Tag Archives: kleptocracy

Putin: Negative Reflection in Western Eyes

23 Wednesday May 2018

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

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Putin: leader of nationalist Russia, master of “realpolitik” — leverage, punishment, reward — the Boss of bosses, capricious and absolute.

Whatever the game, why play one side or the other when you can own the whole board?

Medieval Political Absolutism v Modern Democratic Societies

KGB Colonel, President, Emperor Putin has taken Russia back the one giant step to an authoritarian system reinforced by secret police — today’s FSB supports more staff per capita than ever did the KGB — capable of presenting events for public political perceptual control as with the Moscow Apartment Bombings and the Russian Army’s after-hours (deeply unofficial) brutalizing of Chechen villages in such a way as to drive the men into the waiting camps of Chechen rebels.  He has succeeded in abetting greater chaos and conflict in the world, especially in Syria, while balancing the tension between adversaries that may stall change but keep all of the businesses, licit and perhaps illicit, running.

BackChannels credits Putin with turning Erdogan’s pretty little head back toward the feudal glory of the sultanate — or something like it — with the help of Turkish Stream, encouraging the family business in Hungary, and aiding with the election of the formerly more autocratic President (“Fake News”!) Trump in the United States (the French, better knowing what they’re about, didn’t quite go for his Marine Le Pen; Trump, BC presumes, has been tempered by having gotten himself into a job involving personalities as large as himself and powers greater than known in his organization — America’s democracy has not been overwhelmingly wowed or easily walked over).   The popular perception of Putin may respond opposite the viewer’s interests: for old lefties, he’s the world’s greatest reactionary and using revived militarism and the Russian Orthodox Church to assuage bad feelings attending the insult of expanding financial hardship associated with related ambitions in Syria and Ukraine and, ultimately, the way the guy at the top gets his hooks into the best performing businesses.

Why not?

In Russia, there’s protest and resistance to Putin, but there is no competition for the power he has amassed and his ability to . . . rearrange the world along feudal lines.

And for “righties”, he’s still the go-to for “socialist” dictatorships like Assad’s.

Never mind that Assad via the KGB-style political theatrical “Assad v The Terrorists” has been building Syria down, enough so, and so desperately so, for Putin to permanently expand Russia’s military footprint in Hafez’s old sandbox.

After the one step backward into 19th Century and earlier Russian paternal authoritarianism, aristocracy, imperialism, and resurgent nationalism, one may wonder what may be the “two steps forward” if any are ever taken as needs must be: whether Putin likes it or not, the Russian Federation is, alas, multicultural and perhaps yearning — as Navalny might have it — for the liberal devilishness that are “rule of law” and “responsive and responsible governance”.

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FTAC: Hamas’s Latest KGB-Style Theater: “Palestinian Killer”

31 Saturday Mar 2018

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Anti-Semitism, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Gaza, Gaza Suzerain, Islamic Small Wars, Israel, Middle East, Political Psychology, Political Spychology, Politics

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“On the streets of Gaza people have a sense of security – except when Israel attacks” — In defensive modes, preventive, responsive, retributive.

The Palestinians have long surrendered their dreams to propaganda, the PLO/PA, and Hamas as well as the corruption attending such governments that hold themselves beyond criticism.

From what sense of ethics, integrity, or justice were the greenhouses and synagogues of Gaza destroyed after departure in 2005?

Such rage would seem to have been set loose by officially and socially approved, promoted, and popular anti-Semitic incitement, the same that had Hamas in 2006 proclaiming to Palestinians that Hitler admired them as ideal revolutionaries (PMW: “Hamas: Hitler praised the Palestinians as models”).

Perhaps Israel should treat as poison the disinformation fed to the Palestinians and see the same receive an antidote in an honest telling, for Hamas fairy tales have only enslaved the Palestinians and gotten them to get themselves killed for show.

Posted to YouTube March 30, 2018.  Ten more Palestinians were to draw fire and die, and the cause should be clear through what the cameras recorded in the way of “peaceful” demonstration.

One may marvel at the power of bad ideas and failed dreams to continue placing the innocent in harm’s way — and for the global press, the more souls corralled and misled into martyrdom, the better for sympathy and “understanding”, never mind the squandering of billions of dollars intended for Palestinian practical betterment going into the pockets of corrupt and venal leaders and their systems of patronage.

The Soviet Union dissolved in bankruptcy about 26 years, and yet the scenes remain much as Yuri Andropov must have seen them when promoting dictatorship beneath the cover of Popular Liberation Movements.

The peace camps of the west may have to soon decide whether they wish to remain in business by doing their part to sustain the middle east conflict on bogus claims; and Mr. Putin may soon have to decide whether he will take KGB and more general historic Russian barbarism forward with the cynical manipulation and destruction of every space in which Moscow has chosen to play.

Related on BackChannels

Set: “Palestinian KGB” and Other BackChannels Observations Related to the Middle East Conflict.”  February 6, 2018.

Related Online

Algemeiner Staff.  “As IDF Thwarts Gun Attack on Gaza Border, Israel Warns that Palestinian ‘Return’ Protests are ‘Cover for Terror’.”  The Algemeiner, March 30, 2018.

Danan, Deborah.  “Gaza’s Millionaires and Billionaires — How Hamas’s Leaders Got Rich Quick.”  The Algemeiner, July 28, 2014.

Menachem, Yoni Ben.  “Corruption in the Palestinian Authority.”  Jewish News Syndicate, March 10, 2018.

“Palestinians destroy synagogues in Gaza”.  The Telegraph, September 12, 2005.

Palestinian Media Watch.  “Hamas: Hitler praised the Palestinians as models.”  May 18, 2006.

The Tower Staff.  “Hamas Leads Violent March, Using Human Shields, at Israeli-Gaza Border.”  The Tower, March 30, 2018.

Wikipedia.  “Israeli disengagement from Gaza”.

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FTAC: Middle East Conflict: Misled

16 Friday Mar 2018

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

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Prompt: ” . . . the Arabs . . . will become the majority in Israel, and things will  . . . change.”

The apartheid — the separation of Palestinians in camps in Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, and Egyp — is Arab.

The exploiting of misery and leveraging of anti-Semitic perception is Russo-Arabian from the Soviet Era (and Russia’s 19th Century history as regards the libel of “The Protocols”).

Political suppression — suppression of criticism, of open speech, of election — may be credited to PLO/PA and Hamas.

Corruption and the skewing of financial distribution of UNRWA support has produced wealthy leaders — Arafat, Abbas, Haniyeh, Mashaal — and affluence among the patronized.

For those who feel diminished by not getting “one-up” on the Jews, the Jews in liberation theology got one-up on Pharaoh.

So many of the things you have heard have, perhaps, been intended to manipulate you, to make you angry, to exploit a bad situation.

Palestinian general good: never so loudly addressed.

The interest is there. The conscience, modernity, and will: absent.

Addendum – From the Same Day

The prompt had to do with Jews as outsiders, a trope coughed up frequently by the Palestinian holdovers from the era of Soviet cadre.  (URL added, of course).

The Point of No Return blog will tell a substantial part of the story of the Jews and their return to capital and land of the Hebrews.

A fast look-up of “KGB, Arafat” and “KGB, Abbas” will tell you a little bit about the origin, design, and handling of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, PFLP, and others.

A revisiting of the Gaza’s historic Jewish community, its more recent (2005) displacement by force, and the destruction of its synagogues, which were to remain accessible, will tell you also about where Israel’s Jews have come from and what they valued where they were settled.

We do not reconcile good with evil: we grow the good — and “the good”, if it is good, has integrity.

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Iran Protests 2018: Killed or Detained: Faces

23 Tuesday Jan 2018

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

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WhoIsNextSepidehIran-Protester-pr-blockFacesdetainees

Detainees disappeared
Families of a number of detained protesters have not been able to obtain any information about their loved ones. Among them are Ashkan Absavaran, a 20-year-old male detainee, and Sepideh Farhan (Farahabadi), a young female. Ashkan Absavaran informed his family of his detention in a telephone call on 4 January. Officials of Evin prison told his family later that he had disappeared.

The IRGC and its affiliated paramilitary force, the Basij, have been mainly responsible for the heavy crackdown on the protesters. Having initially denied direct involvement in repressing the protesters, the IRGC commander declared on 3 January that they had taken action in three provinces. Furthermore, the IRGC has been responsible for torturing the detainees in order to make false confessions in Wards 2A and 240 of Evin prison.

FIDH: Worldwide Movement for Human Rights.  “31 protesters died in streets & detention centres; more than 3,700 detained.”  January 10, 2018.

BackChannels has been here before.

Embedded on the post, “On Human Rights Day, Iran is Again Covered in Blood” — Maryam Rajavi, BackChannels readers will find added from 2009 “Iran -References to the Serial Murders and Related — From April 22, 2009” and a listing of the dead titled “Iran — The Mute”.

For how long will Iran’s payoffs for murder continue to be accepted by the patronized of the state?

Noted on the Human Rights Day post:

In one of the above clips, Maryam Rajavi put the number of regime executed political martyrs at above 120,000, with 30,000 killed shortly after the taking of power in 1988.

Related Online

Stecklow, Steve, Babak Dehghanpisheh and Yeganeh Torbati.  “Khamenei controls massive financial empire built on property seizures.”  Reuters, November 11, 2013.

The Iran Observer.  “Iran Lawyer Raises Concern Over Missing Hijab Protester.”  January 2018.

Posted to YouTube on January 20, 2018.

Children of Iran’s captive south run through the streets chanting “Death to Rouhani” – video date reported from source as January 22, 2018.

Updates from the News Online

Rannard, Georgina.  “Iran hijab protester: Where is she?”  BBC News, January 23, 2018.

 

 

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Also in Media: From Chechnya to Myanmar — Military Brutality and Political Control: The Creation of War

16 Saturday Sep 2017

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Also in Media, Asia, Burma, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Political Psychology, Politics, Religion

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False-Flag Fire Starter:

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

Brutalizing of Chechnyan noncombatant villagers:

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

Backgrounder, published yesterday, on the persecution of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar:

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/09/what-the-hell-is-happening-in-myanmar.html :

The monks, too?

There’s one famous Buddhist monk who was on the cover of Time magazine a couple of years ago, and he’s described as a “Buddhist Bin Laden.” His name is Ashin Wirathu. He’s a very strange character because he wears the Buddhist garb, which is worn to demonstrate your withdrawal from the world. At the same time, he has diamond-studded watches; he flies on a private jet. It’s completely contradictory. He’s one of the main instigators of the violence. Buddhists believe in reincarnation, and Wirathu and followers of his Buddhist nationalist 969 movement believe that the Rohingya minority have all reincarnated from snakes and insects. So when you actually kill them, you’re not actually killing people, you’re actually just killing snakes and insects. That laid the foundation for the current situation that we’re in.

Who would know the beauty of a malignantly narcissistic kleptocracy better than Moscow?

And I will add, though it may be irrelevant, what hypocritical kleptocratic and medieval entity would know how to infiltrate and support terrorists worldwide better than Tehran?

Give the transitive formula a moment to sink in:

Chechnya : Myanmar

Ingush : Rohingya

The world has been once again drawn into global warfare, Moscow’s way.

By way of wholesale abuse and slaughter, the innocent of war have been pushed in both regions into flight and defensive conflict while being branded as “The Terrorists” — perhaps not unrelated to the process that has burned through Syria but the very facsimile of it.

Given how Moscow / Moscow-Tehran work, the world gets “The Terrorists” — and, oh, they’re real in an of themselves, they’re channeled with their ranks filled out by the efforts of manipulating “leaders” greater than themselves.

Related in the News

There is an urgent need for de-escalation in levels of violence in Rakhine State as there is a strong possibility of other displaced Rohingyas being radicalised by Sunni fundamentalist groups including the Bangladesh chapter of the Islamic State to take to arms. The Rohingya displacement is a matter of serious concern but the root cause of increased animosity among the Burmans and other ethnic groups against the minority community should also not be glossed over. The international community has questioned Myanmar for the crisis but has forgotten the bloody contribution of Pakistan-based jihadist groups to this catastrophe.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/analysis/pakistan-is-fuelling-unrest-in-myanmar-s-backyard/story-LXHqEMzdW5mE4Ut1EwtefO.html – 9/15/2017.

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FTAC: Mandela –> Zuma –> Perhaps the end of ‘Aristocommiecrats’

11 Monday Sep 2017

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

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2103: https://conflict-backchannels.com/2013/12/09/zoom-zoom-zuma-hail-the-presence-of-another-african-aristocommicrat/

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2017: http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/08/07/will-the-party-of-nelson-mandela-die-so-that-jacob-zuma-can-live-anc-no-confidence-vote/

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His family has been looting, his friends have been looting, and in the process he has weakened the state, divided the ANC, divided the alliance. We continue to deal with the mess, and it will take a long time to clean up.” —

One dictatorship can undo many of the gains made by ethical and modern revolutionaries. A nod here to the South Africans letting Jacob Zuma know he has gone off the track.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/03/jacob-zuma-calls-confiscation-white-land-without-compensation/

Zuma, not unlike Robert Mugabe, may also represent an execrable representation of the claim to leading a “people’s liberation movement” as a means to autocratic and elitist power. This time, however, the communist alignment has turned on the leader over the matter of corruption.

http://www.peoplesworld.org/article/south-african-communists-ban-president-zuma-from-party-congress/

“We never fought the struggle to liberate the country to hand over our economy to the Guptas,” he declared, accusing the ANC leadership’s attacks on “white monopoly capital” of being “a Marxist-flavored narrative [used] as an alibi for parasitic plundering.”

Amen.

Inspiration: Mandela on the promotion of national reconciliation.

Lesson to be learned: if you should happen to develop or inherit high ethical and moral capital and standing, don’t squander it with a now old and tiresome charade.

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

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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.

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