Tag Archives: American politics

FTAC: On the Far Gone Right’s Medieval Rumor Mill

22 Tuesday Dec 2020

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

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , ,

From the Awesome Conversation

How do you think you know what you think you know?

Where is the “Deep State”? What is “The Swamp”?

No medieval rumor mill in history competes with the accusations, innuendos, and wild conspiracy theories and faked-up notions promoted by the Far Gone Right.

To date, DT has lost numerous lawsuits for lack of evidence of fraud. AG Barr has rightly refused to walk with him over the cliff into anti-American authoritarian control of the nation by way of narcissistic paranoia and force.

Go back to the beginning and start with whom Trump chose to appoint as his first campaign manager: https://www.businessinsider.com/paul-manafort-russia-ties-2017-10

Learn about “Accusation in a Mirror”.

Apart from that, chill or wake up or calm down.

“Your reputation is amazing. I will not let you down,” Trump told Jones, who for years had been pushing a message that “elites” and “globalists” are part of a secret conspiracy that controls the world. “You will be very — very impressed, I hope.”

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/alex-jones-and-donald-trump-how-the-candidate-echoed-the-conspiracy-theorist-on-the-campaign-trail/ – 7/28/2020.

QAnon[a] (/ˌkjuːəˈnɒn/) is a disproven and discredited far-rightconspiracy theory[b] alleging that a cabal of Satan-worshippingpedophiles is running a global child sex-trafficking ring and plotting against US presidentDonald Trump, who is fighting the cabal.[2] QAnon also commonly asserts that Trump is planning a day of reckoning known as the “Storm”, when thousands of members of the cabal will be arrested.[3][4] No part of the conspiracy claim is based in fact.[5][6][7][8]

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

https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-is-qanon-what-we-know-about-the-conspiracy-theory-11597694801 – 10/15/2020.

Posted to YouTube by FRONTLINE PBS July 28, 2020.

Also Related Online: Jon Ronson, The Elephant in The Room, THEM: Adventures with Extremists; Nancy L. Rosenblug and Russell Muirhead, A Lot of People Are Saying: The New Conspiracism and the Assault on Democracy (Princeton University Press, 2019).

Wisdom: “He who points the finger has three pointing back at himself.”

“I just learned of absolute incontrovertible evidence of North Korean boats delivering ballots through a harbor in Maine, the state of Maine,” Stone said. “If this checks out, if law enforcement looked into that and it turned out to be true, it would be proof of foreign involvement in the election.”

Maine Secretary of State Matt Dunlap addressed Stone’s claims in a statement to NEWS CENTER Maine Thursday, saying the “vague rumor has absolutely no validity.”

https://www.wwltv.com/article/news/politics/roger-stone-claims-north-korea-delivered-ballots-through-maine-harbor/97-c47d00b8-4650-4c5d-8115-424f3106ab23 – 12/3/2020.

On Election Day 2016, I sat in the passenger seat of Alex Jones’s Dodge Hellcat as we swerved through traffic, making our way to a nearby polling place. As Jones punched the gas pedal to the floor, the smell of vodka, like paint thinner, wafted up from the white Dixie cup anchored in the console. My stomach churned as the phone I held streamed live video to Facebook: Jones rambling about voter fraud and rigged elections while I stared at the screen, holding the camera at an angle to hide his double chin. It rarely worked, but I didn’t want to be blamed when he watched the video later.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/05/magazine/alex-jones-infowars.html – cameraman Josh Owens on his Alex Jones experience – 12/5/2019.

###

FTAC: A Personal Note on America’s Democracy and its Defense

17 Tuesday Dec 2019

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Politics

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

, , , , ,

We may think that “style” doesn’t matter, but for the purposes of shepherding a nation into a new future, the civility and common interest taken in defining and resolving issues matters greatly.

I suppose we were (I was) having a discussion about Republican manners of late.

From the Awesome Conversation

For “New Rhetoric”, I’ve been using, as perhaps you have seen, “Left / Far Left” and “Right / Far (White) Right” to express displeasure with the contempt voiced by each clump, more or less, characterizing the news-creating behavior (“Sarsour” | “Charlottesville”) from beneath each “Big Tent”.

For Animal Farm qualities, “Horseshoe Theory” fits.

Obama’s relationship with Bill Ayers alienated me from his Party; Trump’s style isn’t his issue — his excessive narcissism, related lying, apparent fascination or, alternatively, moral insensitivity to absolute power — or approval of it — are real problems. Republican loyalists are wrong to brush aside those issues or minimize their portent.

Americans may differ in their appraisal of their Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian civilizational inheritance that through the Founding Fathers delivered an ingenious construction for a prudent balancing of interests and powers that would effectively guaranty the greatest experience of freedom in business, faith, and speech known to history. Democrat or Republican, the basics are all right here:

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2017/02/02/united-states-of-america-basic-training/

Simple.

The President has borrowed ferociously (possibly against losses our farmers took on negotiations with China — and now he’s walking back on his tariff policy); while the border has been of great concern, he has perhaps been less than candid about the flow of narcotics into North America; his highness and the Party have been consistently bullying, callous, disingenuous, vicious, and vindictive with their targets, and while they might feel big about that, I’d be embarrassed having someone like (“Badgering”) Jim Jordan representing me.

We may think that “style” doesn’t matter, but for the purposes of shepherding a nation into a new future, the civility and common interest taken in defining and resolving issues matters greatly.

Also to be noted, the President’s foils (like Jim Comey) and investigators have themselves been, often enough, Republicans (e.g., Mueller, at least) — just better ones than so many with so much hubris on display.

More to be known but in the works for some time: the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and one powerful Palestinian businessman have launched highly ambitious projects in the middle east that have the future designed into them, and both are game changers — or should be and profoundly so. Neom is one; Rawabi is the other.

Thank you for the comment on photography — I am still busy with that art and technology and still setting up for business with it. Broadband Internet has taken me into what I call “People’s Diplomacy” — or what we have all been doing on Facebook for a while — and feel I’ve made some progress as an accidental tourist in Conflict Studies, International Affairs, and Political Science — but then everyone here has gotten that start, but not all with some earlier interest in Russia and the Cold War.

Norfolk Southern Railway Bridge as viewed from James Rumsey Memorial Park, Shepherdstown, West Virginia, October 19, 2010. (c) J. S. Oppenheim 2010.

–33–

Everybody’s Gone Serfin’, Serfdom USA . . . .

08 Sunday Dec 2019

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, United States of America

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , ,

Quick Take by Bloomberg, December 4, 2019.

As we know, the Grinch is a cartoon. So is the Trump administration’s view of life in America. In this cartoon version, everyone has access to well-paying full-time jobs that can support a family. Those jobs are plentiful even for those who lack education, transportation, and skills, or have criminal records. In this cartoon country, the only people who don’t take advantage of this prosperity are just too lazy and prefer to live as dependent on the largess of the federal government.

The Philadelphia Inquirer Editorial Board. “New food stamp rule says if you don’t work, you can’t eat.” December 8, 2019.

Fariborz Pakseresht, Oregon’s Department of Human Services director, said the rule change would make things worse “for those already facing difficult circumstances.”

“It also will result in an increased burden on food banks and other community resources to fill the void,” Pakseresht said.

The Associated Press. “19,000 Oregonians will lose food stamp benefits under new Trump rules.” Oregon Live, December 7, 2019.

As BackChannels — in fair blogger fashion — tries to knock out posts in hours as opposed to weeks, the quick look-see into themes produces impressions and summations but on the outside of the machinery.

Nonetheless — the tea leaves:

The Trump Administration’s stance with regard to the decay of the American street is that it would rather not see it, and it appears to believe that what is unseemly may be plainly hounded, starved, or threatened out of existence — or, eventually, thrown into Federal camps or prisons. Its actions, policies, and “vision” have each tended tend toward the promotion of greater desperation for America’s afflicted, marginalized, and struggling souls.

In addition, the Trump Administration’s War on the Poor this Christmas / Solstice Season hardly stops with the latest food stamp debacle. “Medicaid Work Requirements”, a draconian ploy certain to enserf the more miserable and altogether vulnerable of Americans, has been strongly contested by physicians and advocates for the poor. Other Dickensian steps take by the Administration have included deep cuts in Public Housing and Public Transportation budgets, both increasing the discomfort of America’s poorer citizens while threatening their independence as well (at least from the Federal standpoint — states have budgets too, and not all of the 50 are so dumb in relation to providing basic transportation services).

In California, the Trumpian State has been playing tug-of-war with the state’s ability to keep the most vulnerable of its citizens off the streets. Predictably, the President has withheld funding for housing vouchers that would reach some 50,000 souls, according to Governor Gavin Newsom.

One state noted — 49 to go — but here BackChannels may choose to listen to related complaints than dwell in the Patch of Social Issues with other than blog-like focus.

Medicaid Work Requirements

American Academy of Family Physicians. “Medicaid Work Requirements”. Position Statement and Backgrounder, last updated August 2019.

Pear, Robert. “Trump Administration Approves Medicaid Work Requirements in Utah.” The New York Times, March 29, 2019.

Cuts to Public Housing and Public Transportation Budgets

For HUD, the budget requests $44.1 billion in discretionary funding, a 16.4 percent decrease from 2019 funding levels. For DoT, the budget requests $21.4 billion in discretionary spending, a 22 percent decrease from 2019 funding levels.

Andrews, Jeff. “Trump administration proposes dramatic cuts to public housing — again: it’s the fourth time the Trump Administration has taken aim at housing subsidies.” Curbed, March 11, 2019.

Federal Housing Vouchers Withheld

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Reuters) – In the latest skirmish over California’s homeless crisis, the state’s governor, Gavin Newsom, asked President Donald Trump on Thursday to stop withholding federal housing vouchers that could benefit 50,000 homeless people.

Reuters. “California asks Trump administration to release money to fight homelessness.” December 5, 2019.

Fischer, Jonathan L. “Donald Trump Thinks Homeless Is a Scourge. His Administration Just Ousted the Official in Charge of Addressing It.” Slate, November 16, 2019.

Related Online

Hunter, Sarah B., Melody Harvey, Brian Briscombe, Matthew Cefalu. “Housing for Health: A State-of-the-Art Program for Reducing Homelessness in Los Angeles County.” PDF. RAND Corporation, 2017.

Invisible People, December 7, 2019.
Reason, December 5, 2019.
Curbed, March 1, 2018.

–33–

FTAC: Authentic Democracy, Populism, and Real Problems

13 Wednesday Nov 2019

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, ,

Inspiration: an exchange about Putin’s tolerance of opposition kept powerless and underscored by the assassination of Boris Nemtsov.

What makes for tragedy is the difference between made up problems and difficult real ones. I believe Americans want to do with real problems through an authentic democracy, not made-up problems concocted by the immense power of a totalitarian and evil state. The challenge for Americans and others in the remaining democratic and liberal societies (of the west) involves apprehension of states of affairs as a function of education x time. So-called “Sheeple” may be led by an attractive political cant — line of rant — that echoes their own unexplored sentiments. That, I believe, happened in Germany — and it could happen here.

BackChannels hopes for “Radical Moderates” in the form of Representatives and Senators who a) comprehend President Putin’s absolute authoritarianism and feudal practices and the methods in play for producing an autocratic “populism” and “New Nationalism” in EU/NATO, and b) wish to assert and defend the ethics, ideals, principles, and values associated with advanced and classically liberal democracies.

–33–

FTAC: A Bid for the Lost and Missing of America

13 Wednesday Nov 2019

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Canada, Extreme Brown vs Red-Green, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, North America, Political Psychology, Syndicate Red Brown Green, transnational crime, United States of America

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

, , , ,

Inspiration for the post: a tirade against the specter of Democratic Socialist America in the fashion of the Soviet Communist sphere of influence and the detritus of the irresponsible authoritarian mafia states left behind for western conscience and vision to address.

” . . . who despite enjoying the benefits and protections of a free society . . . ” (would vote the Democratic ticket).

What happened to these, especially our approximately 490,000 missing Americans under age 21?

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2019/10/04/an-american-report-card/ — the page provides a glance at the numbers associated with America’s most troublesome social pathologies–cocaine use, homelessness, missing persons, opioid addiction, prostitution.

Life has its hooks, ladders, and chutes, of course, and will never be perfect for everyone, but the numbers represent some systematic decimation of a modern — not 1950s white bread — culture. Are those of the middle class and of the privileged supposed to completely turn away from the social epidemiology swirling around the apparently Lost of America?

We should know who is in the mix — and why — and get that unholy street stew separated and channeled in some helpful way.

If Americans hadn’t “social conscience”, there would be no laws involving environment, health, labor, housing, or much else that has brought and held the nation together as a unified polity. Politicians on the Left / Far Left have walked down their own streets and asked about the same questions for the same reasons. Now it would seem up to radically responsible moderates to steal that flame to produce an overall healthier state, not an environment fit to elite, rapacious, and ruthless personalities.

Some Red-Green elements that have flowed down from the Soviet Era machinery have infected America’s Democratic Party with the familiar Far Left cocktail of anti-capitalist, radical, and anti-Semitic (anti-Zionist) cant that in effect poisons their own projects before they can progress. The social conscience of the Democratic Party as stamped by Presidents Roosevelt in the 1930s and Johnson in the 1960s appears well under attack by the vanguard of a bullying old White Right political culture that really doesn’t care to address the misery it has learned to overlook.

Far be it, however, for BackChannels to overlook Hollywood’s role in the glamorizing and promoting of the very scourges that have both enriched the world’s mafia and — with dollars cleaned and spiffy — spilled back into working communities — here: read about Vancouver’s pleasant (not really) influx of wealth — as to make economic retreat and the decoupling from evil virtually impossible.

–33–

In Retrospect: Jon Ronson’s “The Elephant In The Room”

14 Tuesday May 2019

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

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , ,

At a high school basketball game in Indiana in March, white students chanted “Trump! Trump! Trump!” at Latina students. Everyone knew what that meant: It was a new way to be racist.

But the alt-right’s appeal remains marginal because the huge majority of young Americans like multiculturalism. They aren’t paranoid or hateful about other races. Those ideas are ridiculous to them. The alt-right’s small gains in popularity will not be enough to win Trump the election. This is not Germany in the 1930s. All that’s changed is that one of Alex’s fans — one of those grumpy looking middle-aged men sitting in David Icke’s audience — is now the Republican nominee.

But if some disaster unfolds — if Hillary’s health declines further, or she grows ever more off-puttingly secretive — and Trump gets elected, he could bring Alex and the others with him. The idea of Donald Trump and Alex Jones and Roger Stone and Stephen Bannon having power over us — that is terrifying.

Darcy, Oliver. “Louis Farrakhan, Alex Jones and other ‘dangerous’ voices banned by Facebook and Instagram.” CNN Business, May 3, 2019.

For the record, BackChannels supports as broad a spectrum of political speech as possible bounded by criminal law associated with conspiracy and incitement.

While Facebook Civilization as Zuckerberg may shape it has no monopoly on speech conveyed via the web, it’s notable that Alex Jones and Louis Farrakhan made the same grade.

In the gonzo escapade that produced dish for The Elephant In the Room, Ronson manages to get in some quality time with Alex Jones and Roger Stone in Jones’ production trailer. The “in” with the talk show host had been crashing Bohemian Grove years earlier with him.

Barrett, Devlin, Rosalind S. Helderman, Lori Rozsa, and Manuel Roig-Franzia. “Longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone indicted by special counsel in Russia investigation.” The Washington Post, January 25, 2019.

CNN, same day —

CNN, posted to YouTube January 25, 2019.
DW, posted to YouTube April 13, 2019.

Agent provocateur as Roger Stone refers to himself? Moral crusader for the west as befits Steve Bannon’s “populism” in the surrounds of the books collected and gardens cultivated by Italian monks? Or clowns found out and moved off the Oval Office’s carpet?

Trump stole the election and the aforementioned demons were unable to remain attached to his glory: so why read Ronson’s book?

Take it in for background — $1.99 for the Kindle — for delight in language, and for the prescient glimpse of a campaign x personality yesteryear that really does seem just like yesterday.

Having quoted from the end of the book, here’s the sound of the beginning:

The TV’s at the EQUINOX were showing a Donald Trump rally. Hillary Clinton might have been holding her own rally somewhere but, if so, it wasn’t on any of these screens. In fact, a few weeks ago MSNBC, Fox News and CNN had ignored a Hillary Clinton speech entirely, choosing instead to broadcast a live feed of the empty podium from which Donald Trump would soon speak. His empty podium: that’s how insatiable our appetite was to hear Donald Trump say staggering things in the spring of 2016, back when it was new and strange.

I plugged in my headphones and heard someone in the crowd shout out to Trump: “Are you going back on the Alex Jones show?”

“Alex Jones? Trump said. “He was a nice guy! You like him?”

“It was a GREAT interview!” the man called back.

“Oh good,” Donald Trump said. “Alex Jones. Nice guy.”

I was so jolted by this exchange I almost fell off my elliptical. Donald Trump knows Alex Jones?

I AM BASICALLY ALEX JONES’S Simon Cowell. I star-spotted him in the late-1990s . . . .

–33–

America’s Broadest Interests: A Question – and Open for Debate

09 Monday Apr 2018

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

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , ,

Are our “national interests” more monetary than spiritual or vice versa? Or are they / we balanced or forked between our practical needs and our ideals, principles, and values?

Will we do what we do for love — or for love of money?

Polices need never be black and white, one or the other, but one may ask where we have been going in relation to our deeply autocratic and piratical “competition” in the world.

Around the world, we have seen dictators promise their people the world while stealing for themselves their unfair share.

Is that where the West is now bound?

Off the train already: Erdogan.

Stepping off: Orban.

Who else?

Who’s next?

–33–

Event! “Who Deserves a State? Stories of Jews, Native Americans & Kurds” – Sophia Marjanovic, Anna Langer, Kani Xulam – March 28, 2018, 7-8 p.m., School of Media and Public Affairs, George Washington University, Washington, D.C.

27 Tuesday Mar 2018

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Asia, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Events and Other PSA's, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Kurdistan, Middle East, North America, Politics, Syria, United States of America

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , ,

GWU-180328-digFlyer-NOTJSOs

School of Media and Public Affairs (SMPA)
George Washington Univeristy
805 21st Street NW
Room 309
Washington, DC 20052
Phone: 202-994-6227
smpa@gwu.edu

Google Maps

https://www.google.com/maps/place/George+Washington+University+School+of+Media+and+Public+Affairs/@38.9001909,-77.0469929,17z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0x3e32dedd82d144b3!8m2!3d38.8998277!4d-77.0461775

–33–