Tag Archives: evil

FTAC – Short Note on News Evaluation in the New Age of “Active Measures”

03 Tuesday Jan 2017

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

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Whatever the motivation, the demonizing of Obama formed a part of the ugly polarizing of American politics and, perhaps, clouded the ability of most Americans to develop a more data-rich and reasoned analysis of states of affairs. “Framing” serves the passions, but it’s framing and practically by definition skewed from the surface and into the mix that sustains what we call “attitudes” — a collection of beliefs, their primacy and valence (good thing / bad thing, how much so?) that feed up to our conclusions. As we accumulate information, both beliefs and attitudes may be adjusted to suit what we also believe to be — and may prod and test ourselves — valid and reliable new data.

https://conflict-backchannels.com/category/regions/eurasia/russia/

Putin’s Administration today represents a complete KGB revanche but with the banner of “State Capitalism” in place of “Communism” and in place of socialist equality a new ultra-nationalist and neo-imperial ambition for dominating and looting others under the cover of “protection”.

Perhaps up to this now tense time in history — see “Cold War?  Cold Struggle” — the western public, by and large, has been spared the necessity of revisiting history lessons, learning about state-sponsored evil (start that with state-controlled press), and summoning the energy to apply research and critical thinking skills to a thorough evaluation of information for its integrity in the delivery of both factual data and in reasoning.

BackChannels has worked for some time now collecting, analyzing, compressing, and telegraphing observations in the region of foreign affairs.  It knows it may not surprise the specialists, those hands who have embraced an appropriate enthusiasm in their teen years, picked up one or more languages, majored in a relevant field, and sallied forth for decades as policy makers and scholars.  However, that community forms a lofty and healthy choir.  What about those becoming involved in such events as the Syrian Conflict and Tragedy or the “Euromaidan” and the effort to produce a modern democracy in Ukraine?  For that, BackChannels pieces provide numerous portals into related fields and topics.

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FTAC – A Comment on Fragile, Dangerous Energy Systems and Political Chaos

22 Friday Nov 2013

Posted by in FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Politics

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Within and around Iran, conflict seems a state of affairs, but the form conflicts take today — sub-state, transnational, highly technological — is very different from anything experienced ever. No one has to assault or bomb anything IF it can shut down computing operations, electrical feeds, satellite signals, etc., or otherwise interfere with arming or delivery paths.

We may be entering an energy age involving both fragile and extremely dangerous technologies — solar farms (easy to bomb or disconnect) and nuclear power stations (real ones involving fires we don’t know how to put out when their cooling systems fail) — and IF we wish one another to live well and prosper (so the Jews meet Star Trek), our ability to dispel, manage, or quell political and social chaos and violence comes to the fore. Basically: we can’t produce a higher global standard in quality of living if we cannot curtail the behavior persistent at the other end of the lifestyle and governance spectrum.

The problems have to dispense with arms.

We’re going to have a lot of arguments.

We do not want to have a lot of accidents.

I’ve counseled for a universal basis in values “compassion, humility, inclusion (very important), and integrity.  The world’s at a crossroads and will go forward, but whether it strives to do so today and gets a grip on itself or painfully scrapes through 400 more years to get to about the same place, I don’t know.

I do feel certain that to that to produce a sufficient global distribution in end-user resources to forestall or ameliorate conflict, disease, economic suffering — real suffering — and starvation wants for greater global cooperation and a steep reduction in the kind of human wildcards that spoil everything for everyone.

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FTAC – Genocide – A Note

30 Wednesday Oct 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Facsimile Bipolar Political Sociopathy, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Politics, Psychology

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It may help to think of evil — and to know evil — as a latent or potential bloom within any population and one that may be connected to political ends. However, the primary switch, whether with Dachau or Rwanda involves the taking of license (yes, like 007) which may be a subject worth some focus. In psychopathology, one notes the loss of boundaries involved in bipolar and narcissistic personality disorders; in the complex social disorders that become of interest in political psychology, analogs may apply: who are these people who in Kenya would commandeer a mall expressly to murder non-Muslims without any moral compunction — only pseudo moral excuse — and with ferocious and unbridled sadism? Those are the same souls, or kinds of souls, we are talking about whether talking about frenzied Catholics, Nazis, Hutus, or Janjaweed.

I’m not going to add much to the above.

I think we understand the Pharaoh confronted by Moses as the analog “malignant narcissist” or, in the modern outlook, the glorious dictator, the template for all who would dress proudly while up to their pants’ cuffs in their own constituent’s blood.

What is of interest here is whether mankind might acquire the brights to get its nets around this facet of human wildness and cage or channel it for a coming age in which energy resources, trade systems, and related economic and political arrangements may depend mightily on the global ability to defend them from, basically, magnificent assholes and the damage they would do as long as enabled by either surrounding fear, incompetence, or passivity.

In Syria at the moment, both Bashar al Assad and the Al Qaeda groups have made plain their inabilities as regards containing themselves.  They are those whose days have already passed and with every atrocity and injustice left in their wake they are helping the present and future politics overtake them.

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A Short Note on The Dictator, The Mirror, and the Fragile Surface

16 Monday Sep 2013

Posted by in Africa, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Facsimile Bipolar Political Sociopathy, Politics, Psychology, Regions, Zimbabwe

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When Robert Mugabe dies — I predict peacefully, in his sleep — he will go believing himself the most beneficent and magnanimous of leaders, the champion of his state, black and beautiful, bountiful and good.

If the children of Zimbabwe are starving or dying of the cholera he introduced to some parts, if the currency would seem to be forever foundering, if the cries of brutality, corruption, and injustice remain constant in the air and on the airwaves of either opposition or truthful radio, all of that would be no fault of his: he, Robert Mugabe, did what he could.

And he got away with it!

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Do dictators know what they do?

I don’t think they do.

At least they may not be aware of their effects with a depth in any way anchored in a human and sentimental heart.

In the Great Halls of Mirrors, the brightest reflections are of heroic men, each dictator alpha among others, struggling on their own behalf, their families (not really but it’s made to look that way, for image matters), and their people for place of pride against a world that would otherwise undo and enslave them.

Theirs is a fight for every inch and measurable Nth of property, business, and resource, while every reflection — the stuff of “narcissistic supply” — by way of paid and patronized advisers and associates, fawning (or faking it) family, and permitted controlled media agree with that outlook.

In the contempt and disparagement of others, in the inability to connect with a common humanity, in the abuse and intimidation of others, in the callous disregard of deep injustice and tragedy suffered by others directly or indirectly at their hands, there seems a surface ever ready to shatter, ever uncertain of its own basis in being that has long gone missing.

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I may slip from analysis to poetry to fiction here as the depth of what one witnesses in such figures eludes “observable-measurable” note making.  However, for this post, the following statement and the URLs accompanying it all report or reflect on what is known:

A power-sharing deal signed on September 15 aimed to bring together the current president Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, signaled a moment of hope for the future of Zimbabwe. Instead, it marked the start of the country’s most recent descent into chaos: water and sanitation services shut down; inflation skyrocketed; food shortages spread across the country; hospitals and clinics closed their doors; outbreaks of cholera, anthrax, and possibly malaria threaten lives; and in a country where where AIDS kills over 400 Zimbabweans a day, care for HIV/AIDS and opportunistic infections have lost priority. While innocent civilians fight for their lives the governing parties clash over the rule of Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe Health System Crisis, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, n.d.

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▶ Robert Mugabe Denies Cholera Epidemic in Zimbabwe – YouTube 12/12/2008

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Zimbabwe Economy

allAfrica.com: Zimbabwe: Intensifying Government Bankruptcy (Page 1 of 2) 2/8/2013

Face up to reality and start talking to Robert Mugabe – FT.com 9/10/2013

allAfrica.com: Zimbabwe Sails Close to Economic Rocks (Page 1 of 2) 8/28/2013:

According to Zimbabwe’s Indigenisation Act of 2007, foreign-owned companies are forced to cede 51 percent of their shares to local people. But economists warn that the indigenisation policy is driving investors away.

“Foreign investors are obliged to bring in 100 percent of the capital, bear 100 percent of the risk, provide 100 percent of the technology, and in turn settle for 49 percent of the equity and pay taxes,” independent economist Kingston Nyakurukwa told IPS.

China, whose labor has been keeping me in sharp western-designed clothing for a while, may prove up to burden of keeping the ever dapper Robert Mugabe looking equally as good.

Zimbabwe Gets Computers to Track Epidemics, Diseases 12/20/2012 — Still, the United States lends a helping hand.  However, notes this article, such aid, which admittedly focuses on HIV/AIDS control and contributes to the American Center for Disease Control (CDC) data base, arrives within this context:

As a result of bankruptcy, President Robert Mugabe’s government in Zimbabwe is failing to meet the Abuja Declarations which recommends that African governments allocate 15 percent of their budgets towards health.

Saudi Gazette – Mugabe’s bankruptcy (near direct-to-print URL), n.d.

BBC News – Bitterness and unease in bankrupt Zimbabwe 3/6/2010

Zimbabwe Egalitarian and Equal Opportunity Measures

Robert Mugabe’s land reform comes under fresh scrutiny | World news | theguardian.com 5/10/2013

When a Crocodile Eats the Sun: A Memoir of Africa: Peter Godwin: 9780316018715: Amazon.com: Books (2007)

Mugabe and the White African | POV | PBS

Zimbabwe Food Security

Zimbabwe faces looming food crisis, says UN | World news | theguardian.com 9/4/2013:

Zimbabwe is facing a “looming food crisis” with one in four people in rural areas at risk of hunger early next year, the highest number in half a decade, the UN has warned.

The gloomy prediction was seen as a blow to analysts who have argued that Robert Mugabe’s widely condemned land reform programme is starting to pay dividends.

IRIN Africa | Army worm outbreak threatens Zimbabwe’s food security | Zimbabwe | Early Warning | Food Security 1/14/2013

Zimbabwe Health

IPS – Rebuilding Zimbabwe’s Health System | Inter Press Service 6/19/2013:

Every day, eight women and 100 children die from pregnancy- and delivery-related complications in Zimbabwe, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). Most of them die of easily preventable causes and illnesses.

Kubatana – Archive – A call to the new government of Zimbabwe to prioritize the right to health and clean water – ZADHR- Sep 12, 2013

Zimbabwe Media

Media group says Zimbabwe police ban on hand-cranked, solar radios illegal ahead of polling | Fox News 2/22/2013

In Zimbabwe’s Media, It’s All About Robert Mugabe : NPR 5/13/2012

Zimbabwe journalists worried: Mugabe cabinet includes ‘media hangman’ – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) 9/13/2013

Zimbabwe – Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ’s main Zimbabwe page)

Q&A: Zenzele Ndebele promotes radio in Zimbabwe – Blog – Committee to Protect Journalists 7/29/2013

Zimbabwe Refugees

Zimbabwean refugees: Between haven and hell – Features – Al Jazeera English 8/1/2013

UNHCR – Zimbabwe – “2013 UNCHR regional operations profile – Southern Africa”:

At the end of 2011, there were some 449,000 people of concern to UNHCR in Southern Africa, including 145,000 refugees, 245,000 asylum-seekers, 55,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) and 4,000 returnees.

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When the day after comes, as it comes to all survivors, how will Zimbabwe remember Robert Mugabe?

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UNHCR Video: “Zimbabweans in South Africa”

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Obama’s Persistent Ambivalence and Ambiguity Leads to “Absolutely Uncertain” — Also a Comment on Political Pandering and Culture-Wide Narcissism

30 Sunday Sep 2012

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology

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Three days on YouTube — about 797,000 hits.

I’ve suggested elsewhere, and this is my best case for Obama and the west, is that he has managed a surface image for the Middle East and by extension the “Arab World” and Islam while supporting continuing U.S. Department of Defense and Israel Defense Force programs beneath the news (and image) surface.

In this choreagraphy, if it has been that, we have arrived at a sour point somewhere between the allegation of an ambivalent Obama and associated with the President’s persistence in the ambiguous — and for traditional western values, negative — diplomatic signals and policy pronouncements.

Pandering isn’t the only evil here, but it’s the one that’s most destructive short of war.  The targets of the behavior — those pandered to — are its victims, as by accepting unwarranted favor or praise, they may believe themselves praiseworthy in precisely the way set out to manipulate them.

Pandering then becomes a part of a larger narcissistic complex, and until this form in dishonest speech has been faced, the world most susceptible to it will find itself deepening its miseries in conflict and improverishment at its own hands.

Hitchcock’s ‘The Birds’ and the Arrival of the Ignorant Bigot

28 Friday Sep 2012

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation

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Time code 0:22

“Why are they doing this?  Why are they doing this?  They said when you got here, the whole thing started.  Who are you?  What are you?  Where did you come from?  I think you’re the cause of all this.  I think you’re evil.  Evil!”

Edup12 Presents An Interview With Hitler’s Secretary Traudl Junge

21 Tuesday Aug 2012

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Europe

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Source: http://www.youtube.com/user/edup12

Posted here with thanks to my private correspondent in Lithuania and to YouTube’s “Edup12” for bringing this and more to light.

The study of “malignant narcissists” and how they do what they do has a complement in inquiry into the character of their enablers and their followers.  The above is longer than a “sound bite”, but hang with it: it has many things to say  about evil and its seductions.

The case for pathological narcissism and its characteristic defensiveness and obliviousness to others — and to reality, socially, sometimes physically — only becomes more clear as this filter borne of comparisons and observations becomes itself more resolving; then too, the charismatic effects of what may present as a happily grandiose mania may become more clear to those endangered as its targets or, far worse, enthralled by its recklessness and the first appearance of its excesses.

Traudl Junge was about 13 years old in 1933 and all of 25 when she found herself sharing the bunker in which Hitler committed suicide.

And here is a kicker — I didn’t like the cut of the film sent by way of Lithuania, and so went looking, briefly (in the way of the web), for another look at a part of André Heller’s Blind Spot documentary (source picked up from John Hooper’s reporting in The Guardian in 2002).

It’s different.

(Source: http://youtu.be/h5igDo-KJJo)

And yet much the same.

The second clip, early on, explains the voice-over appearing in the first (reaction shots Junge’s watching her own interview on a monitor).

And now — again, in the way of the World Wide Web –something really different:

And yet too much the same.

If we could not laugh, we would cry.

Other Reference

Hooper, John.  “Traudl Junge: She shared Hitler’s bunker, but claimed ignorance of the Holocaust.”  Obituary.  The Guardian, February 14, 2002.

Wikipedia.  “Traudl Junge”: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traudl_Junge

Docudrama available via YouTube (1:15:48) — Der Untergang Part 1 (Downfall)