Tag Archives: medieval v modern

Bolton on Biden and Renewal of the JCPOA

19 Friday Feb 2021

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, Iran, Philosophy, United States of America

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , ,

Bolton, John. “Boris Johnson holds the future of the fatally flawed Iran deal in his hands.” The Telegraph, February 18, 2021.

Political deja vu — The United States has been here before with its “arch conservatives” and cowardly isolationist and possibly related anti-Semitic and paranoid tendencies. For reference without much ado: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America_First_Committee | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America_First_Party_(1943) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_L._K._Smith | https://www.nytimes.com/1976/04/16/archives/gerald-lk-smith-dead-anticommunist-crusader.html |

Among the slashed and burnt of The Great Liar’s One-Term Presidency, John Bolton stands out for greater backbone, discretion, experience, and integrity.

I believe Bolton when he suggests he leveraged his experience in national security to participate in the Trump Administration in order to produce his — not Trump’s — brand of guidance. As Trump required greater sycophancy, Bolton would also leave the malignant narcissist’s den.

The Republican Party, once the Party of the visionary Abraham Lincoln, has in the 20th Century seen equally embarrassing and shamefully self-centered days. That has become something for critically reasoning and independent Americans to take into consideration as the West with its ideas about compassion, freedom, goodness, and real human productivity faces an anachronistic, feudal, and implacable enemy in Moscow and, in post-Cold War association with it, Beijing and Tehran as well.

Tehran, worn by its own conflict-promoting behaviors over time and by sanctions, has shown no signs of retreat in relation to its nuclear missile and warhead programs nor its will, repeated with dulling frequency, to see Israel and the west destroyed for its own marauding and politically absolute ends. Where has the Republican Party (with its increasingly familiar white supremacist attachments) really stood on the Moscow-Tehran relationship? Where has it stood with regard to the rise of the proto-fascist New Nationalism in the United States as well as within NATO (have a look into authoritarian and feudal urges in Hungary, Italy, Poland, and Turkey)?

Here is a junction in time in which the United States, once leader of the free world — the modern open democratic world, either stands firm against politically retrograde but technologically sophisticated states or slips backward itself into some system of immense power and wealth lording over a hapless constituency whose political voice becomes so much noise to those working the levers for their own enrichment according to class and degrees of ruthlessness.

–33–

Books: Reading Highly Recommended: What Americans Defend When Defending America

17 Wednesday Feb 2021

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, International Development, Politics, United States of America

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

Schmitz, David F. The Sailor: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Transformation of American Foreign Policy. Lexington, Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 2021.

For the American President’s navigation: the rise of Hitler and fascism in Germany, Italy, and Spain; the development of an expansionist imperial Japan; polarization in the United States between the forces of self-serving fascist sentiment related to business and popular interest in the Far Left answers to abuses generated in Far Right circles.

Add the global Great Depression.

I have not yet reached the middle of this eye-opening and insightful history, but the story of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “working the issues” rings clear and sound for this day.

I have made much and will continue to make much of the tensions between politically medieval and modern worlds, and my own energies and hopes are with the modern world, its potential great breadth in personal freedoms, and its obligations as steward of the earth and humanity.

Whoever you may be and wherever you are in the world — and whether you enjoy or have to make yourself do this kind of reading (smile) — this volume will set the benchmark for understanding the United States and the western civilizational project in the appreciation and defense of humanity.

–33–

FTAC: Yemen: Houthi: One Question

09 Tuesday Feb 2021

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

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , ,

From the Awesome Conversation

— Subsidy backlash. Under pressure from the International Monetary Fund, which had extended to Yemen a $550 million loan premised on promises of economic reforms, Hadi’s government lifted fuel subsidies in 2014. The Houthi movement, which had attracted support beyond its base with its criticisms of the UN transition, organized mass protests demanding lower fuel prices and a new government. Hadi’s supporters and the Muslim Brotherhood–affiliated party, al-Islah, held counterrallies.

Houthi takeover. The Houthis captured much of Sanaa by late 2014. Reneging on a UN peace deal, they consolidated control of the capital and continued their southward advance. Hadi’s government resigned under pressure in January 2015 and Hadi later fled to Saudi Arabia. —

The Houthi act like post-Soviet Communists and appear aligned with the theocratic and thieving regime in Tehran.

Why President Biden would de-list the organization from the designated terrorist roster . . . please, tell me.

Related Online

Robinson, Kali. “Yemen’s Tragedy: War, Stalemate, and Suffering.” Council on Foreign Relations, last updated February 5, 2021.

Swofford, Tammy. “Yemen Revolution, September 21.” The Last English Prince, September 17, 2017.

–33–

FTAC: Craziest American Times?

05 Friday Feb 2021

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, North America, Political Psychology, Political Spychology, Politics, South America

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , ,

Q: Do you think this is the craziest time we have ever known?

From the Awesome Conversation

I’d suggest the Vietnam Era worse.

Keep in mind that the Soviet Union spent $1 billion seeding our Anti-War and Environmental movementsAndr and channeled its efforts toward our bipolar radicalism — about the same as today with its “Active Measures” held over from Yuri Andropov’s day.

With a one-term Trump Presidency, we have dodged a powerful bullet, and we should keep in mind that it took crossover Republicans to do it.

Biden’s now relying on outdated postures and needs to be shaken out of the still near past with Obama.

*

I’ll go a little further here with the note that our own decadence drives large foreign affairs, financial, and social issues. We’ve overdone it with the coke, dope, and sex (for starters), and the same have launched mass migrations toward us as well as funded our enemies through their control of Transnational Crime Organizations (TCOs). As “Children of the ’60s”, we should own up to some of the less immediately visible consequences of our own appetites.

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

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-mexico-guns/iron-river-of-guns-flows-from-u-s-to-mexico-idUSN1223853620070713 (2007) | https://www.insightcrime.org/news/analysis/us-mexico-border-hemorrhaging-weapons/ (2020) |

In the western hemisphere, insecurity related to black market operations — cartels, gangs — literally drives people out of their homes; the same, of course, sends the “entrepreneurs” toward The North for business — or deliveries.

Posted to YouTube by Sheriff Reynolds, June 18, 2013.

###

Spend a Measly $1.3B on a Home and the Whole Neighborhood Gets Curious

28 Thursday Jan 2021

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

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , ,

DW -> YT 1/20/2021.

Navalny’s team is calling for people to fill the streets and to support him and to express their anger with the regime. And the whole thing has become like a snowball. It went viral when Navalny released his movie about Putin’s palace [editor’s note: an online investigation, released after Navalny’s return to Russia last week, that explores Putin’s massive Black Sea estate and the money flows that financed it in great detail], which has already reached some kind of astronomical number of views. And now we’re seeing the accumulated effect of 20 years of Putin’s dictatorship, the growing disappointment of the Russian people with their socioeconomic conditions, and anger about corruption and the wealth of Putin’s oligarchs. We’re seeing a clear a message from the young generation of Russians that they’re not going to tolerate Putin’s indefinite rule.

Gary Kaparov as quoted by Jonathan Tepperman, “Russia Is in Agony, but Putin’s Dictatorship Is Going Down,” Foreign Policy, January 26, 2021.
AC -> YT 1/28/2021

Yes, laziness — or efficiency — has me fooling with style in the captioning of YouTube videos.

🙂

Absolute Power, corruption, and criminality in Russia have apparently left bereft much of the Russian Federation’s constituency. Programmatic theft, so forced in and around Russia under the Bolsheviks and especially vicious during Stalin’s tenure, has undermined affection and trust for Putin as the “Great Leader”. From leveraging himself into power with the Moscow Apartment Bombings to the presence of the palace (long covered but not quite so investigated as by Alexei Navalny) to now this latest confrontation having to do with basic integrity in state leadership, Putin as wrapped together — but also around himself — the most rogue forces of Russian civilization.

The appellation “Russian Mafia State” has at this pass garnered broad internal popular interest and now there’s a product — Navalny’s documentary — able to inform Russians about their own deep exploitation.

The YouTube counter approaches 99 million views on this captioned video –>

Posted by Алексей Навальный to YouTube, January 19, 2021.

###

Old Nationalism – Russia’s 19th Century Revival

27 Wednesday Jan 2021

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, Russia

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, ,

v

Address starts about 20 seconds in. Posted to YouTube by Reuters, January 27, 2021. Listen for the “Accusation(s) in a Mirror”.

Power in Russia’s authoritarian political system is concentrated in the hands of President Vladimir Putin. With loyalist security forces, a subservient judiciary, a controlled media environment, and a legislature consisting of a ruling party and pliable opposition factions, the Kremlin is able to manipulate elections and suppress genuine dissent. Rampant corruption facilitates shifting links among bureaucrats and organized crime groups.

https://freedomhouse.org/country/russia/freedom-world/2020

How has Russia gotten so far with its illiberal cultural and political program for the west?

Start here —

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

Then try this —

Oppenheim, James S. “FTAC: Reinforcement: Reflexive Control: Islamic Terrorism and Perceived Threat –> Newest Nationalism and Renewed Feudal Conflict.” BackChannels, April 2018.

Add “Active Measures” and have a look at this blog’s post, “Russian Active Measures, Donald Trump, and Either Evil or Gullible Americans (Or Both)” (July 22, 2020).

Not only is Russia not free, it is also not in any meaningful sense “productive” beyond its resource exporting businesses that account for about $281.5 billion of its overall exports. It has conflated itself with mafia (see, for example, Leonid Nevzlin’s “The Result of 20 Years of Putin: Russia as a Mafia State,” Institute of Modern Russia, January 24, 2020) and become a spirit dampening oligarchic estate that has brought ordinary Russians — damaged by corruption, under-served by government — out to protest in the face of state arrests and brutality.

Posted by DW News to YouTube, January 23, 2021.

In Russia, the robber barons and thugs have won their state, but the same appear to be losing the hearts and minds of Russians who have not themselves experienced the privileges known to favorable association with the “Vertical of Power”.

###

FTAC: Onward – Addressing a Reactionary Politics

20 Wednesday Jan 2021

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

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , ,

I don’t know why I should have the spread of friends that I do on Facebook, so many have turned out reactionary conservatives muttering about a communist front that just hasn’t been shaping up as such. Have a look at the Communist Party USA’s membership number. Read Jacobin if you want to — I rather appreciate the alternative views but seem to be missing out on the sound of the earth-shaking thundering herd raging behind it. Inspiration for the following: the boast that former President Trump fought Chinese Communism (China’s elite society and growing class of billionaires left that blue serge lifestyle behind some time ago) and rightly put “America First!” The slogan was old before it came out of his mouth and the go-it-alone of the paranoid narcissistic personality may have only abetted Putin’s 19th Century ideas for destroying the political cohesion of a truly democratic and modern EU/NATO.

November’s election and today’s inauguration brought back to the United States of America the most fundamental of American principles and values riding right beside our glorious Constitution: a government by and for — i.e., responsible and responsive to — The People of the Nation in all our varied colors, cultures, and creeds.

We are Americans — no adjectives required unless appreciated and enjoyed — once again.

From the Awesome Conversation

“America First” also references the earlier “America First Party” — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America_First_Party_(1943)

Beneath the banner of Communism, Beijing’s financial, ideological, and political realities differ quite from what imagination may supply in minds restricted by tired old presumptions. The state has been fairly minting billionaires and producing an elite within lines of authoritarian control in some ways mirroring what Moscow has going in the way of a deeply autocratic and politically repressive state.

For all intents in the United States, the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) may at best boast a membership around or beneath 10,000.

Excessive autocratic control — totalitarian in China these days — backed by military and paramilitary force have marked Beijing and Moscow’s respective narratives. In EU/NATO, the post-9/11 “New Nationalism” has similarly scarred “The West” in Hungary, Italy, Poland, and Turkey. However, as bad ideas reach their nadir, one may expect the reactionary drift (also in the United States) to reverse and more return to practical democratic approaches to a spread of tough and real — rather than imaginary — issues involving how we live together and how we (Americans) work together as a political society.

###

FTAC: Reflection on the Political Power of the World Wide Web in America 14 Years After the General Uptake of ‘Broadband Internet’

09 Saturday Jan 2021

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

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , ,

I don’t really want to introduce this lift of my own words 🙂 because it’s telegraphed well as is. Let’s try this that way.

From the Awesome Conversation

The World Wide Web is in civilizational terms still a new communications technology, and about 14 years ago, broadband and the advent of powerful search engines and networks made it an ideal tool for political friends and enemies alike. Here is the program of one of our enemies — https://conflict-backchannels.com/2020/02/13/active-measures/ Another term (on which I haven’t worked): “Hybrid Warfare”.

I try to sustain our broadest American Freedom of Speech character across partisan lines, but we must be aware — or become aware — of sophisticated agitprop, disinformation, disingenuous information, etc. across partisan lines. The vast majority here are Americans whether Democratic or Republicans. We work things out. We don’t choke down political language or presentations without critical facility of our own and an immense treasure in research capability.

The BackChannels blog is mine and represents probably the most consistently semi-productive thing I’ve been doing for about a decade.

I would view the former politically correct fascists on campus and the emerged Far White Right in Charlottesville as projects that have simmered beneath the former political surface and simply amplified and coalesced their national political presence by way of both surface and “dark web” social channels. They’re the “violent radicals” of our day and most of us should want to repopulate the positions around the aisle.

We have had enough bullying from extremists Far Out Left and Far White Right.

Additional Comment

Unlike our Russian counterparts who cannot today choose between lives in a modern and vibrant authentic democracy, Americans may choose at this time to live with modern demand for integrity and responsibility in their speech and thereby inhabit an authentically modern and revolutionary ever new world.

###