FTAC – More Moscow Misrules – The Natural Response to Islamic Terrorism – Revived Nationalism

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Moscow — post-Soviet, neo-feudal, neo-imperial — has invested its politics in a medieval view of the world with commensurate criminality and authoritarian state leadership. Some have in eastern Europe referred to Putin as “Putler”. Notably, Moscow will not designate either Hezbollah or Hamas as terrorists organizations to this day. In the Syrian theater, I believe ISIS was incubated deliberately to assault, bribe, and goad the west while also serving now and then for “target practice” using Russia’s latest war fighting technology.

In Turkey, Erdogan refuse to apologize to Putin for the downing of an aggressive Russian jet, but a few weeks ago, he turned around, issued his apology, then conducted a countercoup against a coup I believe he helped draw into action, and, not least, he has reengaged Moscow over a powerful energy project, “Turkish Stream”.

Using terrorism as a tool, and doing so by indirect manipulation — e.g., if one knows what ISIS wants to do, why not let it have its way and take advantage of its program? — Putin, no less than ISIS and others, has pushed the liberal democracies toward authoritarian nationalism, the natural reaction to assault by an alien force. Our problem is that while we have been focused on Islam or “islamist Islam” another monster — sometimes I call it the “Phantom of the Soviet” — has gotten to its feet.


Inspiration for the post:

Posted to YouTube 7/15/2016.

Continuation

I often feel I could do with a roundtable of Islamic and Russian Studies experts, conservative side, of course, to has the data and the conclusions I’ve drawn. Indeed, Putin knows that in the face of perceived (!) assaults from Islam, the traditional patriots of nations must rise to meet that threat. What he hides — or perhaps not so much as I write about it — is the effect that has on global politics as regards reinstalling a medieval and divisive mentality in modern states.

I do not wish to be at war with Muslim who have no desire to be at war with me. Most who are modern have now to demonize and repudiate al-Qaeda, Baghdadi, Hezbollah, Hamas and others as belonging to another and long gone age, and they have to find there way into a future that is not their past.

In place of that barbarism? — all those good RFE/RL values: classical liberalism for individuals; democracies that work; and fairness, responsiveness, and responsibility through all the mechanisms of government.

Putin has kept the architecture of the Soviet in place but changed its meaning (very Orwellian, that), but the end remains what is was for the Party: absolute power.

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Dems? Asses Lead the Masses; GOP? Great White Elephant – A Note on Political Extremism and Moscow in America’s Latest Election Cycle

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Americans have seen the American and Israeli flags burned outside of the Democratic National Convention.

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-07-27/american-flags-burn-outside-dnc-after-anti-hillary-march

http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/72734/sanders-supporters-burn-israeli-flag-at-democratic-convention-watch/#oFPRGB3t4xlg2K4g.97 – 7/27/2016

Americans also have seen a stink raised about potentially high value State Department e-mail allegedly mishandled by candidate Clinton — and they have witnessed Trump spin the same story into an attack perhaps facetiously wishing that Moscow would recover the cache, despite the possibility of the same containing state secrets — and the opposition has picked up on that to throw the mud pie right back at him.

Into that mess comes this comes this header from the “lesser media”: “Trump & Putin.  Yes, It’s Really a Thing” (Talking Points Memo, July 25, 2016).  At the top, editor and writer Josh Marshall remarks, “My weekend post on Russia, Vladimir Putin, and Trump . . . has been one of if not the most read pieces I’ve ever written for TPM.”

Marshall’s observations synch in one respect with BackChannels note on the Trump-Manafort connection.

Related: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/07/27/the-trump-russia-money-question-in-24-steps/

Whatever the truth may be as regards either Clinton or Trump, the domestic atmosphere for elections has been poisoned by the polarized and strident politics enabled and perhaps encouraged in both camps.  For the presence of “Red-Green” — old comrades in the “Solidarity Mode” — see, for example —

http://www.blackforpalestine.com/

I post the URL because I like its unmistakable Red-Green branding in relation to that movement within the Democratic Party that has been developing for many years, and this year appears as part of a hate-America-first crowd that has been burning flags.

As regards the GOP, it’s doubtful that Trump would take office as what this blog refers to as a “New Nationalist” (in the manner of Orban in Hungary and Erdogan in Turkey).  However, with the employment of Paul Manafort and an uncertain relationship with Putin, the idea that a Trump Administration might react to domestic and foreign affairs with an authoritarian hand also appears to worry Americans.

Add in the leading foreign affairs element: Putin’s efforts to destabilize NATO would seem to be advancing.

Just one breathtaking event may tell of change on that front: Putin has in recent weeks not only elicited an apology from Turkey’s President Erdogan in relation to a downed Russian jet, an event for which Erdogan refused apology back in November (see also on YouTube, “Erdogan: We won’t apologize for downing a Russian plane”– 11/26/2015), but has witnessed through the vehicle of “Coup and Countercoup” the Turkish state practically flipped into a first stage of fascism — mass arrests and firings, and there’s been this apparent mob attack on a “Gulen bookstore in Malatya”:

Imagine Moscow’s delight at what comes next in the process: “Turkey ready to resume pipeline project with Russia.”  Associated Press, Business Insider, July 26, 2016.

BackChannels has often stated in relation to dictatorships:  “Different Talks — Same Walk”.

Again, in different words, the Democratic Party has been infiltrated or swelled by the presence of “fascists on the left”; the GOP frontrunner has been smeared as authoritarian and nationalist in predisposition; and NATO now hosts two states — Hungary and Turkey — in which the political style of each president has departed from standards shepherding the classically liberal values of  other open and democratic societies.

Call it “Syndicate Red Brown Green” or Moscow’s efforts to play “ends against the middle”, the states of affairs for Americans in the middle — on both domestic and foreign affairs fronts — is looking rough.

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Is Moscow Building a Greater Medieval Theater of War?

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Putin’s Feudal Revanche

KGB/FSB
Vertical of Power
Oligarchs
State Validated Russian Orthodox Church

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Assad’s Incubation of ISIL

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ISIL Attack in Rouen


For each element but that pertaining to the Russian Orthodox Church and the last, which is breaking news today, in the above statement, BackChannels has developed material or reference, e.g., the bibliography in the “Russian Section” of the library, an analysis of how ISIS defends Assad in the shameful medieval display and theater that has been running for many years as “Assad vs The Terrorists” — it’s really Putin, Assad, Khamenei, (and Baghdadi) vs The Open Democracies of the World.

This blog is not the media spotlight, which today is going to light up the undeniably “Islamic terrorist” attack in Rouen, which may promote greater division between the Catholic and Muslim communities of France unless the Muslim community intercedes to opposite effect.  Instead, BackChannels noodles around in the post-Cold War, post-Soviet  neo-feudal and neo-imperial revanche engineered by Putin.

For the vast public dependent on western mass media for political information, the Cold War is ancient history.

The Soviet dissolved in bankruptcy and chaos on December 26, 1991, and that was the end of total incompatibility between the communist and capitalist systems.

Not quite.

From BackChannels’ perspective, Putin has neatly transitioned the political and social architecture developed during the Soviet Era into something a little different and conveniently kleptocratic but also effective in returning central governance to Russia.  The term of art applied on this blog — and used as a blog category — has been “21st Century Neo-Feudalism” and that applies to Moscow’s renewed validation of political absolute power and the encouragement of despotism and extremism — Far Left and Far Right — worldwide.

While the public reads about Moscow’s fighting Chechnya’s rebels or running sorties against ISIS (or noncombatants in marketplaces), Moscow in fact has hosted PFLP representatives (an easy lookup, “Moscow, PFLP”) and refused to designate either Hezbollah or Hamas as terrorist organizations.

Fact check me, please, and forget about the “Reset”.

There was none.

Moscow doesn’t play from one side of the chessboard: it may believe it owns the chessboard, i.e., the control of politics in their totality wherever its leverage and influence may reach.

So ISIL, incubated to bribe and goad The West — and to serve as field test targets for Moscow’s most advanced weapons systems — has launched a simple attack on a medieval western target, a Catholic church in France, and Moscow looks on, perhaps knowing that without its guidance, the popular challenge to Assad’s rule would have turned into an ordinary “Arab Spring” demotion of absolute authority.  Instead of that yawner: a promotion of global criminal enterprise using ISIL (and ISIL appears blissfully unaware of how it has been manipulated into existence) to bite into otherwise peaceful and prosperous free and far more predominantly lawful states.

Excerpts and Fast Reference

That Putin would need a spiritual and physical retreat from the pressures of Moscow at a time like this is not surprising. While Russia has withstood the pressures of economic sanctions and seemingly limitless information warfare while fighting proxy wars in Ukraine and Syria, the cracks in society are starting to show.

Real hardships for working and middle class Russians due to the general global economic crisis, the collapse in trade with Europe and oil price slump are increasingly evident. However, a spirit of resistance to globalism, to the degradation and nihilism post-Western societies offer the world is also evident, with a growing number of Russians participating in the life of the Orthodox Church and new temples going up all over Moscow and other major cities.

http://www.roguemoney.net/stories/2016/5/27/putin-and-patriarch-kirill-of-moscow-at-mt-athos – 5/28/2016


The patriarch recalled that Athos’ hopes for a calm and peaceful life used to be connected to Russia and the people of Russia, but all ties were severed after the 1917 revolution and only some of the brethren of the Russian St. Panteleimon’s Monastery eventually survived.

“It was all like a ghost, some of the buildings were burned and some were desolate,” the patriarch said about his first visit to Athos.

http://rbth.com/news/2016/05/29/patriarch-kirill-thanks-putin-for-supporting-athos-monastery_598311 – 5/29/2016

Analysts say the Kremlin would welcome a Trump win because the billionaire U.S. businessman has repeatedly praised Putin, spoken of wanting to get along with Russia, and has said he would consider an alliance with Moscow against Islamic State.

http://www.aol.com/article/2016/07/26/kremlin-hack-democratic-party-emails-dnc/21439043/ – 7/26/2016  Candidate Trump has no idea of the extent to which the Islamic State has been Moscow’s project through Assad’s early election to combat other challengers to his regime while easing off the al-Qaeda type to allow ISIS to consolidate and grow as a criminal organization.

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FTAC – On Putin & Associates’ Search for Medieval Absolute Power

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Moscow – Putin | Putin, Assad, Khamenei | Putin, Orban | Putin, Erdogan (never mind the superficial enmity and differences in “talk”) — supports political absolutism in relation to the malignant narcissism evident in the personalities of related leaders (like Orban, like Erdogan). For this reason, Putin has encourage both Far Left and Far Right political organizations and personalities; it is why his government has hosted PFLP (2014) and continues to refuse to condemn Hezbollah and Hamas. The form of power wanted by dictators — different talks: same walk — is the power to visit suffering on others with impunity. On the cheerful side of that 🙂 — the acquisition of unlimited narcissistic supply. Whatever the west’s own issues may be with business, corruption, and crime, the power-distributing and power-checking political systems threaten the “malignant narcissist” — the autocrat, the absolutist — and that’s really what their battles are about. The power of the special sovereign / great leader has its place in Russian history but is by no means confined to Russia. In fact, I think feudal despotism more the way of the world, even if one hopes not its only future, than checked-and-distributed political power, and that at least two NATO states feature illiberal autocrats as heads of state — Hungary and Turkey — tells what the argument is really about: i.e., Medieval Absolute Power vs Modern Checked and Distributed Power.


The paragraphs may grow shorter as I retype and recast BackChannels’ main themes.

Why do dictators do what they do?

Ah, pride — but pride that compensates and covers psychic injury.  Terms of art may include the following:

Narcissistic mortification

Malignant and Reparative Narcissism — I would refer to this as “narcissistic pathing” or channeling.

Narcissistic Supply — that approving roar of the crowd.

Unlimited Narcissistic Supply — Ah, glorious, unless you have found yourself on the Great Leader’s wrong side, i.e., somewhere in the opposition.

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Also in Media: “MH370 was likely a mass murder-suicide by pilot” | New York Post

Each data point records something about the simulated flight, including altitude, speed, location and direction. The deleted records showed that the captain’s simulated flight departed from Kuala Lumpur, veered over the Southern Indian Ocean, and then kept going to the point where fuel would be exhausted over an empty stretch of sea.Search officials believe Flight 370 did exactly that, veering off course and then ceasing communications before plummeting into the water without a trace.

Read the whole story: MH370 was likely a mass murder-suicide by pilot | New York Post – 7/22/2016.

Also in Media: Erdogan’s Countercoup

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Estimated number of “coup plotters” killed: 24.

Civil service firings and suspensions: 50,000.

Detained: 9,000

In BackChannels’ opinion, the coup — the real one — has been successful.

At the end of an interview (published July 15) with Slate contributor Isaac Chotiner, Jenny White, a professor at Stockholm University’s Institute for Turkish Studies, notes, “In previous coups the army took over because they thought institutions were not working properly or being populated with Islamists. But the institutions were still there. This time, the institutions themselves have been destroyed.”

Here follow a passel of factual and more recent reporting on the countercoup as President Erdogan consolidates his Putinesque domination (“different talks — same walk”) of Turkish politics.

BBC.  “Turkey coup attempt: Crackdown toll passes 50,000.”  July 20, 2016:

Before the vote, Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said that once emergency measures are invoked, the country would suspend its participation in the European Convention of Human Rights. He said the move was justified under a convention article allowing for such a suspension in times of emergency.

CBS/AP.  “More arrests as Turkish leader tightens the noose.”  July 21, 2016:

The detentions reported by Anadolu news agency come hours after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared a three-month state of emergency that is expected to expand the crackdown.

Already, nearly 10,000 people have been arrested while hundreds of schools have been closed. And nearly 60,000 civil service employees have been dismissed from their posts since the failed coup Friday.

Newton, Jennifer.  “Now Turkey suspects 15,000 TEACHERS over ties to Fethullah Gulen as Erdogan demands US hand the cleric over.”  Daily Mail, July 19, 2016.

Pamuk, Humeyra, and Ece Toksabay.  “Turkey says no return to past repression despite state of emergency.”  Reuters, July 21, 2016: “Governments can impose curfews and declare certain public and private areas off limits, and it can ban or restrict meetings, gatherings and rallies.”  Add to the elimination of freedom of assembly the possibility of warrantless searches and extralegal — or capriciously approved — murder, torture, and press censorship.

RFE/RL.  “More Arrests In Turkey As State Of Emergency Takes Effect.”  July 21, 2016:

Nearly one-third of Turkey’s roughly 360 serving generals have been detained. The Defense Ministry is investigating all military judges and prosecutors and has suspended 262 of them, broadcaster NTV reported, while 900 police officers in Ankara were also suspended on July 20.

Turkey’s education system has been hit particularly hard during the ongoing crackdown. The Education Ministry on July 20 added more than 6,500 new names to the list of 15,200 school employees suspended, state media reported.

Sarlyuce, Isll, Angela Dewan.  “Turkey coup: What does the state of emergency mean for democracy?”  CNN, July 21, 2016.

Withnall, Adam.  “Turkey suspends European Convention on Human Rights in wake of coup.”  Independent, July 21, 2016.

Earlier, from the coup period

Chotiner, Isaac.  “How Turkey Came to This:  The attempted military coup isn’t the country’s first.  but this time is different.”  Slate, July 15, 2016:

They think of it as recalibrating democracy, but they can’t get rid of pandering to religion because people are conservative. And Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) managed to pull that off to such an extent that they now have half the population, in part because that part of the population has been constantly pushed back and disrespected.

Koplow, Michael J.  “The Coup Attempt Will Leave Him Stronger.”  Foreign Affairs, July 18, 2016:

The 1997 “postmodern” coup that deposed Erdogan’s political mentor, Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan, and led to Erdogan’s subsequent imprisonment and suspension from politics for religious incitement only reinforced the notion among non-elite Turks that the old secular establishment, of which the army was the cornerstone, would never fully cede power.

It was only when Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) co-founder Abdullah Gül won their 2007 stare-down with the military over Gül’s candidacy for president (which the army opposed because Gül’s wife wore a headscarf), that Erdogan seemed to gain the upper hand and be in position to alter the balance of power with the army for good.

Pipes, Daniel.  “Why I Rooted for the Turkish Coup Attempt”.  Middle East Forum, July 18, 2016.

Before the “Coup”

The Economist.  “Erdogan and his generals: The once all-powerful Turkish armed forces are cowed, if not quite impotent.” February 2, 2013.

After the Coup — Rapidly Shared Links

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36868230 – Turkey coup attempt: Detentions ‘tip of the iceberg’ – 7/22/2016

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2016/07/turkey-crackdown-by-the-numbers-statistics-on-brutal-backlash-after-failed-coup/ – 7/26/2016

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-turkey-security-idUSKCN1061DK – 7/26/2016:

The religious affairs directorate removed another 620 staff including preachers and instructors in the Koran on Tuesday, bringing to more than 1,100 the number of people it has purged since the July 15 coup attempt.

http://www.voanews.com/content/gulen-accuses-edrogan-of-slow-motion-coup-in-turkey/3435542.html – 7/26/2016:

“My philosophy, inclusive and pluralist Islam dedicated to serve to human beings from every faith is antithetical to armed rebellion,” wrote the 75-year-old cleric, a former Erdogan ally who has been living in self-imposed exile in the eastern U.S. state of Pennsylvania since 1999.

http://www.npr.org/2016/07/27/487577923/despite-turkeys-crackdown-some-critics-are-still-speaking-out – 7/27/2017:

Earlier this year some 2,000 academics signed a petition calling for an end to the conflict with Kurdish militants in Turkey’s southeast. Dozens of signatories were sacked and many were investigated for spreading what the government called terrorist propaganda.

Odman says in a militarized society, no one is safe from eruptions of violence.

http://www.voanews.com/content/turkey-issues-arrest-warrants-for-dozens-more-journalists/3436603.html – 7/27/2016

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-turkey-security-journalists-idUSKCN1070NO – 7/28/2016 – “Turkey dismisses military, shuts media outlets as crackdown deepens.”

Turkey on Wednesday deepened a crackdown on suspected followers of a U.S.-based cleric it blames for a failed coup, dismissing nearly 1,700 military personnel and shutting 131 media outlets, moves that may spark more concern among its Western allies.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37003819 – “Turkey coup attempt: Istanbul rally against plot” – 8/7/2016.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37009931 – “Turkey’s Erdogan unnerves West with Putin visit.” – 8/9/2016.

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FTAC – “Occupation”? The “Middle East Conflict”, Preoccupation and the Power of Old Lies

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Occupied by whom and what?

Regarding the origins of the PLO: https://conflict-backchannels.com/…/quote-manipulation…/

Hamas – Muslim Brotherhood (way out of step with Wasatia Moderation and Reconciliation) – and wealthy: Haniyeh and Mashaal have developed reputations as billionaires.

The “camps” of Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, and Egypt: Arab-created and managed.

For partial isolation in geopolitical space, the refugees of 1948 may become an ethnolinguistic cohort — a “People” — by (x) beliefs x calendar x customs x language (!) x rituals — but in clinical overview, the same have been abused by Arab powers and by Moscow.

In the efforts of the Soviet to establish and sustain power in the middle east, endemic Russian anti-Semitism became a message promoted by the same to encourage an Arab bond.

https://conflict-backchannels.com/…/ftac-tip-to-the…/

The Soviet Union self-dissolved almost 25 years ago, but the character of its political existence did not leave Russia, and continued disinformation plus promotion or tolerance for terrorism (Moscow has in recent years hosted PFLP and refuses to this day to designate Hezbollah or Hamas as terrorist organizations) have remained a part of Putin’s “neo-imperial” Russia.

The common bond and cause for a still reckless mythology — Jew hate and discomfort in general with “the west” — the generally higher-integrity, democratic, humanist, and open societies.

Fatah and Hamas have their “track records” as governments. Why they serve as the interlocutors of the Palestinians – now isolated and subject to the same post-Soviet and Muslim Brotherhood forces — should be a difficult question to answer in retrospect.


The twin basis for the middle east conflict: the “Zionists” stole their property from “The Palestinians” and Israel “occupies” the land.

The Ottoman Land Code of 1858 “brought about the appropriation by the influential and rich families of Beirut, Damascus, and to a lesser extent Jerusalem and Jaffa and other sub-district capitals, of vast tracts of land in Syria and Palestine and their registration in the name of these families in the land registers”.[8] Many of the fellahin did not understand the importance of the registers and therefore the wealthy families took advantage of this. Jewish buyers who were looking for large tracts of land found it favorable to purchase from the wealthy owners. As well many small farmers became in debt to rich families which led to the transfer of land to the new owners and then eventually to the Jewish buyers.

In 1918, after the British conquest of Palestine, the military administration closed the Land Register and prohibited all sale of land. The Register was reopened in 1920, but to prevent speculation and insure a livelihood for the fellahin, an edict was issued forbidding the sale of more than 300 dunams of land or the sale of land valued at more than 3000 Palestine pounds without the approval of the High Commissioner.[9]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_land_purchase_in_Palestine – as viewed 7/21/2016

There’s more to the stories of indigenous Jewry in Palestine, the capitalization of agriculture in Palestine, and the purchasing – not stealing – from Arab leaseholders of serious tracts of property in Palestine. To overlook that part of history, one must lie about how capital and labor developed on the land and peacefully and productively changed its demographics, both Jewish and Arab.

As regards “The Occupation”, the comment tells the truth about the KGB, Arafat, and the PLO; about the role played by the famously anti-Semitic Soviet in the “winning” of the Arab world (for a short while); and about Hamas and its most famous billionaires.

When it comes to Arab intransigence over the “middle east conflict” (never mind what’s going on in Syria and Iraq – the term obsessively refers to the conflict forced on Israel), one must suppose some fathers would rather lie to their children — and have their children lie as well — than disappoint them.

Addendum – Principal or Transactional Regard? – Choose Principal – Regard Will Come of That

Although the awesome conversation on the middle east conflict strives for “balance” Israeli and Palestinian interest, the actions of the old KGB and its approach to the manipulation of information plus, perhaps, the Arab leadership’s own language behavior across time have left the Arab world and the Palestinians arguing through the invention of multiple alternative narratives, all of which devolve to the delegitimizing of the presence of the Hebrews in the Land of the Hebrews.  Basically, if one does not recognize the “Palestinian People”, why should the same recognize the “Jewish People”?  The question begs for the “I’m okay – you’re okay” hug that it cannot and must not receive, the difference between the effects of “magical thinking” and empiricism and reason being what it is: one leads “the masses” in an abyss; the other keeps individuals en masse from it.

Also from the awesome conversation —

None contest links to the land by Arabs resident on it at the time of Israel’s chartering.

None contest the status of the same as refugees of war caught between armies, as none contest the role of the Arab armies as intending the annihilation of the Jews on the land, and thereby placing Jewish militia in the historic defensive position.

None contest the Jews as having for all functional intents militarily and politically secured _their_ state in 1948.

What happened to the proposed Arab state for the areas that are today “contested” — but not so much: Gaza, I’ve heard, has been “Judenrein” since 2005.

A “People” can be many things these days. After all, who are the “American People”? 🙂

Still, one might ask: how do the Palestinian People differ from the Arab People?

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Also in Media: “Why We’re Post-Fact” | Peter Pomerantsev | Granta Magazine

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As his army blatantly annexed Crimea, Vladimir Putin went on TV and, with a smirk, told the world there were no Russian soldiers in Ukraine. He wasn’t lying so much as saying the truth doesn’t matter. And when Donald Trump makes up facts on a whim, claims that he saw thousands of Muslims in New Jersey cheering the Twin Towers coming down, or that the Mexican government purposefully sends ‘bad’ immigrants to the US, when fact-checking agencies rate 78% of his statements untrue but he still becomes a US Presidential candidate – then it appears that facts no longer matter much in the land of the free. When the Brexit campaign announces ‘Let’s give our NHS the £350 million the EU takes every week’ and, on winning the referendum, the claim is shrugged off as a ‘mistake’ by one Brexit leader while another explains it as ‘an aspiration’, then it’s clear we are living in a ‘post-fact’ or ‘post-truth’ world. Not merely a world where politicians and media lie – they have always lied – but one where they don’t care whether they tell the truth or not.

How did we get here?

Read more by Peter Pomerantsev in Granta (July 20, 2016) : Why We’re Post-Fact | Peter Pomerantsev | Granta Magazine