia’s power of persuasion in keeping the Palestinians hooked on a liberation theology that has no true foundation in anyone’s reality, not even that of the Palestinian leadership. All Russia has known through the 20th and 21st Centuries has been the horror that comes with the “leadership” of delusional thieves, Stalin to Putin with just a moment of post-Cold War sunlight between.

Related on BackChannels: https://conflict-backchannels.com/2021/07/26/ftac-palestinian-kgb-the-palestinians-abused-and-plundered-by-their-own/ | https://conflict-backchannels.com/2021/02/01/ftac-endemic-russian-anti-semitism-a-note/ | https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/11/28/a-short-page-referencing-works-by-or-associated-with-ion-mihai-pacepa/ | https://conflict-backchannels.com/2017/12/29/ftac-middle-east-conflict-back-to-max-erwin-von-scheubner-richter-and-forward-to-the-plundering-of-palestinian-misery-by-palestinian-leadership-elites/ | https://conflict-backchannels.com/2022/07/19/detecting-post-soviet-russias-black-narrative-of-revenge-for-89-and-91/ .

For seriously curious, independent, and industrious Palestinians, there’s a lot to unpack, a lot of Muscovian agitprop (intellectual infection) to address, and then only repairs to be done in relation to community-wide financial arrangements, security, and transparency.

For political philosophy in relation to the bullshit Moscow has been selling for decades to dictators, extremists, and useful idiots all along, I would suggest there is no justice but rather a better and happier side to history, and that it is more the true history of the assertion of human dignity, freedom, liberation, inclusion, and security. For Palestinians, it would be better to cross over to the happier side of history–and the future–than remain mired in the darkest and deepest pools of confusion, hate, and resentment.

Related Online

Byman, Daniel L. “The 1967 War and the birth of International terrorism.” Brookings, May 30, 2017.

CNN. “Yasser Arafat: Palestinian Authority President.” Special Section: Struggle for Peace, 2000.

Oppenheim, James S. “FTACT: Middle East Conflict: All That Doesn’t Exist.” Conflict BackChannels, July 5, 2017.

Toameh, Khaled Abu. “Close ties with Russia stop Palestinians from taking sides in Ukraine war – analysis: PA President Mahmoud Abbas is still hoping that Russia would play a major role in any future peace process between the Palestinians and Israel.” The Jerusalem Post, February 26, 2022.

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Sudan: Burhan’s Choice

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One more thing. The distance between #Sudan & #Ukraine is no more than one #Tyrant. https://conflict-backchannels.com/2023/04/17/sudanese-civil-war-smuggled-sudanese-gold-funding-russia-in-ukraine/ #GeneralBurhan himself and his soldiers have now the choice between working for themselves only or accepting the challenge of fully defending #Sudan from thieving Moscow.

Twitter, April 20, 2023.

Because our Twittering may involve ordinary souls surrounded by the extraordinary and off-the-hook circumstances of war, I’ve declined to cite the Tweet’s address for months and years to come. Nonetheless, the reader gets the point: the “#Tyrant” refers to Putin who has in General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo a partner in crime equally ruthless and without conscience–and right now, and for Putin’s benefit, he’s ripping off the #SudanesePeople’s gold by the hour.

Previously published on #SudaneseGoldForGuns for primitive brutes: “Sudan’s Civil War: Smuggled Sudanese Gold Funding Russia in Ukraine” (April 17, 2023).

I’ve no idea whether General Burhan has the internal flexibility and fortitude x muscle x political power to shut down Hemedti’s off-the-books and Wagner-defended mining business, a revenue stream grossly circumventing western sanctions, but the step would seem one helpful to Sudan’s future as well as one certain to heighten his stature as a potential popular and eventually legitimate (elected) head of state.


“During our history, the armed forces have supported dictatorial governments, and we want to put an end to that,” al-Burhan, a career soldier during former President Omar al-Bashir’s three-decade rule, said in a speech to soldiers on Sunday.

Al Jazeera. “Sudan’s military leader Burhan backs democratic transition.” March 26, 2023.

Related Online

Al Jazeera. “Who is al-Burhan, Sudan’s military de facto head of state?” April 16, 2023.

Al Jazeera. “Sudan’s military leader Burhan backs democratic transition.” March 26, 2023.

The Economist. “In Sudan and beyond, the trend towards global peace has been reversed.” April 19, 2023.

Wikipedia. “Abdalla Hamdok”.

Wikipedia. “Politics of Sudan”.

Wikipedia. “Sudan coup d’état”.

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Sudan’s Civil War: Smuggled Sudanese Gold Funding Russia in Ukraine

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The facts are just nothing new.

Sudan’s General Dagalo Hemeti has had both long-standing family interests in Sudan’s gold trade, and he has had for some time arrangements with Russian President Vladimir Putin involving Wagner Group oversight of smuggled shipments to Russia that bypass western sanctions and help fund Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

The west’s hunkering down, bleating about democracy, and pleading for some cessation in violence seems old news as well.

So it goes here for the Sudanese People and others watching the struggles of ordinary good people against thieves taking advantage of their innocence to rob them of their birthright, their dignity, and their humanity. In fact, having displaced the dictator and war criminal Omar al-Bashir, the Sudanese have helped into power, in the course of their powerlessness, two dictators in return, both of them former subordinates to al-Bashir. Of the two, Hemeti may have the more powerful relationship with Putin as he flies off-the-books gold to Russia’s dictator and serves as an envoy — for Putin, a diplomatic channel — to Saudi power as well.

Neither Russians nor Sudanese appear to have today a champion whose interests as well as psychology and temperament reside with them. The present three “strongmen”– al-Burhan, Hemeti, and Putin– appear to represent the evil that enriches and aggrandizes itself while lying without conscience to the nation each purports to represent.


Russia’s meddling in Sudan’s gold began in earnest in 2014 after its invasion of Crimea prompted a slew of Western sanctions. Gold shipments proved an effective way of accumulating and transferring wealth, bolstering Russia’s state coffers while sidestepping international financial monitoring systems.

“The downside of gold is that it’s physical and a lot more cumbersome to use than international wire transfers but the flip side is that it’s much harder if not impossible to freeze or seize,” said Daniel McDowell, sanctions specialist and associate professor of Political Science at Syracuse University.

Elbagir, Nima, Barbara Arvanitidis, Tamara Qiblawi, Gianluca Mezzofiore, Mohammed Abo Al Gheit and Darya Tarasova. Video by Alex Platt and Mark Baron Graphics by Sarah-Grace Mankarious, Marco Chacón, Natalie Croker and Henrik Pettersson. “Russia is plundering gold in Sudan to boost Putin’s war effort in Ukraine.” CNN, July 29, 2022.

Cited or Related Online

ADF. “Russia Uses Wagner To Plunder Sudan’s Gold.” December 6, 2022.

Al-Arshani, Sara. “The two generals fighting in Sudan helped Putin plunder the country’s gold to fund Russia’s war in Ukraine.” Insider, April 15, 2023.

Cole, Brendan. “U.S. Ambassador Details Waking Up to ‘Gunfire’ as Fighting Erupts in Sudan.” Newsweek, April 15, 2023.

Copnall, James. “Sudan crisis: Burhan and Hemedti – the two generals at the heart of the conflict.” BBC, April 17, 2023.

Dahir, Abdi Latif. “Who is Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the head of Sudan’s military?” The New York Times, April 25, 2023.

Dabanga. “Hemeti charts official Sudan policy on Russia-Ukraine conflict.” March 2022.

Dabanga. “Russian FA visit: Putin appreciative of Sudan’s support.” February 10, 2023.

Dabanga. “Hemeti manoeuvres to brand war against Sudan army as fight against former regime Islamists.” April 17, 2023.

Elbagir, Nima, Barbara Arvanitidis, Tamara Qiblawi, Gianluca Mezzofiore, Mohammed Abo Al Gheit and Darya Tarasova. Video by Alex Platt and Mark Baron Graphics by Sarah-Grace Mankarious, Marco Chacón, Natalie Croker and Henrik Pettersson. “Russia is plundering gold in Sudan to boost Putin’s war effort in Ukraine.” CNN, July 29, 2022.

Mackinnon, Amy, Robbie Gramer, Jack Detsch. “Russia’s Dreams of a Red Sea Naval Base Are Scuttled–for Now.” Foreign Policy, July 15, 2022.

NOVA News. “Sudan. who is General ‘Hemeti’ Dagalo, the man close to Russia who is behind the attempted coup.” April 16, 2023.

Oppenheim, James S. “Brief Reference: Wagner Group in Africa.” BackChannels, March 28, 2023.

Packer, George. “This Is Not 1943.” The Atlantic, February 3, 2013.

Reuters. “Sudan’s Hemedti seeks deeper Russia ties on Moscow visit.” February 23, 2022.

Walsh, Declan. “‘From Russia With Love’: A Putin Ally Mines Gold and Plays Favorites in Sudan.” The New York Times. June 5, 2022.


Deputy Chairman of Sudan’s Sovereignty Council and commander of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), Gen Mohamed Hamdan ‘Hemeti’ Dagalo, called on the international community to support the dialogue between Russia and Ukraine. This is the official position of the Sovereignty Council, he said in a statement to the Russian news channel Sputnik yesterday.

Yesterday’s statement followed Hemeti’s statements last week during his Moscow visit, where he declared support for Russia’s invasion by saying that Russia had a right to defend itself and its people.

Dabanga. “Hemeti charts official Sudan policy on Russia-Ukraine conflict.” March 2022.

Hemeti knows Russia invaded Ukraine on a cooked-up pretext on which Putin could fluff himself at least in his own head.


A July 2022 CNN investigation exposed deepening ties between Moscow and Sudan’s military leadership, who granted Russia access to the east African country’s gold riches in exchange for military and political support. The relationship began in earnest after Moscow’s 2014 invasion of Crimea, when Russia began to eye African gold riches as an avenue to circumvent a slew of Western sanctions.

The 2022 invasion of Ukraine and the wave of sanctions that followed accelerated Russia’s gold plunder in Sudan and further propped up military rule, increasing Wagner activity in the country.

On the day before Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Dagalo headed a Sudanese delegation in Moscow to “advance relations” between the two countries.

Elbagir, Nima, Gianluca Mezzofiore, Tamara Qiblawai, Barbara Arvantidis. “Exclusive: Evidence emerges of Russia’s Wagner arming militia leader battling Sudan’s army.” CNN, April 21, 2023.

Addendum: Related Online

Dickens, Olewe. “Mohamed ‘Hemeti’ Dagalo: Top Sudan military figure says coup was a mistake.” February 20, 2023.

Elbagir, Nima, Gianluca Mezzofiore, Tamara Qiblawai, Barbara Arvantidis. “Exclusive: Evidence emerges of Russia’s Wagner arming militia leader battling Sudan’s army.” CNN, April 21, 2023.

Lynch, Justin. “In Sudan, U.S. Policies Paved the Way for War.” Foreign Policy, April 20, 2023.

Uddin Rayhan.”Who is Hemeti? The feared former warlord vying for control in Sudan.” Middle East Eye, April 17, 2023.


Posted to YouTube May 8, 2023.

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Tweets Enshrined: Compressed Political Poetry

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I’ve been collecting memes from Twitter, and because they’re built for mass distribution, I have found the developing catalog handy as accompaniment or main point to my own undeniably crafted tweets. My silly goal: getting to “0” characters with a sharp point.


None in history have had opportunities so convenient for “speaking truth to power”:



I’ve harped overtime about Malignant Narcissism, its related process, and the Paranoid Delusional Narcissistic Reflection of Motivation.

Perhaps it’s time to let go.

As regards the tweeting, the furious pace of communications buries all “works” and even short periods of time in history may dissolve their relevance. In the end, one has only assembled a snapshot of a political moment encapsulated in the briefest of exchanges.

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