Inspiration: the posting of the URL to a story about Idlib, Syria and the deflection of the same back to HIM (whose presence looms so large it no longer needs HIS name).
From the Awesome Conversation
Defenders of the Nation might be especially interested in its abuses or darker spaces. Even with 300 million souls, it’s hard to account for 490,000 missing between the ages of 12 and 21 (FBI statistics, 2017). Perhaps I’m missing the meaning of those numbers and need a briefing on their potential meaning, but even so, it’s a hefty number.
The number of homeless, about 554,000 American (or other) souls, at one point included about 60,000 American Veterans. That niche has been getting attention (along with post-service suicides at this time), which is fine, but how did these numbers develop? Behind each data entry, there is someone’s personal story.
I know you’re a good egg, but our national character, once the world’s hope for democracy as a defender and leader in relation to the human treatment of human beings — has appeared a bit challenged of late. WE don’t bomb hospitals into rubble; WE don’t even think of destroying World Heritage Sites; WE do not believe we are here to fully despoil Earth; WE don’t groom nor keep slaves; WE consistently endorse responsible and responsive governance; etc.
Active Measures — The collection of Russian Agitation, Disinformation, and Propaganda Methods made evident through covert or subtle Influence Campaigns applied to wrecking the political coherence and cohesion of EU/NATO for the purpose of reestablishing Political Absolutism in the same and then using the most thuggish of feudal and medieval methods to leverage loyalty and wealth from them for contribution to the Greater Imperial Glory of Moscow, the Russian “mafia state” it has come to represent, and the immense enrichment of its oligarchy.
Indeed the west, the melange of classically liberal democratic open societies built and structured around fair dealing, freedom, and integrity and related humanist and liberal ethics, principles, and values has been unprepared for covert agent provocateur, e.g., covert agitators Far Right and Far Left, disingenuous publications, false front organizations, trolls, etc.
I’ve chosen to demur from producing “long copy” and a lengthy reference section for this post. Awareness of “Active Measures” — the kernel of Russia’s covert campaign to degrade and ruin the democracies of the west — should suffice for both the interested and the unwittingly vulnerable.
Through the Cold War Era and now with Putin leading the Russian Federation, the purpose of Soviet / post-Soviet “Active Measures” has been to fragment EU/NATO for the purpose of Russian expansion and its feudal practices. A video like this one — the same as above on this page — will help a little bit with understanding the greater east-west politics and the tension between the worlds of “Absolute Power” and the open democracies of the west.
Active Measures” represents an international (RF v EU/NATO) dispute over the future, not only an American one.
If we are at one the other’s throat, Moscow will have succeeded in exploiting our natural political arguments and issues by heightening them and undermining our national political cohesion and coherence, thereby weakening our state and degrading our democracy.
Regarding “Far Out Left” and equally distant Far Right tendencies, the related foreign and disingenuous domestic manipulations of political perception targets us all.
When I have figured out how to address unutterable greed and jealousy, I’ll be certain to produce the Nobel-winning results of that cogitation here.
A Little Wisdom From the Awesome Conversation
There are differences between empirically explored histories (and their debates) and what people believe in relation to their own cultural, religious, or spiritual histories. With that much noted, I have long believed that the Jews chose to stand against Pharaoh, a tyrant, and in this day a figure representing the “Malignant Narcissist”, a term of art for the general affliction in psychology associated with those who represent Absolute Power Systems. The Jews — or God through the Jews — were to separate the power of God (“Master of the Universe”) from Pharaoh, a source of torment to the Jews and others — note: the Exodus involved not only the Jews but a “mixed multitude”, i.e., all who would join the Jews in flight from Pharaoh.
Then comes the “Promised Land”.
For the Jews, Israel is the authentic Land of the Hebrews. There is in history no other Jerusalem nor Israel. Christian and Muslim recognition of Israel and “The Holy Land” has been legend and as widespread — and accepted (by Muhammad, no less) — as the supersessionary competition by the same for proof of the direct imprimatur of God.
The position — that of demanding to be shown God’s exclusive favor — has been always absurd, God (or the idea of God) being always the greater entity in the relationship.
For those willing to give a little in the interest of greater love and greater peace, Earth at this moment supports the following human inventory: fewer than 7,000 living languages; about 4,300 religions. I should look into the number of ungodly dictatorships (and mafia states) in relation to the number of modern democracies struggling to sustain common public political consensus while delivering rule-of-law and the greater development, justice, peace, and prosperity that is known to follow from both.
Inspiration for the author of this blog: a nice patch of short observations related to the Middle East Conflict, i.e., “Israel v Palestinian ‘Leaders'”.
Regarding the Framing of the Conflict: Notes on the Treatment of Time in Arguments About Control and Ownership of Contested Space
Time has been the New Space for a while, DM, and I have found two kinds of people plainly dangerous: 1) those who cannot keep themselves from dwelling in the past 🙂 ; 2) those who want to get to the end of their civilizational story as fast as possible!
😀
One is too far behind and the other way too far into the future — and both may be too attached to ancient and medieval dogma.
For the purposes of Administration and Adjudication, issues (real estate disputes) that can be worked in the courts have been submitted as such, and those that cannot be worked out in a civil fashion may be better set aside for what good may be achieved for everyone.
There are leaders, other personalities, and organizations invested in sustained conflict, and as long as the “middle east conflict” is around (forget about the others in the ME), they’re good to go.
Add the thieves who have factored in their own corruption in their estimation of personal revenues given conditions that don’t change.
I see no reason for either Israelis or Palestinians to remain subject to animosities that supposedly drive one or the other to violence while actually benefiting those who would manipulate them most for their own aggrandizement and enrichment.
Everyone should see how Time is used to frame issues and OBSTRUCT their resolution in exchange for political gain, and neither for the betterment nor welfare of Israelis and Palestinians but primarily for themselves and often in service to their own image.
For what is not already in the courts, there are no legal remedies — only political ones!
Feudalism and Tribalism figure highly in sustaining the conflict, but neither today offer healthy benefits to anyone but those institutionally invested in sustained conflict.
I believe Israelis would be happy with the cessation of Palestinian or related violence (within as well as without) and modern Palestinians might finally appreciate moving on with decency in employment, freedom, and prosperity. I also feel certain that both “options” or channels into the future are real.
By dwelling Back There in Time, Arab Palestinians and Jewish Israelis delay their own potential experience of reconciliation, resolution, and peace and security — and those who benefit are those who perpetually care about themselves at the expense of caring about others.
While my own sweet words belie difficult questions — e.g., what to do with civilizational ambition, greed, and pride? — there’s truth to them in relation to broader regional development plus improvements to be realized in Qualities of Living for Israelis and Palestinians.
And therefore it was Suleimani and his proxies — his “kingmakers” in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq — who increasingly came to be seen, and hated, as imperial powers in the region, even more so than Trump’s America. This triggered popular, authentic, bottom-up democracy movements in Lebanon and Iraq that involved Sunnis and Shiites locking arms together to demand noncorrupt, nonsectarian democratic governance.
On Nov. 27, Iraqi Shiites — yes, Iraqi Shiites — burned down the Iranian consulate in Najaf, Iraq, removing the Iranian flag from the building and putting an Iraqi flag in its place. That was after Iraqi Shiites, in September 2018, set the Iranian consulate in Basra ablaze, shouting condemnations of Iran’s interference in Iraqi politics.
Ali Khamenei is a cagey leader who did not become one of the longest serving rulers in the Middle East by impetuously going to war with America. The clerical oligarchs respect American determination and understand the imbalance between a superpower and a struggling regional actor. They have never figured out Donald Trump, a U.S. president who offers unconditional talks while working to crater the Iranian economy. We should not expect Iran to take on a president who just ordered the killing of one of their famed commanders.
In Karbala – one of Shiism’s holiest cities, where a 7th-century battle resulted in Islam’s biggest schism between Sunnis and Shiites – the unthinkable has happened.
“The government doesn’t even rule any more. They’re Iran’s puppets. If Iran loosens its grip, then things can change,” explained a protester.
As represented by Tehran, how long a lease has the feudal-medieval mode on earth?
God Almighty himself would not destroy his creation but in the greater natural processes to which Earth is heir — but for ambition, Iran’s Ayatollah would.
We may think that “style” doesn’t matter, but for the purposes of shepherding a nation into a new future, the civility and common interest taken in defining and resolving issues matters greatly.
I suppose we were (I was) having a discussion about Republican manners of late.
From the Awesome Conversation
For “New Rhetoric”, I’ve been using, as perhaps you have seen, “Left / Far Left” and “Right / Far (White) Right” to express displeasure with the contempt voiced by each clump, more or less, characterizing the news-creating behavior (“Sarsour” | “Charlottesville”) from beneath each “Big Tent”.
For Animal Farm qualities, “Horseshoe Theory” fits.
Obama’s relationship with Bill Ayers alienated me from his Party; Trump’s style isn’t his issue — his excessive narcissism, related lying, apparent fascination or, alternatively, moral insensitivity to absolute power — or approval of it — are real problems. Republican loyalists are wrong to brush aside those issues or minimize their portent.
Americans may differ in their appraisal of their Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian civilizational inheritance that through the Founding Fathers delivered an ingenious construction for a prudent balancing of interests and powers that would effectively guaranty the greatest experience of freedom in business, faith, and speech known to history. Democrat or Republican, the basics are all right here:
The President has borrowed ferociously (possibly against losses our farmers took on negotiations with China — and now he’s walking back on his tariff policy); while the border has been of great concern, he has perhaps been less than candid about the flow of narcotics into North America; his highness and the Party have been consistently bullying, callous, disingenuous, vicious, and vindictive with their targets, and while they might feel big about that, I’d be embarrassed having someone like (“Badgering”) Jim Jordan representing me.
We may think that “style” doesn’t matter, but for the purposes of shepherding a nation into a new future, the civility and common interest taken in defining and resolving issues matters greatly.
Also to be noted, the President’s foils (like Jim Comey) and investigators have themselves been, often enough, Republicans (e.g., Mueller, at least) — just better ones than so many with so much hubris on display.
More to be known but in the works for some time: the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and one powerful Palestinian businessman have launched highly ambitious projects in the middle east that have the future designed into them, and both are game changers — or should be and profoundly so. Neom is one; Rawabi is the other.
Thank you for the comment on photography — I am still busy with that art and technology and still setting up for business with it. Broadband Internet has taken me into what I call “People’s Diplomacy” — or what we have all been doing on Facebook for a while — and feel I’ve made some progress as an accidental tourist in Conflict Studies, International Affairs, and Political Science — but then everyone here has gotten that start, but not all with some earlier interest in Russia and the Cold War.
Norfolk Southern Railway Bridge as viewed from James Rumsey Memorial Park, Shepherdstown, West Virginia, October 19, 2010. (c) J. S. Oppenheim 2010.
As we know, the Grinch is a cartoon. So is the Trump administration’s view of life in America. In this cartoon version, everyone has access to well-paying full-time jobs that can support a family. Those jobs are plentiful even for those who lack education, transportation, and skills, or have criminal records. In this cartoon country, the only people who don’t take advantage of this prosperity are just too lazy and prefer to live as dependent on the largess of the federal government.
Fariborz Pakseresht, Oregon’s Department of Human Services director, said the rule change would make things worse “for those already facing difficult circumstances.”
“It also will result in an increased burden on food banks and other community resources to fill the void,” Pakseresht said.
As BackChannels — in fair blogger fashion — tries to knock out posts in hours as opposed to weeks, the quick look-see into themes produces impressions and summations but on the outside of the machinery.
Nonetheless — the tea leaves:
The Trump Administration’s stance with regard to the decay of the American street is that it would rather not see it, and it appears to believe that what is unseemly may be plainly hounded, starved, or threatened out of existence — or, eventually, thrown into Federal camps or prisons. Its actions, policies, and “vision” have each tended tend toward the promotion of greater desperation for America’s afflicted, marginalized, and struggling souls.
In addition, the Trump Administration’s War on the Poor this Christmas / Solstice Season hardly stops with the latest food stamp debacle. “Medicaid Work Requirements”, a draconian ploy certain to enserf the more miserable and altogether vulnerable of Americans, has been strongly contested by physicians and advocates for the poor. Other Dickensian steps take by the Administration have included deep cuts in Public Housing and Public Transportation budgets, both increasing the discomfort of America’s poorer citizens while threatening their independence as well (at least from the Federal standpoint — states have budgets too, and not all of the 50 are so dumb in relation to providing basic transportation services).
In California, the Trumpian State has been playing tug-of-war with the state’s ability to keep the most vulnerable of its citizens off the streets. Predictably, the President has withheld funding for housing vouchers that would reach some 50,000 souls, according to Governor Gavin Newsom.
One state noted — 49 to go — but here BackChannels may choose to listen to related complaints than dwell in the Patch of Social Issues with other than blog-like focus.
Cuts to Public Housing and Public Transportation Budgets
For HUD, the budget requests $44.1 billion in discretionary funding, a 16.4 percent decrease from 2019 funding levels. For DoT, the budget requests $21.4 billion in discretionary spending, a 22 percent decrease from 2019 funding levels.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Reuters) – In the latest skirmish over California’s homeless crisis, the state’s governor, Gavin Newsom, asked President Donald Trump on Thursday to stop withholding federal housing vouchers that could benefit 50,000 homeless people.
The adjectives come easily enough: autocratic, authoritarian, bombastic, bullying, capricious, dictatorial, disingenuous, imperious, etc. The same may be wrapped into one unifying wrapper: “malignantly narcissistic”.
The case fits the object that has become America’s most unrelieved subject of interest.
Posted to YouTube by Daroslaw Toorek, August 23, 2018.
There once was a day in which the power of the sovereign was precisely the power to destroy property or persons — or both — with impunity, and that same power would have been defended by barbaric, cruel, and ruthless machination and violence provided the sovereign could assemble the compacts and raise the army and security necessary to rule by force — or, as above, take care of business himself.
Ours is not that day — or at least not that day in the liberal and open democracies of the west — and very much not a day to be welcomed back.
In the parallel and surreal universe opposed to the west and marching forward into the past, however, the politically absolute may continue to deceive and gas light their hapless populations while making themselves — precisely: their “glory” (rather the effects) of their own brutality mistaken for virtue — of primary importance beneath the dispassionate gaze of God, nature, and the universe. From their most on-high positions, each will violate every last aspect of conscience by lying most freely, destroying most wantonly, thieving most brazenly, and, generally serving themselves most of all without restraint.
And why not if each malignantly narcissistic personality can seize the kind of self-glorifying power dreamed of for itself and achieve — true to form — “unlimited narcissistic supply”?
Posted by Bloomberg Politics to YouTube, November 21, 2019.
One might suggest that Putin, Assad, Khamenei, and, sigh, of late, Erdogan, and Orban, at least, have been living within or toward deeply retrograde dreams, but while empire, dictatorship, theocracy, and dynasty may prevail for Russians, Syrians, Iranians, Turks, and Hungarians, the same will not for Ukrainians — or Americans — for whom medieval power is no longer wanted, need be no longer tolerated, and will be resisted — and that, God willing, to the end of time.
Regarding President Trump
Count the now felonious associates (if you can); take in the bankruptcies and stiffed subcontractors; count the marriages (add in the lovers and spice with the “Grab ’em . . .” remark); consider the cruelty of the betrayals, including the firing of long-term alien labor right along with the tragic Michael Cohen’s sore abuse; think about the lies, especially having to do with his (denied) Russian relationships.
The BackChannels process has turned out one that might be distilled to “collect” (media), “select” (quotations, references, videos), and “opine” — i.e., stand on the virtual Hyde Park soap box and declaim. Be that as it may, here are a few of the more notable “moments” in text 🙂 provided by references noted.
“So often, the president would say, ‘Here’s what I want you to do, and here’s how I want you to do it,’ ” Tillerson said at a fundraiser for the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.
“And I would have to say to him, ‘Mr. President, I understand what you want to do. But you can’t do it that way. It violates the law,’ ” he said.
Once Mr. Trump treated the military with a level of reverence that he extends to few other American institutions. Peppering his cabinet with retired senior officers enabled him to allay the concerns within the Republican Party about his own lack of experience and preparedness for the role of president. He has spoken admiringly of “my generals” and talked about those who looked the part.
“They were like from a movie,” he said on Wednesday, describing a recent Pentagon briefing. “Better looking than Tom Cruise, and stronger.”
. . . Mattis and Tillerson had together smothered some of Trump’s more extreme and imprudent ideas. But now Mattis was operating without cover. Trump was turning on him publicly; two months earlier, he had speculated that Mattis might be a Democrat and said, in reference to NATO, “I think I know more about it than he does.” (Mattis, as a Marine general, once served as the supreme allied commander in charge of NATO transformation.)
WASHINGTON — When President Trump’s top advisers on Ukraine gathered in the Oval Office in May, Trump gave them a simple, clear directive: “Talk to Rudy.”
Since then, a mountain of evidence has emerged to show just how deeply Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal attorney with no official government role, penetrated American diplomacy toward Ukraine — and turned it toward pressing the country to announce an investigation of Democrat Joe Biden.
