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Tag Archives: autocracy

Surrealpolitik: Orban & Putin & ‘Illiberal Democracy’

07 Saturday Jan 2023

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Extreme Brown vs Red-Green, Hungary, Psychology, Russia

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Tags

authoritarianism, autocracy, EU & Hungary, Hungary, Hungary & Russia, Illiberal Democracy is Tyranny, kleptocracy, malignant narcissism, Medieval v. Modern, New Nobility, Orban & Putin, Orban and Putin, political absolutism, Putinism, Russia, Viktor Orban, Vladimir Putin

BUDAPEST, Hungary—When Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban unleashed a racist tirade during an annual address to ethnic Hungarians in Romania on July 23, in which he argued that his supporters do “not want to become peoples of mixed race,” the international community recoiled in horror at the vitriol being espoused by the leader of a NATO and European Union member state. One of Orban’s longtime advisors, Zsuzsa Hegedus, resigned after the speech, calling it a “pure Nazi text … worthy of [former Nazi leader Joseph] Goebbels.”

Coakley, Amanda. “Putin’s Trojan Horse Inside the European Union: No matter what Moscow does, Hungary’s prime minister consistently carries water for the Kremlin.” Foreign Policy, August 3, 2022.

Amanda Coakley’s article also covers Orban’s deliberate development of dependence on Russia for Hungary’s energy supply. His disingenuous position within the European Union suggests he has had but one outcome in mind, i.e., to become premier in Europe’s “New Nobility” as encouraged by Vladimir Putin. At the base of the autocratic feudal-medieval bond–the same “Malignant Narcissism” that has so characterized former American President Donald Trump’s careers and politics that have turned out disasters for banks, contractors, and citizens.


In late November 2022, Ukrainian special forces arrested a suspected Russian agent at the Ukraine–Hungary border. The man had been attempting to smuggle secret information into EU member state Hungary on a flash drive that he had allegedly concealed in his anus.

The flash drive contained stolen personal information about senior figures and staff at the Ukrainian domestic secret service SBU and the Ukrainian military intelligence service GUR, as well as sensitive data on Ukrainian army bases, weapons and logistics.

Bogar, Zsolt. “Is Hungary becoming Russia’s spy hub within the EU?” DW, September 12, 2022.

Orban, contrary to the European Union’s posture, appears not to mind either the presence nor success of Russia’s spies in Budapest and elsewhere in Hungary. The penetration surpasses presence in numbers as allies believe Hungary’s “IT networks and internal communications” compromised. For a four-year period, 2013-2017, Orbán’s Hungary had even eased the access of Russian spies into the rest of the EU via a “Golden Visa” program (related and recent: Szabolcs, Panyi. “Russian spy chief’s son has a Budapest address–in a property owned by an old friend of Orbán’s chief of staff.” Telex, November 14, 2022).


In the now “surrealpolitik” constructed between Hungary and Russia, business includes the following:

  • Building two nuclear plant blocks in Paks financed by borrowing $10 billion from Russia;
  • Building railroad cars;
  • Hosting Russia’s dark International Investment Bank;
  • Supporting a 15-year gas delivery contract with Gazprom that bypasses Ukraine.

For further details, see the source–Rácz, András. “Authoritarian Ties: The Case of Russia and Hungary.” The Russia File, Kennan Institute, Wilson Center, October 22, 2021. Rácz also notes where Orbán’s spine has stiffened in relation to Russian performance not up to EU standards (and some “intelligence operatives” have indeed been ejected from Hungary).

Global Security‘s remarks fit the brotherly love model of modern despotism in Hungary: “Orban played tough, which might not turn out well for him in the long run. His games were turning into a high wire act, threatening to keep Brussels off balance. At times Orban made half-hearted promises to uphold the EU’s policy toward Russia; at other times, he allowed himself to be flattered by Putin, his self-declared political role model. Or, when it came to economic interests, he allowed himself to be put under pressure (Global Security, “Hungary-Russia Relations” as quoted January 7, 2022).

Putin’s realpolitik, plain old mafia leverage, came through for Russia this past year. From The Guardian—

Hungarians voted in general elections just weeks after the invasion, in April, and it seems reasonable to assume that the war next door had an influence on the result. Given the climate of fear that the devastating “special military operation” created, Hungarians voted to keep Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz in power rather than risk an untested six-party coalition. This assumption also underlies Orbán’s response, which is to stay out of the conflict to the point of being “exempted”, a position that has been condemned as a betrayal by Hungary’s western allies. Hungary refuses to allow arms shipments destined for Kyiv to transit Hungarian territory and blocks the extension of EU sanctions against Russia to the energy sector. This latter stance is intended to enable an already controversial Russian-Hungarian project to build a nuclear power plant on the Danube (Paks II) to go ahead unaltered.

Dalos, György.  “Orban says Hungary is ‘exempt’ from the conflict: tell that to his friend in Moscow.”  The Guardian, October 29, 2022.

György also notes the “similarities between the two leaders: authoritarian posturing and illiberalism underlying their respective concepts of the state.”


Since then, Orbán has been accused of fostering resentment. Tensions flared in 2018 over a video that apparently showed diplomats illegally issuing Hungarian passports to people in Transcarpathia. Later, in 2019, Hungary was accused of trying to influence the outcome of elections in the region, and blocked Ukraine’s NATO membership negotiations over the row. |

Today, from the Donbas to Kosovo, events are again proving the potency of nationalist narratives over lost territory and peoples separated by the claimed injustices of history. Yet, in the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the simple fact that many Hungarians have negative views of both Russians and Ukrainians is pertinent.

Nattrass, William. “Hungary’s ‘pro-Russia’ stance was inevitable.” Politico, September 15, 2022.

The wholly reactionary New Nobility (a member of which Orban might wish to be counted) rather like the old, appears fascinated by its own super-duper bloodline and culture, enough so to demonize hosts beyond their own boundaries, engage in passportization, and when possibility arises, redraw maps by way of wars driven by the conviction of racially-based cultural supremacy.


Comparing Orban to Putin might once have been hyperbole. But when Fidesz seems determined to expel a high-quality educational institution from the country on the grounds of political views of its funder, it is hyperbole no longer.

The attack on CEU, furthermore, is not happening in isolation. It is part of a broader effort to squeeze out “Soros and the powers that symbolize him,” to use Orban’s own words.

Rohac, Dalibor. “Hungary Is Turning Into Russia: On the CEU, Orban Mimics Putin.” Foreign Affairs, April 12, 2017.

America’s Anti-Defamation League has classified the demonizing of George Soros as expressive of anti-Semitism, a return to the rhetoric of Jew as Globalist. In fact and far back in the day, George and his father, Tivador, used social camouflage to survive the Holocaust while providing other Jews with forged papers for escape. Their resistance would continue against Stalin and Communist Russia, and so through George Soros it has been sustained through the Cold War and throughout Russia journey into kleptocracy and, on this day, politically absolute tyranny.


ADL. “The Antisemitism Lurking Behind George Soros Conspiracy Theories.” October 11, 2018.

Bogar, Zsolt. “Is Hungary becoming Russia’s spy hub within the EU?” DW, September 12, 2022.

Coakley, Amanda. “Putin’s Trojan Horse Inside the European Union: No matter what Moscow does, Hungary’s prime minister consistently carries water for the Kremlin.” Foreign Policy, August 3, 2022.

Dalos, György.  “Orban says Hungary is ‘exempt’ from the conflict: tell that to his friend in Moscow.”  The Guardian, October 29, 2022.

Global Security. “Hungary-Russia Relations”.

Nattrass, William. “Hungary’s ‘pro-Russia’ stance was inevitable.” Politico, September 15, 2022.

Oppenheim, James S. “FTAC: A Short Note on the Demonizing of George Soros.” BackChannels, August 8, 2020.

Rácz, András. “Authoritarian Ties: The Case of Russia and Hungary.” The Russia File, Kennan Institute, Wilson Center, October 22, 2021.

Rohac, Dalibor. “Hungary Is Turning Into Russia: On the CEU, Orban Mimics Putin.” Foreign Affairs, April 12, 2017.

Szabolcs, Panyi. “Russian spy chief’s son has a Budapest address–in a property owned by an old friend of Orbán’s chief of staff.” Telex, November 14, 2022.


While #PutinFullTonto strives to return Russia to some version of the KGB revisits the Russian Imperial mode, few believe the Phantom of the Soviet will restore a monstrous near past; however, he has well succeeded in leveraging cooperation from malign and piratical personalities similar to his own–in power Viktor Orban and Recep Tayyip Erdogan most notably–and thereby weakening the political cohesion and coherence of the Atlantic Alliance and the European Union.

–33–

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

≈ 3 Comments

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–

NATO’s “New Nobility” – Erdogan, Orban, (Trump?) – and Peonage

11 Wednesday Jul 2018

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

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

aristocracy, autocracy, contemporary feudalism, Donald J. Trump, medieval v modern, New Nationalism, New Nobility, plutocracy, political analysis, political science, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Viktor Orban

BackChannels acknowledges the book in which it first encountered the term:

Soldatov, Andrei and Irena Borogan. The New Nobility: The Restoration of Russia’s Security State and the Enduring Legacy of the KGB. New York: Public Affairs, 2010.

However, this post is not going to be about powerful and self-enriching KGB/FSB spies and their bureaucracies.

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Viktor Orbán,  and Donald J. Trump seem to this blogger more the “New Nobility” that Russian President Vladimir Putin may have had also in mind as he launched his revenge on the western world for the demise of the Soviet Union on December 25, 1991 — a very good Christmas morning indeed for the United States of America and in the defunct godless realm then represented by the Kremlin a not very special day at all.

In the 26 years that have passed since that morning (for political purpose, it was over at noon), Russia and her leadership have had to think about what it has meant to be “Russian”.

“Old Vikings”?

Formed of conquest, contracting and expanding through the brutality of feudal wars, unable ever to police — mere civil policing — its territorial writs, Russia has been a state that has better known barbarism and the depths of inhumanity through violence (give a nod for the extra special dose brought by the Mongols) than civility through accommodation and trade.  In that regard, the “Vory”, the once brutalized mafia within, may in their inglorious legend represent the pure expression of the heart of the state.

Backing the tyrant in Syria?

Invading a settled Ukraine and baldly lying to the world about its purpose?

Bombing hospitals?

Pursuing feudal absolute power — unquestionable ownership of persons as things — with the Assahola in Tehran?

All of the above: true.

So what good new things has Russia brought to the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization?

Applying the concept of “Reflexive Control” with “Islamic Terrorism” for the convenient stimulus, BackChannels may suggest the four infamous retrogrades:

BREXIT: While Great Britain has been happy to pile on “Asian” labor, it has not been so happy with grooming gangs, suspect neighborhoods, and “Allahu Akbar” explosions, much less the impositions posed by the refugees of war in Syria.  Response: the Newest Nationalism expressed in renewed insularity and refreshed Anglican pride.

While it’s good for a state to recall what it’s about, some among the most zealous should factor in how they have been played by Moscow.

Erdogan: Prime Minister, President, and now, apparently, President for Life has never encountered serious resistance for his taking apart what Mustafa Kemal Atatürk bequeathed in bureaucratic and military legacy.  The empire’s back, baby, and dig the symbolic significance of the leaders new crib.

Impressed?

Dig this cool new statistic on press freedom in Erdogan’s new estate (italics added).

The 2018 index ranking marked Turkey’s 58 point-decrease over the past 13 years, lagging just behind Rwanda, Belarus and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkey-ranks-157-in-rsfs-press-freedom-index-down-two-places-from-last-year-130898 – 4/25/2018.

Pretty cool, huh?

If Erdogan’s New Old Turkish estate makes it all the way down to the bottom of the list, BackChannels will certainly make note of the prize.

Orban: In addition to other self-aggrandizing and self-enriching schemes, this NATO president has been working on an old home and estate.  Fave header from related online searching: “How Viktor Orban will tap Europe’s taxpayers and bankroll his friends and family: Plans for a lakeside development show how Hungary’s leader enriches those who stand behind him” (Reuters, Martin Dunai, March 15, 2018).

Trump: “You all just got a lot richer,” Trump tells friends, referencing tax overhaul  (CBS News, Kathryn Watson, December 23, 2017).  Who else: “Ivanka Trump’s Fashion Brand Will Not Be Impacted by Donald Trump’s Chinese Trade Tariffs” (Teen Vogue, Amira Rasool, July 9, 2018).  While the “optics” don’t look good in relation to nepotism, let’s be fair: negotiating business is a continuous process for both sides in complex transactions: other variables may apply to setting tariffs in Ivanka’s region of commercial interest: other brands are in the mix too.

https://shenglufashion.com/2018/02/09/pattern-of-u-s-textile-and-apparel-imports-updated-february-2018/

Nonetheless, the American President’s behavior, personal as well as political, has left him also, as with the Erdogan and Orban, associated with the terms “autocratic”, “narcissistic”, and “nationalist”.  While it’s good to take pride in one’s nation and defend her interests with tough negotiations, it may not be so good for the head of a modern democratic state to promote the image of himself as a feudal lord, securing prizes for family and friends on the basis of loyalty, and doing out favors (“You all just got a lot richer”) to surrounding nobility.

President George W. Bush also made light of the “have and have mores”, but for Americans struggling with fixed retirements, healthcare premiums, perhaps the full suite of basic and complex costs of survival, and, for the young, jobs that fail to deliver even a modicum of financial  independence and pride, much less security, the implied further reduction to peonage must sting.


Posted to YouTube December 26, 2017.


–33–

 

FTAC: Putin, Terrorism, Autocracy, and the New Nationalism

14 Wednesday Feb 2018

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Europe, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Hungary, Middle East, Political Psychology, Political Spychology, Politics, Russia, Turkey, United States of America

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

authoritarianism, autocracy, autocrats, creation of political chaos, dictatorship, Erdogan, i24, malignant narcissism, New Nationalism, Orban, political narcissism, Putin, Reflexive Control, Ryan Mauro, terrorism, Trump

When Russian jets first overflew Turkish airspace in 2015, Erdogan stood fast in his refusal of apology.

https://www.cnn.com/2015/11/26/middleeast/syria-turkey-russia-warplane-shot-down/index.html

Six months later, he did what Netanyahu had done in relation to the Mavi Marmara: he apologized.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/27/kremlin-says-erdogan-apologises-russian-jet-turkish

Setting aside the Israeli story a moment, points of leverage may have involved the “Turkish Stream” energy project, a piece of “realpolitik”, and an appeal to the narcissistic concept of cultural leadership and state in which the “Great Leader” is the embodiment of the living state concept _and entitled_ to aggrandizement and glory without limit (or, clinically, “unlimited narcissistic supply). Putin’s vision appears to me to be that of the medieval world sustained with raw power put in place of democracy.

The look of the mode — big palaces, nepotism on a royal scale, confusion in relation to the boundaries of person and state (and the state’s treasury) — marks the medieval mind and related revanche.

Men like Putin, Assad, Khamenei, Erdogan, Orban may consider true popular democratic government as impeding their own authority, sovereignty, and will. While the term “autocrat” sounds quite bureaucratic, similar concepts — caliph, emperor, king, sultan — fit these guys.

Because we know of the “Moscow Apartment Bombings” and that Russia has been arming the Taliban in Afghanistan — and there’s more back there with Zawahiri and others — it may not be too far fetched to suggest that Moscow has manipulated terrorism to induce in struck targets a predictable patriotic new nationalism and that “the terrorists” — ISIS or PKK — now provide a platform for conflict, all against all, and without end. Where Putin has held sway, he has turned back history’s clock.

Our President Trump has had no issues bearing and wearing the mantle of authority, but it would be facile to say he hasn’t had some issues with the “Estates” of a matured democracy.  In that regard, he may fit the world to which Putin has wished to return the world.


Inspiration for the above note:

–33–

The “Active Measures” Links Page

01 Sunday Oct 2017

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

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Active Measures, autocracy, dictatorship, intellectual barbarism, new basic political vocabulary, Orwellian, political surrealism, post-Cold War, totalitarianism, unfreedom

Vocabulary Lesson

Active Measures

Disinformation

Fake News

Hybrid Warfare

KGB Theater

Information Warfare

Kompromat

Orwellian

Perceptual Control

Reflexive Control

Troll Farm

Now there’s New Speak indeed!

And much better than “Newspeak” (revisit Orwell): how dumb I / you / and we may be may be entirely up to ourselves!

We may wish to become aware, however, of our own “dumbing down” through allocation and curriculum priorities in general education and perhaps through our own penchant for entertainment without much critical demand on our own part except to be . . . well, entertained far more than informed or otherwise intellectually engaged.

That’s okay, of course

Allowing ourselves to be entertained is part of how we retreat from other engagements and find rest and restoration for the mind.

Still, perhaps all good citizens would do well to apprise themselves of the following concepts in greater depth as we globally ride out squawking of the discreditable, dishonest, disingenuous, despicable, and entirely disreputable (scorecard: D) among the world’s politicians and their hacks.


Active Measures: from Russia with the high-handed contempt associated with imperious narcissistic state leadership personality, think of “active measures” as the full suite of assaults on the cultural and intellectual framework of the liberal democracies of the world (and nix the “illiberal democracies”, even if members of NATO, for there ain’t no such thing as an “illiberal democracy”).

So there.

🙂

Active Measures Primer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_measures


Disinformation: what comes of defaming, framing, lying, misguiding, spinning.

Primer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disinformation

KGB defector providing best insight into the dark art of creating and sustaining mass illusions: Ion Mihai Pacepa.  On BackChannels: https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/11/28/a-short-page-referencing-works-by-or-associated-with-ion-mihai-pacepa/


Fake News: banner term relating well to the American homily that he who points the finger . . . .

Related Online

https://www.cjr.org/
http://ethics.npr.org/
http://handbook.reuters.com/index.php?title=Integrity
https://www.poynter.org/
https://www.publicintegrity.org/
https://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp
http://www.timewarner.com/company/corporate-responsibility/telling-the-worlds-stories/journalistic-integrity

https://www.britannica.com/topic/agitprop
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_measures

State Controlled Press History

https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007655
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-17840134


Hybrid Warfare: every form of sub-nuclear and sub-conventional warfare that might be (is) launched against a target (like Ukraine) so as not to resemble “direct engagement”.  From the fielding and infiltrating of agent provocateur to mixing armed men without insignia (“Little Green Men”) in with partisan recruits to denying aggression at all . . . it’s all perfectly surreal bullying and combative bullshit that must draw a firm response from the land and people (and state) so viciously assaulted.


KGB Theater: political events, especially warfare, treated as a show one may produce and control for the delectation of military and political elites and the misguidance of the masses.

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


Information Warfare: if you’re here, you’re in it.


Kompromat: see online “Felix Sater“.  Applicable American homily: “Sleep with dogs — wake up with fleas.”  If in office, wake up under investigation.

Primer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kompromat

Update: related on BackChannels: “Kompromat – A Compilation“.


Orwellian: what happens when powerful political elites rule the world so as to forestall change, manage war as if it were a fireplace, dispense with the very idea of human dignity, and wreck forever even the hope of freedom, free will, and the possession of integrity.

Primer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orwellian

Nifty Ted-ed —


Perceptual Control: political rhetoric and stagecraft produced so effectively and pervasively as to channel public perception where the politician — or, perhaps tomorrow, the “political technician” or “political technologist” — may with fair predictive capability produce effects as desired.

Fair example: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/439060/vladimir-putin-1999-russian-apartment-house-bombings-was-putin-responsible

Recommended supplemental reading: http://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/S/bo3617244.html


Reflexive Control: sneak up on someone working quietly in their own little world and say . . . “Boo!”

Fair example by way of BackChannel’s observation: https://conflict-backchannels.com/2017/03/11/reflexive-control-process-allahu-akbar-terrorism-new-nationalism-neo-feudalism/

There is as yet no primer for “Reflexive Control” as the same has been a term of military art involving getting one’s enemy / target to behave in a desired fashion.

As now often noted on BackChannels (or on Facebook), the technique has been used to amplify or reinstall the feudal mentality and related political processes in the EU / NATO states in order to produce the kind of world in which autocratic systems — flat out or my measures — may thrive.  In the KGB method as perceived by BackChannels makes short work of manipulating Islamic Terrorism to produce in targeted states a “New Nationalism” (strong reflexive patriotism) suited to the political absolutism of the medieval world.


Troll Farm: Moscow-sponsored factories for financially enslaved writers.

Related: “Ministry of Truth” – 😉

http://www.businessinsider.com/russia-internet-trolls-and-donald-trump-2016-7

https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-trolls-headquarters-media-internet-insider-account/26904157.html

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/02/putin-kremlin-inside-russian-troll-house – 4/2/2105

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

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

–33–

FTAC: MEC: Russia’s Earlier Influence of the Palestinians

13 Thursday Jul 2017

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, Anti-Semitism, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Gaza, Israel, Middle East, Palestinia

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

authoritarianism, autocracy, dictatorship, intellectual history, middle east conflict, Orwellian rhetoric, Palestinian community, Palestinian honor, Palestinian integrity, Russian anti-Semitism

I’ve harped on this answer around Facebook, and may have gotten a bad rep for it, but I stand behind what I have found in relation to the middle east conflict and the political history of the 20th Century:

The west and the Palestinians (together) have been duped by Moscow!

Repeat it twelve times — because it’s true.

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

I know that Arafat and Abbas are deeply admired figures in the Palestinian territories, but I / we also know that the Palestinians have been deeply controlled by the powerful management of their information space accompanied by political repression.

None may have peace without integrity and none may have integrity without full acknowledgement and comprehension of how Russia’s history and political culture contributed to Nazism and to the later formulation of Palestinian “liberation” rhetoric — and then the raiding of the proceeds of the business.

Regarding the path of the forged “Protocols” and their transfer into Germany in the 1920s:

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/12/27/excerpt-1920s-the-spread-of-hate-russia-germany-laqueur/

The Palestinians may not know it, but they’re in good position, professor Dajani especially, to become the world’s leaders in bona fide intellectual history IF they can get The Bear off their backs.

That’s something to think about.

In the interest of peace, one may also lend consideration to whether evolving and modifying the systems of infantilizing disinformation (for “the masses” who would fare better being treated like human beings) and related loyalty and patronage should be changed quickly or slowly — but they have to be changed IF the Palestinians and their advocates (or interlocutors) genuinely wish for better lives — real dignity, real freedom, honorable prosperity — all the way around.

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2015/10/12/ftac-tip-to-the-kgbs-amplification-of-middle-eastern-anti-semitism/

Repressive, selfish, and totalitarian regimes hide what they do by shielding their followers from cogent and legitimate information. They basically keep their own in order — loyalty to powerful narcissists — by keeping them deprived of knowledge.

The officials who continue to harp on Mein Kampf, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and countless rumors that serve as “blood libels” should be of another day a long time ago.

Those who sustain such practices with their mouths should be regarded as phantoms by Israelis and Palestinians equally.


The prompt for the rant had been reference to a Palestinian Authority “leader” talking up the forgery that was The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and the question raised was what to do today about that kind of baldfaced lying.

BackChannels shorter answer: drag it out into the sun where all may see it.

–33–

FTAC: A Note Involving C. S. Lewis, Bush in Iraq, and the Updating of the Modern Apprehension of Character in Leadership

14 Wednesday Jun 2017

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

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

autocracy, dictatorship, kleptocracy, political criminality, political psychology

Prompt:

My contention is that good men (not bad men) consistently acting upon that position [imposing “the good”] would act as cruelly and unjustly as the greatest tyrants. They might in some respects act even worse. Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under of robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber barons cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some points be satiated; but those who torment us for their own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to heaven yet at the same time likely to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be “cured” against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on the level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.

The C. S. Lewis quote met a rejoinder involving the Bush Era war in Iraq.


Ask hungry children, also the Kurds and the Marsh Arabs about Saddam.

Bush and the neocons did the right thing but focused too much on “regime change” and seemingly not at all on cultural transition. In the long run, which now characterizes what I believe Iraq has been about all along, natural cerebral and less natural political evolution have a codependent relationship, i.e., the more intelligent we become as a species, the more empathetic, reasoning, and thoughtful we must become as well — or perish in our own nuclear plasma.

C. S. Lewis may not have known that he was addressing a recognizable kind of evil in “good” character, and that would be the do-good messianic character of the malignant narcissistic (related look-ups: bipolar disorder; narcissistic personality disorder. In such people, power becomes the power to visit suffering on others with impunity. This is something that made the Soviet Era Communist Party and its machinery so execrable; it is also the same thing that has made the “Islamists” and their zombie-think intellectual machinery and very real criminal muscle also deeply repugnant to mankind. One may note similar cause and narrative in the Christian “inquisition” and numerous royal and sectarian conflicts.

Let’s not take the words of great writers such as C.S. Lewis as being beyond reproach by way of improved knowledge and new observation and updating.

Regarding Islam’s internecine issues and political psychology: the rancor should come down in geopolitical numbers and scope as feudal methods in power and the medieval worldview become more difficult to “sell” against the full suite of modern administrative alternatives and their presence in the fast becoming archaic fortresses of the medieval mode.


–33–

FTAC: The Yankee Responds

23 Sunday Apr 2017

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, Also in Media, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Extreme Brown vs Red-Green, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Political Psychology

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21st Century Feudalism, 21st Century Neo-Feudalism, autocracy, dictatorship, freedom, kleptocracy, media, political malignance, press freedom, Russia, Turkey

Article of Interest: 

https://www.eu-foreignpolicy.com/2017/04/21/analysis-from-the-su-24-crisis-to-the-moscow-ankara-rapprochement-leadership-and-foreign-policy-doctrines/

Passage of Interest: 

From our comparative analysis, it emerges how both Russia and Turkey present astonishing similarities in their leaderships styles. It is important to outline such feature of the nations’ political life because, being both “leader-politics” countries, the style of their leaders influences greatly the shaping of the national political agenda and the strategies used by the states to pursue such agendas.

To sum up, one could say that all the facts taken into account here highlight the presence in both countries totalitarian democracy regime, centred on the figure of the all-powerful leader. None of the leaders actually ever rejected the principles of the pluralistic state. In the official national narrative, both of them could be overthrown by a democratic election. But why should this happen, when they embody the essence of their national identity. Just like Putin is THE Russian man, Erdogan image is moulded on THE Turkish one.


“In the official national narrative, both of them could be overthrown by a democratic election. But why should this happen, when they embody the essence of their national identity. Just like Putin is THE Russian man, Erdogan image is moulded on THE Turkish one.”

Perhaps if each were more secure with such an assertion, the press in each state would be free (it’s an easy look-up as to how they are not) and their political rivals less often inhibited, jailed, muzzled, or murdered.

The truth is each may be wrong about himself (there’s also an interesting psychology at play in their “malignant narcissism” and respective kleptocracies), and that’s why open and vibrant national conversations supported by “fair and free elections” matter in democracies — and not at all in dictatorships.


Additional Reference

https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2017/russia

https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2017/turkey

https://rsf.org/en/ranking

https://rsf.org/en/russia

https://rsf.org/en/turkey

–33–

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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.

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