• Home
  • About
  • Concepts, Coins, and Terms
    • Anthropolitical Psychology
      • Civilizational Narcissism
      • Conflict – Language Uptake – Social Programming and Scripting – A Suggestion
        • Language Uptake – Programming – On Learning to Listen
        • Mouth –> Ear –> Mind –> Heart System
        • Social Grammar
      • Facsimile Bipolar Political Sociopathy
      • Malignant Narcissism
      • Narcissistic Scripting
      • Normative Remirroring
      • Paranoid Delusional Narcissistic Reflection of Motivation
    • FTAC – “From The Awesome Conversation”
    • God Mob
    • Intellectual Battlespace
    • Islamic Small Wars
    • New Old Now Old Far Out and Lost Left
    • Political Spychology
    • Shimmer
    • Syndicate Red Brown Green
  • Library
    • About Language
    • Alpha by Author
    • Dicks and Spooks – Political Spychology
    • Judaism and Jewish Culture and Life
    • Russian Section
  • Comments and Contact
  • X of Interest
    • A-Z Links
    • Alpha – Zulu
      • Associated Articles of Governance – United States of America
      • Daniel L. Everett – Reading Highly Recommended
      • Khamenei and Iran – Assorted Reference
      • Lee Smith’s Comment on ‘Media Warfare’ in the Middle East
      • Lies are Told for Only Two Reasons
      • On Being a War Journalist — Francesca Borri in Syria – 7/1/2013
      • Putin and Russia — Assorted Reference

BackChannels

~ Conflict, Culture, Language, Psychology

BackChannels

Tag Archives: authoritarianism

The Confidence Man – He’ll Tell You Anything

23 Saturday Nov 2019

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

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

American Democracy, authoritarianism, autocracy, Donald J. Trump, Impeachment Inquiry, political rhetoric

SCHIFF'S "FACT" WITNESSES! pic.twitter.com/Pab2y1BVoN

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 22, 2019
Tweeted by the President of the United States of America and posted to YouTube November 21, 2019 at 9:35 p.m. Mar-a-Lago Time.

Fiona Hill lambasts Republican rumor mongering over adoption and promotion of “Ukraine Did It” disinformation.

Ambassador David Holmes responds to badgering Jim Jordan on November 21, 2019.

“Was there a ‘quid pro quot’ — “Yes,” said Gordon Sondland. Regarding coordination: “Everyone was in the loop”. Posted to YouTube by PBS NewsHour, November 20, 2019.

Bill Moyers on Lying & American Democratic Political Survival


How much more should any authentically patriotic American need to here or see?

If America’s yawing Ship of State — still fresh on the Internet Ocean — needs a bit of swing away from the Far (White) Right, it may be getting it as so many Republicans consistently display themselves as bullying, disingenuous, and altogether untrustworthy talkers.

Related on BackChannels

Marie Yovanovitch — The Kind of Person President Trump Fires From His Administration

United States of America — Basic Training


NOT a “Never Trumper” – in fact, she has served Mike Pence as an advisor on European and Russian Affairs – Jennifer Williams testifies before Congress about the “unusual call”. Posted by CBS News to YouTube, November 21, 2019.

Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, CNN, YouTube, November 19, 2019.

Marie Yovanovitch via CBS News, November 15, 2019.

The editor now tires of the routine involved in quickly assembling a response to a single Trumpian Tweet and so will forego the dredging of similar videos.



I lied.

😉

–33–

Marie Yovanovitch – The Kind of Person President Trump Fires From His Administration

17 Sunday Nov 2019

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

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

American Backbone, American Patriotism, authoritarianism, Marie Yovanovitch, medieval v modern, Trump Administration, Weakening the Federal Government



The military-based oath taken by America’s diplomats, military officers, and other officials may be found on BackChannels beneath the title, “United States of America — Basic Training” (specific reference in the law for the oath taken by the nation’s civil servants may be found here (PDF, Title 5, Section 3331 “Oath of Office”).


“She understood that corruption was the ‘Achilles heel,’ so to speak, of Ukraine,” a former State Department official who knows Yovanovitch told CNN Thursday prior to the release of the complaint. “And so Masha, by doubling down on corruption and making it kind of her leitmotif of her tenure as ambassador, was doing exactly what she should have been doing and what US policy has been in Ukraine for quite some time.”

Hansler, Jennifer. “Diplomats express alarm over Trump’s treatment of former Ukraine ambassador.” CNN, September 26, 2019.

Marie “Masha” Yovanovitch had been doing her job as prescribed by law, and yet President Trump chose to have her removed and out of his way.


Sworn in as ambassador to Kyiv in August 2016, Yovanovitch has been at the forefront of U.S. efforts to help stabilize Ukraine’s shaky economy and push reforms to root out endemic corruption.

She’s also been at the forefront of U.S. backing for Ukraine in its ongoing fight with Moscow over Russia-backed fighters battling Ukrainian government forces in eastern regions since 2014.

Yovanovitch drew attention in early March when, weeks before Ukraine’s March 31 presidential election, she called on Kyiv to fire the country’s special anti-corruption prosecutor. The speech was notable not only for its timing but also its bluntness.

Miller, Christopher. “U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, Openly Criticized by Top Ukrainian Prosecutor, Departing Early.” Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, May 6, 2019.

Lutsenko alleged that she made a “do-not-prosecute” list and disseminated it in Ukraine, an accusation that she strenuously rejected and which Lutsenko himself retracted.

Lutsenko is himself deeply implicated in the Ukraine scandal and has been accused of colluding with Giuliani to launch investigations in Ukraine into Trump’s political enemies, specifically Joe Biden’s son Hunter.

Knight, Ben. “Who is former US Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch?” DW, September 15, 2019.

The Washington Post has a December 2018 piece on those who have been fired or positioned to resign from their posts in relation to President Trump’s decision-making or handling. Causes cited range from attempts to damage the Mueller Investigation to dismissal for abuse of Department funds for personal security and travel. Be that as it may, disruptions involving America’s Justice and Security systems may be most disturbing, from the firing of James Comey at the FBI to the resignation of General Jim Mattis as Secretary of Defense.

Perhaps President Trump listens to his inner voices and no one else’s — and now he has few educated, experienced, and powerful others of the first rank to whom to listen.

Over time and with energies dispersed by curiosity and a great range of interests — the editor cannot “track” the whole world and every dimension of it 🙂 — BackChannels has kept folders for others now absent from the Trump Administration: John Bolton, Dan Coats, Nikki Haley, and Sue Gordon (“the highest-ranking career intelligence official in the country” according to CNN’s Samantha Vinograd in her analysis, “Sue Gordon’s departure is bad news for Trump and country” [CNN, August 12, 2019]). Conclusion: Trump has been either abandoned by or removed quite a few of America’s best and brightest in the assessment of threats domestic and foreign.

With the dismissal for Marie Yovanovitch, President Trump has notably removed a most dedicated, experienced, patriotic, and well prepared and talented diplomat of note and, above and beyond those attributes, one possessed of great integrity and spine.

Related Online

AllGov. “U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine: Who is Marie Yovanovitch?” September 11, 2016.

Diehm, Jan, Sam Petulla, and Zachary B. Wolf. “Who has left Trump’s administration and orbit?” CNN Politics, October 21, 2019.

Ghitis, Frida. “Real hero takes down phony corruption fighter.” Op-ed. CNN, November 15, 2019.

Hansler, Jennifer. “Diplomats express alarm over Trump’s treatment of former Ukraine ambassador.” CNN, September 26, 2019.

Knight, Ben. “Who is former US Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch?” DW, September 15, 2019.

Mettler, Katie, Callum Borchers, and Nick Kirkpatrick. “‘You’re fired’: A timeline of Team Trump departures.” The Washington Post, December 20, 2018.

Miller, Christopher. “U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, Openly Criticized by Top Ukrainian Prosecutor, Departing Early.” Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, May 6, 2019.

U.S. Department of State. “Marie L. Yovanovitch”. Archive.

Vinograd, Samantha. “Sue Gordon’s departure is bad news for Trump and country.” CNN Opinion, August 12, 2019.

Wikipedia. “Marie Yovanovitch”.


Posted to YouTube by The Washington Post, November 15, 2019.

–33–

(Putin) | Erdogan | Trump

13 Wednesday Nov 2019

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, North America, Political Psychology, Turkey, United States of America

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

authoritarianism, Democracy RIP, dictatorship, east-west amity, Erdogan and Trump

Posted by RT for the Dedication of Moscow’s Grand Mosque – 2015.

Posted by CBS News to YouTube November 13, 2019.

Is “Winter” coming — or is it already here?

Listen to the high notes: Arms Deals, Trade Deals, Expanding Markets.

Mentioned: Turkey’s participation in the building of the F-35 air frame. While that mention may score points with the less informed public, Turkey’s participation in NATO defense manufacturing in relation to the American fighter jet program has created heat and a now discomfiting defense relationship. The following description of the depth of Turkey’s participation in the F-35 Program tells why:

Eight Turkish companies make parts for the fuselage, landing gear and cockpit displays of the aircraft, according to Lockheed Martin. Some of them have been producing F-35 parts since 2004. For example, Fokker Elmo manufactures 40 percent of the F-35’s electrical wiring and interconnection system.

These companies are set to do $12 billion in work on the F-35 program over the life of the jet, according to USNI News.

https://www.upi.com/Defense-News/2019/05/13/Pentagon-looks-for-new-vendors-to-replace-F-35-parts-made-in-Turkey/7021557756044/

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is preparing to transfer Turkey’s industrial participation in the F-35 to other countries unless Ankara reverses course on its plans to buy the Russian S-400 air defense system.

The move — which in early 2020 would end contracts with major Turkish defense contractors such as Turkish Aerospace Industries, Roketsan and Tusas Engine Industries, among many others — is just one of many steps the U.S. Defense Department intends to take to strip Turkey from the F-35 program, according to a June 6 letter from acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan.

https://www.defensenews.com/air/2019/06/07/turkish-suppliers-to-be-eliminated-from-f-35-program-in-2020/ – June 7, 2019.

On the F-35 matter, the White House noted in July, ” Unfortunately, Turkey’s decision to purchase Russian S-400 air defense systems renders its continued involvement with the F-35 impossible. The F-35 cannot coexist with a Russian intelligence collection platform that will be used to learn about its advanced capabilities.”


Freedom House metrics involving civil liberties and political rights rates Erdogan’s Turkey as “Not Free”. On the matter of Freedom of Speech, a matter that President Trump has baldly attacked with the accusation “Fake News!” aimed at America’s responsible mainstream media, Erdogan’s state has made itself notorious for the inhibition and jailing of Turkey’s journalists. Wikipedia’s “Censorship in Turkey” tells that story.


Long overdue to give up fiction that Erdogan’s Turkey is an ally in practice. US should withdraw all nuclear weapons, reduce reliance on Turkey’s bases, and restrict intelligence sharing and arms sales. Should also articulate red lines in Syria. https://t.co/rWB0AhwRS3

— Richard N. Haass (@RichardHaass) October 13, 2019

More recently, Jay Nordlinger writing for The National Review (“Turkey, NATO, and a Shifting World”, November 12, 2019), notes that Erdogan, perhaps responding to Putin’s lead in the encouragement of xenophobia in the still liberal and open democracies of EU/NATO, has leverage:

Erdogan has a card to play against Europe, as he confirmed in a speech on October 10. That card is a refugee card, the threat of a flood. There are 3.6 million Syrian refugees in Turkey. “Come to your senses,” he told the EU in that speech, given to his party in Ankara. “I will say this once again: If you try to label our current operation an occupation, our job becomes easier: We will open the gates and send the 3.6 million refugees to you.”

Despite this threat, several EU nations have responded to Operation Peace Spring, imposing arms embargoes on Turkey. These nations include Germany, France, Sweden, and Finland.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/11/turkey-nato-shifting-world/ – 11/12/2019

Reference: Related on BackChannels

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2017/03/11/reflexive-control-process-allahu-akbar-terrorism-new-nationalism-neo-feudalism/ – 3/11/2017

Regarding Moscow and Terrorism

BackChannels has long maintained a quick reference list for copy-paste relay of Moscow’s post-Soviet play in the narrative around Islamic Terrorism. It begins with David Satter’s account of the “Moscow Apartment Bombings”, back-fills with Anna Politkovskaya’s observations on the Russian Army’s brutalizing of Chechen villages, moves through Ayman al-Zawahiri’s whistle-stop in Russia (published in Business Insider), and ends near the U.S. military observation of Russia’s supplying the Taliban (today) with arms and materiel. Here it is*:

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

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayman_al-Zawahiri

Schindler, John. “Exploring Al Qaeda’s Murky Connection to Russian Intelligence.” Business Insider, June 10, 2014.

https://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/europe/item/15162-defector-putin-s-kgb-trained-top-al-qaeda-terrorists

https://thediplomat.com/2017/08/understanding-the-russia-taliban-connection/ – 8/4/2017

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/03/26/596933077/top-u-s-commander-in-afghanistan-accuses-russia-of-aiding-taliban – 3/26/2018

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2017/04/24/russia-is-sending-weapons-to-taliban-top-u-s-general-confirms/


Moscow’s persistent Orwellian (and paternally authoritarian) character may come through as it dawns on the reader that the state appears to manipulate its public with something like “KGB Theater” (again, read David Satter on the “Moscow Apartment Bombings”).

The production of “The Syrian Tragedy” well displays the form as Bashar “The Butcher” Assad chose to barrel bomb Syrian noncombatants while al-Qaeda types gathered in his space and eventually distilled into “ISIL” or, today “Islamic State” — see https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/12/09/syria-assad-isil-background/ for related argument and the basis for it in references.

Basically, BackChannels believes Assad — as flanked by Putin and Khamanei — chose his enemy, i.e., an “enemy preferred” or a dumb foil he knew he would beat (with Russian assistance), and which victory would redound to his glorious (malign and narcissistic) appearance.

By choosing amity with President Erdogan, President Trump has stepped into the Great Neo-KGB Theater of History, but with one immense issue: a spirited American public and system in part armored against the dawning of totalitarian control and related debasements and indignities. In lieu of the Soviet Communist project that gave up the ghost on December 25, 1991, the (E)State Capitalism — the making and hoarding of money by any means no matter what the costs to humanity — associated with Vladimir Putin appears to be working — and Americans (and the North American and European presses) seem slow to catch on.


*Mixed formatting has to do with the editor’s interest, purpose, and time–for the blog: okey dokey; for a monograph some time in the future, Chicago rules.


–33–

FTAC: Nascent and Socially Progressing Kurdistan and Putin, Erdogan, (Trump’s) Return to Feudal Authoritarianism and Absolutism

17 Thursday Oct 2019

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Kurdistan, Political Psychology, Syria, Turkey

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

authoritarianism, Betrayal of the Kurds, Democratic Confederation, feudal political absolutism, feudal v modern, medieval v modern, Progressive Politics, Rojava

From the Awesome Conversation (on Facebook) —


My general impression has been yours, i.e., PKK fighters accepted some “rebranding” to make their image palatable to the west in their fight for survival against Islamic State. However, here is what the web turned up in related (swift) research:

From January 2019 — https://conflict-backchannels.com/2019/01/02/moscow-as-medusa-with-all-the-snakes-attached/

From June 2019 – https://conflict-backchannels.com/2019/06/25/pkk-a-few-impressions-and-notes-on-the-kurdish-struggle-for-autonomy-and-unification/

The PKK launched with Soviet guidance and support in the late 1970s. Wikipedia nailed it in these two sentences: “The PKK was founded in 1978 in the village of Fis (near Lice) by a group of Kurdish students led by Abdullah Öcalan[19] and in 1979 it made its existence known to the public.[20]The PKK’s ideology was originally a fusion of revolutionary socialism and Kurdish nationalism, seeking the foundation of an independent Communist state in the region, which was to be known as Kurdistan.”

The political tone of the community has been in the direction of “democratic confederalism” — inclusion and input have been part of what nascent “Kurdistan” promoted when it played up the Rojava Experiment.

From the New Internationalist —

“There is no doubt that theirs is a shared ideology, one that has been formulated by their joint leader, Abdullah Öcalan, now in his 21st year of incarceration in a Turkish prison. But the PYD’s organizing principle is democratic confederalism: a system of direct democracy, ecological sustainability and ethnic inclusivity, where women have veto powers on new legislation and share all institutional positions with men.”

Within the short time since forming Rojava’s democratic experiment, child marriage, forced marriage, dowry and polygamy were banned; honour killings, violence and discrimination against women were criminalized. It is the only part of Syria where sharia councils have been abolished and religion has been consigned to the private sphere.”

https://newint.org/features/2019/10/11/assault-rojava

American moderates and progressives would recognize the development of a social democracy — not unlike what we in fact of evolved into, i.e., a modern place with modern laws and cares. That would seem what the Trump Administration has chosen to abandon with a few teary-eyed remarks about America’s soldiery and his (narcissistic paranoid) bent toward American isolationism (after the United States leading the development and defense of democracy in the world since the end of WWII).

Opposed by the PKK and part of the character of Kurdish political incoherence: the Kurdish Democratic Party —

“The KDP has been described as a tribal, feudalistic, and aristocratic party which is controlled by the Barzani tribe.”

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

Has North America and Europe the wish to return to systems in which feudal authority commits crimes and invents policy beyond the questioning of the ordinary citizen?

By leaving the field to Putin and Erdogan and being himself autocratic in character, President Trump has suggested an answer to that question.


Note: The author edits and improves on the first off-the-cuff remarks in related threaded conversation on the way to posting the same or very similar on this blog.

—33–

Europe Medieval or Europe Modern?

20 Monday May 2019

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, Anti-Semitism, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Eurasia, France, Philosophy, Political Psychology, Politics, Russia, Ukraine

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

authoritarianism, feudal political absolutism, medieval v modern, New Nationalism, Reactionary Conservatism, Russia, Russian Political Meddling

DW, posted to YouTube May 20, 2019.

Europeans who may wish to see fewer “3rd world country people” in their neighborhoods would do well to address the state leaders who sent them: Putin, Assad, and Khamenie.

How?

By applying “Reflexive Control” in the manipulating of Islamic Terrorism and the shaping of their wars.

—

http://www.businessinsider.com/exploring-al-qaedas-murky-connection-to-russian-intelligence-2014-6

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2017/03/11/reflexive-control-process-allahu-akbar-terrorism-new-nationalism-neo-feudalism/

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/12/09/syria-assad-isil-background/


Method #1: detect and amplify any present national, racial, or religious suspicion into self-righteous anger and resentment — and crank it up;

Method #2: develop and deploy appropriate agitprop and agent provocateur — and for the Devil’s sake, don’t worry about anything having to do with ethics, ideals, principles, or values: in fact, dispense with the possession of conscience altogether and reduce all complexities — also, all cultural richness and intercultural relations to two essential dimensions: will and survival.

Method #3: Prepare the violence to come: arm convinced militia and move the same toward perceiving slights or promoting provocations, for either will serve the dual purposes necessary for the inhabiting of a renewed medieval world governed by feudal arrangements in support of “absolute power” (to be shared between political criminals and similar life forms).

Method #4: In hybrid, highbrow, and lowest manner, infiltrate target organizations and states for purpose of abetting their destabilization, perpetuating disinformation, and for ultimately exploiting legitimate business and labor for gain leveraged by bribery or extortion / reward for cooperation and threat for independence in either thought or action.


Also accessed in the writing of this blog:

Hinnant, Lori. “French yellow vest movement dogged by intolerance, extremism.” Daily Herald (Chicago), January 29, 2019.


Oltermann, Phiip. “Austria’s ‘Ibiza scandal’: what happened and why does it matter?” The Guardian, May 20, 2019.

Centrist leaders across Europe hope the fallout from the “Ibiza scandal” will be felt beyond Austria in the European parliament elections this week, in which populist, nationalist and far-right parties have been forecast to make gains.

Strache’s apparent eagerness to embrace corruption is in stark contrast to the “drain the swamp” rhetoric populists routinely deploy in their attempts to portray politics as a battle by decent ordinary people against a venal elite. The FPÖ is a key member of an alliance of European nationalist parties led by Matteo Salvini of Italy’s League.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/20/austria-ibiza-scandal-sting-operation-what-happened-why-does-it-matter

Sheldon, Michael. “The Small World of French Foreign Fighters.” Medium, February 4, 2019. Primary Source: Atlantic Council Digital Forensic Research Lab.


Add to the title: “We want to be free.” Posted to YouTube on February 10, 2014.

BackChannels has embedded with many posts the key word or phrase, “medieval v modern”, and that has worked for the editor, but what has emerged in Russia, Turkey, Hungary, and elsewhere also could be called a “Reactionary Conservatism” that fits with the anti-democratic and piratical renewal of feudal absolute power. Where such has succeeded, so far, the same has devolved into patently criminal cronyism.


Added 5/23/2019 —

BBC on Orban’s Hungary and its “Populism” — Posted to YouTube May 22, 2019.

–33–

Hey, NATO! Happy Anniversary.

01 Monday Apr 2019

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Philosophy, Political Psychology

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

authoritarianism, Illiberalism in NATO, NATO, NATO Anniversary, NATO values, rogue NATO states


NATO stepped up its game in Russia’s “Near Abroad” in response to the post-Soviet (and cynical) near destruction and depopulating of Syria; Russia’s invasion and annexation of the Crimea (and installation of another Moscow-sustained “Frozen Conflict”), and the dictatorship’s continued support for terrorism (for Afghanistan’s Taliban challengers to state authority; for Hezbollah, the global transnational crime operation); and for its “Active Measures” meddling in EU/NATO territory.

Generally speaking, The Bear has been a bullying, cowardly, and disingenuous force on the world’s stage, persistently authoritarian, underhanded, and totalitarian, and NATO has made itself popular to states wishing to be not so broadly . . . played.

Welcome to Cyprus

Fifteen years ago, NATO welcomed seven new members into the Alliance, expanding its borders eastward from the Baltic to Black Seas. As NATO reaches its seventieth birthday, it could now be time to look toward adding a new member: this time in the Eastern Mediterranean.

https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/nato-membership-for-cyprus – 3/31/2019

The end of the Cold War (Dec. 25, 1991) failed to sustain western-leaning government in Moscow. Yes, the Cold War was over; the habits of Russian paternal authoritarianism were not. With the ascent of Vladimir Putin to power, Moscow continued to act as a beacon of hope to dictatorships intent on remaining unfettered in their brutality, corruption, and criminality in relation to the ginning of their wealth.

NATO has stood fast against Putin’s rush to sink the world in a renewed feudal morass informed by vanity and absent of conscience, such being the nature of his own malignant narcissism.

Cyprus, of course, lists among the world’s frozen conflicts.

In Damon Wilson’s analysis for the Atlantic Council, the time seems ripe for unification: “Cyprus remains the only European Union member who is not even a member of the Alliance’s Partnership for Peace program, due entirely to the outstanding reunification problem. Immediate NATO membership for a reunified island, however, would automatically embed, and therefore replace, a joint Greek-Turkish-British security guarantee within an Alliance commitment to the entire island without any need for alternative mechanisms.”

Yes, but . . . .

Feudal Absolutism v Modern Democracy: Turkey’s Islamist Leader

Our minarets are our bayonets
Our domes are our helmets
Our mosques are our barracks

We will put a final end to ethnic segregation.  No one can ever intimidate us.

If the skies and the ground were to open against us
If floods and volcanoes were to burst
We will not turn from our mission.

My reference is Islam.

If I am not able to speak of this
What is the use of living?

Secondary source for the above quoted portion of Erdogan’s 1997 speech delivered in Siirt: https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/08/11/notes-on-erdogans-emerging-regime/ (the primary source seems at the moment inconveniently lost somewhere in the web and beyond the editor’s patience for hunting).

Cyprus would be more easily unified if the Turkish President were an authentic NATO leader. However, in BackChannel’s humble opinion, by apologizing for the downing of two Russian jets overflying Turkish airspace, Erdogan made himself part of Putin’s new feudal estate — the estate of post-Soviet dictatorships responding to Moscow.

Not so noble that New Nobility.

While pressure has been applied — okay, infant terrible, Russian S-400 Surface-to-Air missile defense or American F-35s — from whose jets do you intend defense of, say, your Islamic principles. . . or of Turkish Stream? — results, so far, appear indefinite.

Ah well, every family has a conflicted, selfish, and troubled member.

In lieu of kicking Turkey out of the house, so to speak, this has been the kind of headline NATO has had to tolerate in relation to Erdogan’s family business: “Erdogan: NATO gives arms to ‘terrorists’ but not to Turkey: President accuses NATO allies of supporting ‘terrorism’ with thousands of truckloads of weapons, but none for Turkey” (Al Jazeera, February 18, 2019).

Perhaps the baggage is only getting in the way of the journey, for the Turkish government speaks in glowing terms of the state’s relationship with NATO: “Ever since our NATO membership in 1952, the North Atlantic Alliance has played a central role in Turkey’s security and contributed to its integration with the Euro-Atlantic community. Turkey, in return, has successfully assumed its responsibilities in defending the common values of the Alliance.”

Has it?

Is it?

There would seem to be some discrepancy between Turkish idealpolitik and its president’s realpolitik.

Another Neo-NATO President: Hungary’s Viktor Orban

Written into existence by James Kirchik:

Most of the international criticism directed at Hungary over the past nine years has focused on domestic indicators such as the rule of law, separation of powers and press freedom. Prime Minister Viktor Orban has been remarkably blunt about his designs for Hungary, citing China, Russia and Turkey as models. After an election in April widely deemed free but not fair, he sounded a triumphal note, declaring that “the era of liberal democracy is over.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/01/03/is-hungary-becoming-rogue-state-center-europe/ – 1/3/2019

Is Hungary becoming rogue?

Read Hungarian Spectrum and mouse back a few years.

The indicators of reversion to the feudal mode and its medieval blood-and-soil worldviews, including the idolatry associated with the “Great Leader” may be the same across afflicted states: the boast of a gloriously romantic history; contempt for and manipulation of the press, previously free and independent; renewal of anti-Semitic tropes accompanied by tolerance for Far White Right extremism (in Hungary, that would be Jobbik); transfer of powers to family and with it the growth of associated business alliances (open nepotism and cronyism); xenophobia; fear of George Soros 🙂 : the democratic state succumbs to the will of the President (for Life!) who then treats the assets of the same as if they were of his very own feudal estate — and so they become exactly that.

In every way, Orban’s illiberal Hungary — or the illiberal Orban’s captive state — fits with the renewal of — or renewed drowning in — feudalism in more than one or two NATO states..

BREXIT, Poland, others . . . BackChannels blames Moscow (and the obscure method of manipulation knows as “Reflexive Control” (on this blog: https://conflict-backchannels.com/2017/03/11/reflexive-control-process-allahu-akbar-terrorism-new-nationalism-neo-feudalism/ ) for a part of what has happened. In Turkey and Hungary, resurgent old habits have had their effects.

NATO: Next

Russia may not have need for plowing tanks into EU/NATO targets where “Active Measures” and the leveraging and seduction of deeply narcissistic state leaders may suffice for the perversion of NATO values — those supporting the democratic and liberal humanism that have been the hard fought and won treasures of western civilization — in targeted space. No sane child of the post-WWII west would think continuous conflict, political absolutism, and the wars of all against all the natural fate of western states, but that’s what has drawn near.

While NATO may be militarily on its game and strong, the system has shown its weakness in the egotism — the malignant narcissism — of several of its leaders (add another but lesser figure in Jeremy Corbyn, a perhaps unwitting son of Soviet Era cant and today’s piper of Far Out Left — and anti-Semitic — attitudes and beliefs — and then note his xenophobic complements occupying the British Far White Right).

May God smile on them all 😉 — but it is NATO that defends them, and if the same or similar come into power, then what would it be that NATO found itself actually defending?

From the deposing of old generals to the defeat of a pro-democracy coup, Erdogan’s story has unfolded and been met by the west even more slowly — but at least, finally, met.

What of others?


Posted to YouTube by Vox, July 18, 2016

Nonetheless: Happy Birthday, NATO. May you and the full suite of pro-democracy institutions and moral entrepreneurs worldwide advocate for and defend authentic democracies, related responsive and responsible governance, and forever human dignity and freedom and the many good dream and rights given to mankind.

# # #

FTAC: Judge Kavanaugh and Red-Blue Self-Righteous Loyalty

08 Monday Oct 2018

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

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

authoritarianism, Blase Ford testimony, feudal absolute power, Kavanaugh confirmation, malignant narcissism, medieval v modern, political identification, political loyalty

The article touted in “conservative” circles: http://thefederalist.com/2018/10/04/left-will-never-apologize-brutalizing-brett-kavanaugh-family/  In Federalist writer Nathaniel Blake’s own words:

This ugly truth about us explains what has happened to Brett Kavanaugh. Initially he was hated for being a Republican nominee for the Supreme Court, but it is still not universally acceptable to abominate someone only for being an originalist judge.

“Originalist judge” may not well explain what the nation saw transpire last week.

Here is this blog’s editor’s take on that.


BackChannels believed Ford, and that he (Kavanaugh) lied because he had the power to deny everything negative about himself. As much may be part of an “ambitious” or malign narcissism, and as much fits with the personality and associates of the man who nominated him.

With Red or Blue Right / Left Flag navigation, political identity may force arguments rather than reason, and that emotion drives the demonizing of the other camp as well as the concept familiar to conflicts worldwide: “accusation in a mirror”. “Witch hunt!

The Left has no need to apologize for defending Blase Ford.

The Right has no need to wonder why professional advisement — all those lawyers! — against the confirmation were ignored and the process will be remembers as forced by the Republicans or blocked by the Democrats: for an answer, the power of identity and loyalty will do.


Related on BackChannels

https://conflict-backchannels.com/coins-and-other-terms/anthropolitical-psychology/

Related on the Web

https://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/rwanda/Geno1-3-10.htm (cited here for “Accusation in a Mirror”, a political science concept well known to scholars — and here in association with genocide — but also fit with what may be observed in relation to “malignant narcissism”: the malignant narcissist is never wrong.  BackChannels offers this post from 2013 as an example of the type: https://conflict-backchannels.com/2013/06/11/remember-its-never-the-narcissist-erdogan-blames-woes-on-vandals-and-terrorist-elements/).

–33–

FTAC: Despots – Different Talks –> Same Walk!

05 Wednesday Sep 2018

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, A Little Wisdom, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Facsimile Bipolar Political Sociopathy, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Political Psychology, Politics, Psychology

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

absolute power, authoritarianism, despotism, dictatorship, dignity, freedom, humanism, malignant narcissism, political psychology

Different talks — same walk! When it comes to dictators, all are malignant narcissists.

Many want to keep repeating old arguments, especially, yawn, “communism v capitalism” but the truth is more like “sweet words — foul deeds”.

Add incitement, the role played by anti-Semitic cant and libel by despots through the ages.

In the eastern tradition too — I have in mind the Golden Horde — there appears to have been no difference in treatment between persons and property, and, in fact, for some (reference Richard Pipes books on Russian history) proof of sovereignty might be made to lie in the senseless destruction of either with impunity. And I would cite as another characteristic of the “authoritarian” breed the ability to visit suffering on others at will and with impunity.

On the street, they’re bullies; in office, presidents for life.


–33–

← Older posts
  • Compassion
  • Empathy
  • Justice
  • Humility
  • Inclusion
  • Integrity
____________

Caution: The possession of anti-Semitic / anti-Zionist thought may be the measure of the owner's own enslavement to criminal and medieval absolute power.
___________

Diane Weber Bederman Recommends BackChannels on Facebook!

"If you want to read great ideas and great prose, check out this FB page: BackChannels. James S. Oppenheim is a brilliant writer Get a glass of wine or a cup of coffee, sit down and enjoy."

Recent Posts

  • FTAC: Arab Thinkers Confront Self-Defeating Boycotts of Israel – Some Related Advice
  • The Confidence Man – He’ll Tell You Anything
  • FTAC: Encouragement for Palestinian Democracy
  • Norms! Impeachment Inquiry – The New World Still Battles the Old
  • Protection Racket – ‘Quid Pro Quo’? Yes | Shiff asks, ‘Is There Any Accountability’?
  • Arlo, Elvis, Pete & A Story About Peace

Categories

  • 21st Century Feudal
  • A Little Wisdom
  • Also in Media
  • American Domestic Affairs
  • Anti-Semitism
  • Asides
  • BCND – BackChannels News Day
  • Books
  • Conflict – Culture – Language – Psychology
  • Epistemology
  • Events and Other PSA's
  • Extreme Brown vs Red-Green
  • Fast News Share
  • foreign aid
  • Free Speech
  • FTAC
  • FTAC – From The Awesome Conversation
  • International Development
  • Islamic Small Wars
    • Gaza Suzerain
  • Journal
    • Library
  • Journalism
  • Links
  • Notes On Reading BackChannels
  • Philology
  • Philosophy
  • Poetry
  • Political Psychology
  • Political Spychology
  • Politics
  • Psychology
    • Facsimile Bipolar Political Sociopathy
  • Referral
  • Regions
    • Africa
      • Central African Republic
      • Kenya
      • Libya
      • Mali
      • Morocco
      • Nigeria
      • South Africa
      • Sudan
      • Tunisia
      • Zimbabwe
    • Asia
      • Afghanistan
      • Burma
      • China
      • India
      • Myanmar
      • North Korea
      • Pakistan
      • Turkey
    • Caribbean Basin
      • Cuba
    • Central America
      • El Salvador
      • Guatemala
      • Honduras
      • Mexico
    • Eastern Europe
    • Eurasia
      • Russia
      • Ukrain
      • Ukraine
    • Europe
      • France
      • Hungary
      • Poland
    • Great Britain and United Kingdom
    • Iberian Peninsula
    • Middle East
      • Egypt
      • Gaza
      • Iran
      • Iraq
      • Israel
        • Palestinia
      • Jordan
      • Kurdistan
      • Lebanon
      • Qatar
      • Saudi Arabia
      • Syria
      • United Arab Emirates
      • Yemen
    • North America
      • Canada
      • United States of America
    • Norther Europe
    • Northern Europe
      • Sweden
    • South America
      • Argentina
      • Brazil
      • Columbia
      • Ecuador
      • Venezuela
    • South Pacific
      • Australia
      • New Zealand
      • Papua New Guinea
      • West Papua
  • Religion
  • Spain
  • Syndicate Red Brown Green
  • transnational crime
  • Uncategorized
  • Visual Data

Europe

  • Defending History
  • Hungarian Spectrum
  • Yanukovych Leaks

Great Britain

  • Stand for Peace

Israeli and Jewish Affairs

  • Chloe Simone Valdary

Journals

  • Amil Imani
  • New Age Islam

Middle East

  • Human Rights & Democracy for Iran
  • Middle East Research and Information Project

Organizations

  • Anti-Slavery
  • Atlantic Council
  • Fight Hatred
  • Human Rights First Society
  • International Network Against Cyberhate
  • The Center for Victims of Torture

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Epigram

Hillel the Elder

"That which is distasteful to thee do not do to another. That is the whole of Torah. The rest is commentary. Now go and study."

"If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am not for others, what am I? If not now, when?"

"Whosoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world. And whosoever that saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world."

Oriana Fallaci
"Whether it comes from a despotic sovereign or an elected president, from a murderous general or a beloved leader, I see power as an inhuman and hateful phenomenon...I have always looked on disobedience toward the oppressive as the only way to use the miracle of having been born."

Talmud 7:16 as Quoted by Rishon Rishon in 2004
Qohelet Raba, 7:16

אכזרי סוף שנעשה אכזרי במקום רחמן

Kol mi shena`asa rahaman bimqom akhzari Sof shena`asa akhzari bimqom rahaman

All who are made to be compassionate in the place of the cruel In the end are made to be cruel in the place of the compassionate.

More colloquially translated: "Those who are kind to the cruel, in the end will be cruel to the kind."

Online Source: http://www.rishon-rishon.com/archives/044412.php

Abraham Isaac Kook

"The purely righteous do not complain about evil, rather they add justice.They do not complain about heresy, rather they add faith.They do not complain about ignorance, rather they add wisdom." From the pages of Arpilei Tohar.

Heinrich Heine
"Where books are burned, in the end people will be burned." -- From Almansor: A Tragedy (1823).

Simon Wiesenthal
Remark Made in the Ballroom of the Imperial Hotel, Vienna, Austria on the occasion of His 90th Birthday: "The Nazis are no more, but we are still here, singing and dancing."

Maimonides
"Truth does not become more true if the whole world were to accept it; nor does it become less true if the whole world were to reject it."

"The risk of a wrong decision is preferable to the terror of indecision."

Douglas Adams
"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?" Epigram appearing in the dedication of Richard Dawkins' The GOD Delusion.

Thucydides
"The Nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools."

Milan Kundera
"The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting."

Malala Yousafzai
“The terrorists thought that they would change our aims and stop our ambitions but nothing changed in my life except this: weakness, fear and hopelessness died. Strength, power and courage was born.”

Tanit Nima Tinat
"Who could die of love?"

What I Have Said About the Jews

My people, not that I speak for them, I nonetheless describe as a "global ethnic commune with its heart in Jerusalem and soul in the Land of Israel."

We have never given up on God, nor have we ever given up on one another.

Many things we have given up, but no one misses, say, animal sacrifice, and as many things we have kept, so we have still to welcome our Sabbath on Friday at sunset and to rest all of Saturday until three stars appear in the sky.

Most of all, through 5,773 years, wherever life has taken us, through the greatest triumphs and the most awful tragedies, we have preserved our tribal identity and soul, and so shall we continue eternally.

Anti-Semitism / Anti-Zionism = Signal of Fascism

I may suggest that anti-Zionism / anti-Semitism are signal (a little bit) of fascist urges, and the Left -- I'm an old liberal: I know my heart -- has been vulnerable to manipulation by what appears to me as a "Red Brown Green Alliance" driven by a handful of powerful autocrats intent on sustaining a medieval worldview in service to their own glorification. (And there I will stop).
One hopes for knowledge to allay fear; one hopes for love to overmatch hate.

Too often, the security found in the parroting of a loyal lie outweighs the integrity to be earned in confronting and voicing an uncomfortable truth.

Those who make their followers believe absurdities may also make them commit atrocities.

Positively Orwellian: Comment Responding to Claim that the Arab Assault on Israel in 1948 Had Not Intended Annihilation

“Revisionism” is the most contemptible path that power takes to abet theft and hide shame by attempting to alter public perception of past events.

On Press Freedom, Commentary, and Journalism

In the free world, talent -- editors, graphic artists, researchers, writers -- gravitate toward the organizations that suit their interests and values. The result: high integrity and highly reliable reportage and both responsible and thoughtful reasoning.

This is not to suggest that partisan presses don't exist or that propaganda doesn't exist in the west, but any reader possessed of critical thinking ability and genuine independence -- not bought, not programmed -- is certainly free to evaluate the works of earnest reporters and scholars.

Blog at WordPress.com.