Tag Archives: 21st Century Neo-Feudalism

FTAC – Trump’s Choice and Moscow

08 Thursday Dec 2016

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, North America, United States of America

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , ,

1. http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/fbi-making-inquiry-ex-trump-campaign-manager-s-foreign-ties-n675881 – 11/1/2016.

2. http://uawire.org/news/media-manafort-s-deputy-was-linked-to-russian-intelligence – 9/8/2016.

3. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/09/08/meet-the-man-who-is-spinning-for-donald-trump-in-russia.html – 8/22/2016.

Alex Jones? “Active Measures” – confusion, disinformation, information warfare, manipulation — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_measures

Track the themes – 1, 2, and 3 – and have your say as I’ve had mine.

Intervening and other variables:

— President Elect Trump may be getting the education through briefings that he seems not to have had when standing before the public as Candidate Trump.

–President Elect Trump has not “stepped off” as President in either action or words.

IF in his foreign affairs he gives NATO full support and continues blocking neo-imperial Moscow at Crimea and continues the struggle with Syria, good, but if he caves to his authoritarian narcissism in the manner of Erdogan and Orban, we may never recover our meaning or stature — and Moscow will happily continue spreading its absolutism and the chaos and destruction it pushes ahead of itself.

Not only America but the free world — EU, NATO, the “democratic open societies of the west” and other democratic societies worldwide — have worries with President Elect Trump.

Those who have suffered beyond imagination in Syria in relation to Bashar al-Assad’s shaping of that war into “Assad vs The Terrorists” exist today inside a purgatory special to totalitarian Hell, a place between Assad’s sadism matched by Moscow’s own and its military presence, and, sigh, “The Terrorists”, whom Assad helped developed (go ahead and click and look over the points and references made the earlier BackChannels post).

Ukraine, which “leaned west” in its revolt against Viktor  Yanukovych and his manner of little black book keeping, works with a different problem, i.e., Moscow’s occupation of Crimea, but it has the same worry: what does America mean today?  What does and what will “Washington” represent in the spectrum of politics between “political absolutism” — autocracy, fascism, kleptocracy, totalitarianism — and a responsible and responsive democratic governance possessed of integrity?

Reference

BackChannels.  “How Assad Helped Develop ISIL”.  November 12, 2016.

BackChannels.  “Syria — “Assad vs The Terrorists”: How ISIS Defends Assad.”  October 2, 2015.

Dilanian, Robert Windrem, William M. Arkin, and Tom Winter.  “FBI making Inquiry Into Ex-Trump Campaign Manager’s Foreign Ties.”  NBC News, November 1, 2016.

Mak, Tim and Katie Zavadski.  “Meet the Man Who is Spinning for Donald Trump in Russia.”  The Daily Beast, September 8, 2016.

UA Wire.  “Media: Manafort’s deputy was linked to Russian intelligence.”  August 22, 2016.

–33–

Bana Alabed – One Video – One Tweet

02 Friday Dec 2016

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

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , ,

Posted to YouTube by TRT World, November 28, 2016.

Posted 19 hours ago.

Excerpted from Human Rights Watch Report, “Russia/Syria: War Crimes in Month of Bombing Aleppo – UN General Assembly Should Organize Emergency Special Session” December 1, 2016:

(New York) – The Russian–Syrian coalition committed war crimes during a month-long aerial bombing campaign of opposition-controlled territory in Aleppo in September and October 2016.

Ruins of a residential house that was struck in an aerial attack, killing at least 24 civilians, on September 27, 2016.
EXPAND

Ruins of a residential house that was struck in an aerial attack, killing at least 24 civilians, on September 27, 2016. © 2016 Syria Civil Defense

The Violations Documentation Center, a Syrian civil monitoring organization, documented that the bombing campaign killed more than 440 civilians, including more than 90 children. Airstrikes often appeared to be recklessly indiscriminate, deliberately targeted at least one medical facility, and included the use of indiscriminate weaponssuch as cluster munitions and incendiary weapons. Satellite imagery that Human Rights Watch analyzed shows more than 950 new distinct impact sites consistent with the detonation of large high explosive bombs across the area during the month.

Excerpt from “The One Chart That Russia’s Military Should Be Very Afraid Of” –  The National Interest, November 26, 2016, on Russia’s economic performance and related defense sales:

The good news for Moscow is that Russian operations in Syria have provided effective advertising for Russian military hardware. Back in March, Vladimir Putin boasted that Russian arms sales in 2015 had exceeded US$14 billion, and prospective foreign orders had reached US$56 billion. (As a caution, SIPRI’s arms transfer database, which measures the value of delivered goods, lists a 2015 exports figure of less than US$10 billion).

Everyday online, BackChannels swims through a kaleidoscopic assortment of news-related e-mails, Facebook posts, tweets, reports, articles, and opinions — actually, the day begins with reading out of an old fashioned hardcover book (the latest – an autobiography by Stanislav Lunev) — and over time, the particles of reality sort themselves into sensibility.

The sensibility here today: Assad incubated ISIL; Assad, unable to blackmail or goad the west through “Assad vs The Terrorists“, has long chosen to follow his own dictate: “Assad, Or We Burn It“;  Putin, intent on both a KGB and Imperial Era revanche — the best of both his worlds, perhaps — has with Assad and Khamenei pursued that path that would defend and display “medieval  (and totalitarian) political absolutism” and reintroduce the democratic open societies to barbarism while destabilizing the same through the encouragement of extremist (Far Right and Far Left) political discord.

On the receiving end of that murderous ambition: a mother and her seven-year-old daughter using Twitter to reach out to the world.

Additional Fast Links

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2015/10/02/syria-assad-vs-the-terrorists-how-isis-defends-assad/ – 10/2/2015.

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/09/14/isil-groomed-for-a-role-in-assad-vs-the-terrorists/

Update – December 4, 2016

https://twitter.com/WithinSyriaBlog/status/805482152016117760

BackChannels often returns to check on its posts to see if new information has changed the message.  In this instance, the “AlabedBana” account appears to have been suspended.  Hypotheses: al-Assad’s Syrian State closed the account; Bana Alabed and her mother are gone; Twitter, for security, suspended the account.  Off the field and unable to either investigate or get an honest answer from Damascus — Moscow, Damascus, and Tehran speak with twisted tongues at best — there are no answer, only a melancholy and blank mystery in the Twitterverse.

–33–

Arson as Terror – Haifa: Known – Gatlinburg, Tennessee – Under Investigation

30 Wednesday Nov 2016

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

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Update – December 1, 2016

God may have given man imagination for fun —  and we may have given ourselves empiricism to outwit imagination and defend ourselves from our own God-given errors.

Accused of setting the Gatlinburg fires, or at least two of them: Keith Eugene Mann, 49, of Franklin, North Carolina.

http://www.ky3.com/content/news/Death-toll-climbs-to-7-for-wildfires-in-Tennessee-403858096.html – 11/30/2016

https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdnc/pr/franklin-nc-man-arrested-federal-arson-charge – 11/30/2016.

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/crime/article118033648.html – 11/30/2016.

Sorry, Russia; sorry, Mr. Putin — on this one, BackChannels may have been wrong . . . but this is how it may go with “hybrid warfare” and the keeping of kleptocratic fellow travelers like that Ayatollah Khamenei.  With the appearance of a mysterious and large fire in an iconic American setting, one might well be found a little bit . . . touchy.

However, the Charlotte Observer piece wraps up with this note:

Officials have said some of the wildfires in the western part of the state are believed to be the work of arsonists. Gov. Pat McCrory has posted rewards up to $10,000 for information leading to the arrest of arsonists.

This note will have to be about national security and possibility in light of the “Phantoms of the Cold War” (e.g., Putin’s revival of the KGB, Russia’s behavior in Syria, and the invasion and, for the time being, annexation of Crimea) and the fact that “active measures”, “hybrid warfare”, the long Soviet relationship with terrorism and Moscow’s present inability to condemn Hamas as a terrorist organizations are real things.

Investigators (and armchair adventurers): leave no stone unturned.

Background — It Makes for Good Fiction, But It May Have Applied

Moscow Apartment Bombings

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

Two Major Fires

Haifa, Israel

Amid warnings from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel will consider arson an act of terrorism, Israeli police have arrested at least 13 people suspected of starting a series of wildfires that have burned around the country for four days . . . .

There is video evidence that the Haifa fire was an act of arson, a spokesman for the Haifa Fire Department told Israel’s Channel 2 Friday.

A blaze Thursday in Zichron Ya’acov, about 20 miles south of Haifa, also was caused by arsonists, Minister of Public Security Gilad Erdan said Thursday.

http://www.wnd.com/2016/11/arrests-after-arson-terrorism-in-israel/#4qgbbg4LwUuFTwIy.99

Gatlinburg, Tennessee, USA

gat-prkhqtwcrpav

Google Maps, November 30, 2016.

Officials initially reported additional fire activity near the Park Headquarters area, as well as a spot fire between Elkmont and Newfound Gap Road off of the Sugarland Mountain Trail approximately 1 mile south of the Husky Gap Trail intersection.

http://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/us/wildfires-lead-to-evacuation-of-gatlinburg/ar-AAkSBHh – 11/29/2016.

The fire that sparked the dozen other blazes was “human-caused,” National Park Service spokeswoman Dana Soehn said, without elaborating.

The blaze is under investigation.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/29/us/gatlinburg-fires/ – 11/30/2016.

Manipulation — “gaslighting” – has long been associated with “malignant narcissism“.

In  the original sense of the word, the narcissist would rearrange his intended victim’s surroundings without the victim’s knowledge, an effort made to drive the same into madness.

For the purposes of political psychology, BackChannels applies the term to the creation of an entire “theater of the real”, i.e., and as with the “Moscow Apartment Bombings” (cited for background at the top of this post), the intent is to produce an event and spectacle designed to promote a political outcome favorable to the actor.

A near example would be that of the fireman-arsonist who sets the fire, so that he may later show up and share in the heroic glory of putting it out.

The disconnections between Moscow, the encouragement of the terrorism produced by others (or Moscow would have refused to meet with PFLP – Nov. 2014) and would have long ago designated Hamas a terrorist organizations — it has so far refused to take that step), may make the discovery of empirical linkage all but impossible — but revisit the “Moscow Apartment Bombings” and then have a look at the almost under-the-radar firebombings of Haifa and, potentially, the fires burning in the mountains in the vicinity of Gatlinburg, Tennessee, one of America’s true heartland locations, Dollywood and all.

Stockholm, Sweden

The Scandinavian country has been plagued with arsonist thugs setting vehicles alight, with hundreds of cars burning out since 2015.

In 2016 alone, more than 70 cars have been destroyed as police struggle to combat the increasing violence and criminal activity in the famously liberal country.

The latest video shows three cars in Hallunda in southern Stockholm engulfed by flames as firefighters battle to put out the blaze.

http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/738151/Sweden-Stockholm-car-fire-epidemic-rage-no-go-zone – 11/30/2016.

Is the hand of Moscow behind “Islamic Terrorism” in the United States?

Is there a “meta”connection between fires set in Haifa, Gatlinburg, and Stockholm?

BackChannels invites readers to explore its references and sources and weigh for themselves the depth of the presence of the “Phantoms of the Cold War”, if any, in the recent spate of arson with the public as target.

Additional Reference

BackChannels.  “FTAC — ‘How ISIL Developed'”.  November 12, 2016.

BackChannels.  “It’s Not Islam — It’s Moscow.”  July 15, 2016.

Batchelor, Tom.  “Russian spies are influencing major EU decisions.”  Express UK, January 18, 2016.

Collinson, Stephen.  “Why the alleged Russian spy ring matters.”  CNN Politics, January 28, 2015.

McGreal, Chris.  “How Russian spies infiltrated suburban America.”  The Guardian, June 29, 2010.

Orton, Kyle.  “How Russia Manipulates Islamic Terrorism.”  The Syrian Intifada, September 8, 2015.

Staff.  “One-third of about 90 fires caused by arson, police estimate.”  The Times of Israel, November 27, 2016.

Wikipedia.  “Active Measures”.

Wikipedia.  “Illegals Program” (Russian Agents).

Wikipedia.  “Soviet espionage in the United States”.

Wikipedia.  “Spetsnaz” (Russian Sabateur and Special Forces).

Wikipedia.  “Terrorism and the Soviet Union”.

Related News – Updated

http://www.wbir.com/news/local/gatlinburg-officials-a-fire-for-the-history-books/357912872 – 11/30/2016/1347 (time is time first posted for the cited URL).

http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2016/11/what_caused_the_gatlinburg_wil.html – last updated 12/1/2016.

http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2016/12/gatlinburg_fire_update_death_t.html – last updated 12/2/2016.

http://heavy.com/news/2016/11/gatlinburg-tennessee-fire-cause-arson-arrest-arrests-terrorism-isis-al-qaeda-terrorist-israel-fires-ember-bomb-suspect-forest-jihad/ – 11/30/2016.

–33–

Lunev’s 1998 Statement – Moscow and the Mob

27 Sunday Nov 2016

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Books, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Russia, transnational crime

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, ,

I have no fear of death now whether it comes from cancer or from a paid Russian assassin.  but I do feel I have an obligation to use my experience to warn America of the dirty tricks that can be played against her.  And if I have one message for my adopted country, it is this: the Cold War is not over; the new cold war is between the Russian mafia and the United States; and in this new cold war, the Russian mafia has every tool, every weapon, every intelligence asset at its disposal that the old Soviet Union had.  America is facing a nation led by gangsters — gangsters who have nuclear weapons . . . .

Lunev, Stanislav and Ira Winkler.  Through the Eyes of the Enemy:  Russia’s highest ranking military defector reveals why Russia is more dangerous than ever.  Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, Inc., 1998.

” . . . and some of those weapons are actually on American soil, as I will explain” finished the ellipses left in the quotation block.

One hesitates when typing such a sentence.

At minimum, the import calls for digression.

Was Lunev’s 1999 book disinforming as regards the “suitcase bomb” question?

Or has the matter been suppressed?

Or has the asserton been just too large and scary a possibility to hang on for long without donning the tinfoil hat?

That too is a possibility as searches for a related 60 Minutes report — “The Perfect Terrorist Weapon” — produces reference online, but to get at the episode appears to involve hitting one of dozens of iffy “torrent” type (illicit share site) web addresses.

BackChannels will plead with both the legal and faint of heart on that potentially disastrous next step — and not take it.

So one may toss Lunev’s page-turning statement into the “don’t know /won’t know” bin, at least, so BackChannels and its readers may hope, for a good long time.

Less questionable: the Russian state as a “mafia state” and international mafia enterprise:

Investigators in Spain have been at the vanguard of the fight against Russian organized crime, warning fellow NATO members for years of the dangers posed by what they call state-sanctioned syndicates, an issue that’s become more acute since the conflict in Ukraine rekindled Cold War distrust.

After a briefing by Grinda, one of the prosecutors, in Madrid in 2010, U.S. officials concluded that Putin runs a “virtual mafia” state where the activities of criminal networks are indistinguishable from those of the government, according to a classified cable from the U.S. embassy in the Spanish capital that was published by WikiLeaks.

Russian security services control criminal groups and use them to do things the government “cannot acceptably do,” Grinda was cited as telling U.S. officials at the time.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-29/putin-allies-aided-russian-mafia-in-spain-prosecutors-say – 6/29/2016.

At the base of this post is a 14-minute trailer for a 91-minute documentary (subtitled) about Russian mafia — “Thieves by Law (Ganavim Ba Hok).”

Additional Reference

CNN.  “Former Russian spy Col. Stanislav Lunev’s reaction to FBI agent’s arrest for spying.”  February 20, 2001.

Committee on National Security, Military Research and Development Subcommittee, House of Representatives.  “OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. CURT WELDON, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM PENNSYLVANIA, CHAIRMAN, MILITARY RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT SUBCOMMITTEE”.  Inquiry into Moscow’s potential deployment of “man-portable nuclear weapons”.  August 4, 1998.

Drudge Report Archives.  “Lebed: 100 Nukes Missing in Russia.”  Norris Carden’s e-mail collection of Drudge’s Special Reports. September 5, 1997.

Meyer, Josh.  “Ex-Soviet Spy Testifies on Hidden Weapons.”  Los Angeles Times, January 25, 2000.

National Terror Alert.  “Suitcase Nukes”.

Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI).  “The Perfect Terrorist Weapon.”  Comment on 60 Minutes program aired September 7, 1997.

Yablokov, Alexei.  “Comments on Russia’s Atomic Suitcase Bombs.”  Frontline, PBS, n.d.

PDF Format

Finckenauer, James O. and Yuri A. Voronin.  “The Threat of Russian Organized Crime.”  Issues in International Crime, NCJ, 2001.

Russia as Mafia State – Fast Links

In time, Louie and Z left the shores of the Atlantic for Zurich, Switzerland – and a far more menacing situation: A meeting with a high-ranking Russian General offering his government’s arsenal for sale.

“We’re talking long-range missiles, tanks, submarines, everything,” Z said.

The danger was driven home last week with the New York indictment of notorious Russian arms dealer Victor Boot, captured in Thailand in March. He was charged with selling weapons to a terrorist group to be used to kill Americans.

That’s hardly a scene from “The Sopranos.”

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/undercover-look-inside-the-russian-mob/ – 5/13/2008.

http://www.rferl.org/a/putins-mafia-statecraft/27329898.html – 10/27/2015.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/06/23/crimean-gangland-putin-s-seaside-mafia-state.html – 6/23/2015.

http://www.ecfr.eu/article/commentary_security_concerns_russian_mafia_back_on_agenda7083 – 7/25/2016:

In the 1990s, the so-called “Russian Mafia” was Europe’s new nightmare, an overblown threat surging west into Europe instead of Soviet tanks. In the 2000s, it had become a cliché, the thriller-writer’s staple. Now it is back on the agenda, with serious concerns that organised crime has become a ‘fifth column’ of the Kremlin’s effort to undermine European security.

 

http://uatoday.tv/crime/mafia-friends-of-president-putin-wanted-in-spain-642267.html – 5/3/2016.

http://uatoday.tv/crime/seven-members-of-russian-mafia-arrested-in-spain-681260.html – 6/28/2016.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-29/putin-allies-aided-russian-mafia-in-spain-prosecutors-say – 6/29/2016.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/armine-sahakyan/the-export-other-countrie_b_11009200.html – 7/15/2016.

Wikipedia Entries

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

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

–33–

Also in Media: “The Menace of Unreality: How the Kremlin Weaponizes Information, Culture and Money” – The Interpreter – November 22, 2014 (!)

26 Saturday Nov 2016

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Free Speech

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , ,

The story of the 20th century was also the story of the battle against censorship. But what happens when a powerful actor systematically abuses freedom of information to spread disinformation? Uses freedom of speech in such a way as to subvert the very possibility of a debate? And does so not merely inside a country, as part of vicious election campaigns, but as part of a transnational military campaign? Since at least 2008, Kremlin military and intelligence thinkers have been talking about information not in the familiar terms of “persuasion,” “public diplomacy” or even “propaganda,” but in weaponized terms, as a tool to confuse, blackmail, demoralize, subvert and paralyze.

Like freedom of information, free dialogue between cultures is key to the liberal vision of globalization. The more cultural exchange we have, the more harmony we will have. But what should we do when the Kremlin begins to use the Russian Orthodox Church and compatriot organizations abroad as elements of a belligerent foreign policy that aims to subvert other countries?

Source: The Menace of Unreality: How the Kremlin Weaponizes Information, Culture and Money – 11/22/2014 – by Peter Pomerantsev and Michael Weiss.

PDF location:

http://www.interpretermag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/PW-31.pdf

FTAC – Moscow – Beyond Rapprochement? Not So Fast!

19 Saturday Nov 2016

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Gaza, Gaza Suzerain, Israel, Middle East, Palestinia, Politics, Russia

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , ,

President Barack Obama is not the official who needs to be “outflanked” — nor is President Elect Donald J. Trump.

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/10/03/palestinian-kgb/

http://www.politico.eu/article/vladimir-putin-resurrects-the-kgb-moscow-security/

Perhaps Putin’s Moscow has promoted “anti- anti-Semitism” and good relations with Israel to continue to sustain its plundering of the middle east conflict.

Note that in recent years, Moscow’s Mikhail Bogdanov has met with PFLP in Moscow (November 2014 — an easy look-up today); that the state refuses to condemn either Hamas or Hezbollah as terrorist organizations; the state has not only cooperated fully with Tehran in supporting Bashar al-Assad’s hideous persecution of all who refuse to love him in Syria but has itself joined in the barbarism!

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/11/18/syria-russias-barbarism-the-hospitals/

Under President Putin’s hands, Moscow has been transformed from a once promising democracy into a revived “security state” along familiar old ultra-nationalist lines.

While Israeli conservatives and nationalists have been taking aim at Obama’s approach to managing conflict, the driver of the same — and for many years! — has practically escaped notice!

Soviet Moscow produce a long record of complicity and support for terrorism worldwide:

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

Considering how Putin has chosen to revive Russia to this date 25 years past the dissolve of the Soviet Union (December 1991), what makes Israelis think that Moscow today remains clear of the set of political elements continuing to bear down on its own destruction?

Moscow may yet leave Syria to Assad, but the string of bombings of hospitals, if not other war crimes, may have closed the door on rapprochement, either in fact or in somebody’s head or both.

Inspiration for the response:

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/19781 – 11/17/2016 — Dr. Martin Sherman’s weekly “Into the Fray” column, this one titled, “Obama unplugged: What to do?”

BackChannels may soon sum its observations in a list of related links involving the defunct Soviet Union and the present corrupt ultra-nationalist dictatorship that in earlier years appeared on the path toward democracy and political modernization.  Instead, and with what has been put on display in Syria — i.e., a medieval and totalitarian theater of politics and war, complete with “The Terrorists” — Russia’s leadership appears to have chosen to in some way relive the 1930s and to perhaps approach the 1940s.

BackChannels means not to allay a change in course but, naturally, to in fact suggest a course correction be made.

Related Reference

Osborne, Andrew and Simon Johnson.  “Russia beefs up Baltic Flee amid NATO tensions: reports.”  Reuters, October 26, 2016.

Peat, Charlie.  “Putin renovates Cold War MISSILE BUNKERS in Crimea as Russia prepares for global assault.”  Express UK, November 2, 2016.

Reuters.  “In Crimea, Russia signals military resolve with new and revamped bases.”  November 1, 2016.

Sputnik.  “Combat Readiness of Utes Missile Systems in Crimea Confirmed by Launches.”  November 19, 2016.  Note: the article reports a P-35 missile launch (NATO name “SS-N-3a), but BackChannels sees no major or western general media confirmation at this posting).

–33–

Ildar Dadin – Russian Prisoner of Conscience – Allegations of Torture

15 Tuesday Nov 2016

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Russia

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , ,

Ildar Dadin case

The business newspaper Vedomosti analyzed the reasons why the case of a largely unknown opposition activist received so much attention, including that of the Kremlin. Even the presidential spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, who usually avoids commenting on such topics, called the situation unacceptable. This, on the one hand, might mean that the state propaganda machine seeks to use its full capacity to cover this issue. On the other hand, there might be a darker motive: Dadin’s case could be used as a reminder for the population of what discontent and opposition activity might lead to.
The online publication Gazeta.ru believes that it might take a while before the situation with Dadin is resolved. There are different assessments of the developments, with some arguing that Dadin might have deliberately exaggerated the situation, lying about the torture and humiliations. The situation gets even more complex, since doctors have avoided giving their accounts on Dadin’s health examination.

Borik, Anastasia.  “Trump’s victory, counter-terrorism, and the Ildar Dadin case.”  Russia Direct, November 14, 2016.

This isn’t a correctional institution, it’s a concentration camp. People aren’t held here to be to be reformed but to be humiliated. Please send a statement in my name to the Investigations Committee in connection with the fact that a whole array of torture is being used on the prisoners in IK-7. The beatings and torture aren’t stopping even now, after the intervention by [human rights ombudsman] Tatyana Moskalkova and the arrival of members of the HRC [president’s Human Rights Council] Pavel Chikov and Igor Kalyapin.

I hear people being beaten, I hear them shouting. I know the torture with hunger and cold is continuing, and I can’t write a complaint about that myself. I’m prepared to give specific dates, but personally in a conversation with human rights defenders, because I’m afraid the guard will find out and also delete those video recordings (Pavel Chikov said that the recording of Dadin’s beating may have been deleted, as the data from the video cameras is stored for 30 days, and the incident happened in September – Meduza). I know that recently they deleted video recordings from the hard disk and I want to request all the video recordings from all the cells that should exist – while at least some are still saved. It will be easy to confirm my words because the beatings take place here virtually every day.

X Soviet.  “Ildar Dadin: ‘They forced me to say, Putin is our president.” November 11, 2016.

Meduza.  “‘You won’t save anyone’: What happened to Ildar Dadin before and after he wrote his letter on torture in prison.”  November 14, 2016.

Russia’s jailing of a peaceful opposition activist for violating the country’s new law on public assemblies is a shocking and cynical attack on freedom of expression, Amnesty International said today.

Ildar Dadin was sentenced to three years in jail by a Moscow court for repeated anti-government street protests. He is the first person to be jailed using the law, which was introduced in 2014 and punishes repeated breaches of public assembly rules.

Amnesty International.  “Russia: Peaceful activist sentenced under repressive new law must be released.”  December 7, 2015.

Fast Links

https://rbth.com/politics_and_society/2016/04/14/ildar-dadin-the-first-russian-imprisoned-for-attending-a-public-rally_584969 4/14/2016.

http://en.news-4-u.ru/ildar-dading-was-transferred-to-strict-conditions-of-detention-in-ik-7-from-turning-on-prison-staff.html – 10/26/2016.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37836739 – “Russia activist Ildar Dadin accuses prison of torture” –  11/1/2016.

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

http://www.dw.com/en/jailed-russia-activist-ildar-dadin-accuses-prison-staff-of-torture/a-36228169 – 11/2/2016.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/01/russian-dissident-ildar-dadin-accuses-prison-staff-torture-death-threat – 11/1/2016.

Related – On the Atmosphere of the Once Former Soviet Police State

https://www.amazon.com/Secondhand-Time-Soviets-Svetlana-Alexievich/dp/0399588809.

–33–

FTAC – ‘The Masses’, Putin, and News Awareness

13 Sunday Nov 2016

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

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , ,

I generally don’t use the term “the masses”, and when I do, it’s to note how dehumanizing a term it really is.

Regarding Putin’s methods in ascent: one might credit Berezovsky and perhaps the Moscow Apartment Bombings.

On the chess pieces:

http://rbth.com/business/2016/03/09/where-does-the-russian-orthodox-church-get-its-money-from_574079

http://www.politico.eu/article/vladimir-putin-resurrects-the-kgb-moscow-security/

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/110-oligarchs-own-a-third-of-russias-wealth-8869725.html

Of course, the citizens of every state needs must care about their own lives first — biological, familial and otherwise social, financial, emotional, spiritual. Security and stability in those aspects of life are generally part of everyone’s quality of living.

That Putin has been able to sustain and transform many aspects of the defunct Soviet Union tells a story about the kind of political power exercised in relation to malignant narcissism. In effect, he has got Russia revolving around himself, and for the discomforts he has caused, the Russians have channels today for faith and patriotism. The “Communists” are gone but the essence of the old nomenklatura has been transformed into an ultra-nationalist and neo-imperial enterprise.

The public that has wished to take an interest in foreign affairs has plenty of information — responsible, valid, and reliable — for working, but large constituencies may only attend to so much in aggregate. I would not think of such as “ignorant masses” but rather people with families and jobs and struggles and worries of their own. They may find what they need to know WHEN it matters to them, when the dots circle back to their own interests, and they perceive that.

The stimulus for the response made note of the people voting Putin into power.

Mention had already been made of Berezovsky and the Moscow Apartment Bombings.

Perhaps “Russia’s state-controlled press” should have been added to the “chess pieces” –Russian Orthodox Church, KGB Revival, Oligarch Aristocracy — section of the above response: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/vladimir-putin-russia-news-media_us_56215944e4b0bce34700b1df .  I sometimes indulge in minor revision, but not this time.

–33–