Tag Archives: neo-feudalism

From Voting to Divine Mandate: Trump’s Trumpian Transition Explained

09 Wednesday Sep 2026

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

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Let’s return to the medieval v. modern axis of conflict involving Donald Trump and his leveraging of The Church —

“We’ll have it fixed so good . . . .” said Donald Trump

–into immense self-dealing power, privilege, and wealth for himself and his private (for Americans, evil) system of patronage.

By Ai La Mer

The “21st Century Feudal” Architecture: State Capture and Religious Leverage

The interplay between Donald Trump’s political movement, conservative Catholic infrastructure, and the erosion of modern democratic norms highlights a broader structural transformation: a transition from a modern, rule-of-law constitutional republic toward a neo-feudal patronage system.

In your analysis on BackChannels, “We’ll have it fixed so good . . . .” said Donald Trump, you highlight Trump’s July 2024 address to Turning Point Action: “It’ll be fixed. It’ll be fine. You won’t have to vote anymore my beautiful Christians . . . in four years you don’t have to vote again, we’ll have it fixed so good you’re not going to have to vote.”

When parsed through the “Medieval vs. Modern” continuum, this rhetoric—and the institutional transactionalism backing it—demonstrates how religious authority is leveraged to dismantle modern civic structures in favor of pre-modern state capture.

1. Modern Constitutionalism vs. Neo-Feudal Patronage

Structural AxisModern Democratic RepublicNeo-Feudal / Pre-Modern Autocracy
Locus of PowerImpersonal law, constitutional norms, institutional checks and balances.Personal loyalty to the sovereign, private patronage networks, prebendal* state extraction.
Source of LegitimacyPopular sovereignty, free elections, transparent procedure, civic pluralism.Divine sanction, transactional protection, protection of the “faithful” against external/internal enemies.
Function of the StatePublic service, equal protection under law, defense of universal human rights.Privatized state apparatus (“state piracy”), wealth extraction, patronage distribution to loyal vassals.

Under the modern model, political power is public, temporary, and subject to procedural consent. Under the neo-feudal model—what your categorization tags as 21st Century Feudal—power is personal, transactional, and permanent.

2. The Mechanics of Religious Co-optation and Patronage

Trump’s relationship with conservative Catholic powerbrokers (and broader Christian nationalist factions) operates as a classic feudal bargain: Temporal Protection and Statutory Favor in Exchange for Sacred Legitimacy.

  • The Sovereign’s Bargain: In his rhetoric to Christian audiences, Trump does not demand personal religious piety or theological adherence; he offers protection and judicial dominance. In return, religious institutions offer him something secular politics cannot: an absolute, non-negotiable moral mandate that frame political opposition not merely as competing civic visions, but as existential, demonic threats.
  • Judicial Realignment as Feudal Fiefdoms: Through key architects like Leonard Leo and the Federalist Society network, the conservative Catholic legal establishment secured judicial appointments dedicated to rolling back post-Enlightenment regulatory state frameworks. In exchange, the administration was provided an elite, highly organized intellectual apparatus capable of justifying executive overreach under theories like the Unitary Executive or “Common Good Constitutionalism.”
  • Self-Dealing and State Piracy: By framing his authority as the sole shield protecting traditionalist Christians from secular hostility, Trump constructs a shield of immunity. Within this arrangement, the consolidation of private wealth, personal pardon power, and the dismantling of institutional oversight are reframed by supporters not as corruption, but as necessary measures to maintain the sovereign’s power against “corrupt” democratic institutions.

3. “Fixing” the System: From Universal Suffrage to Sacred Mandate

When Trump assured his audience that “we’ll have it fixed so good… you’re not going to have to vote,” the statement exposed the underlying friction between modern democratic mechanisms and pre-modern governance:

  1. Elections as a Modern Nuisance: In a modern republic, elections are the periodic renewal of popular consent. In a medieval or pre-modern political structure, popular elections are unnecessary once the “correct” moral order and sovereign protector are established.
  2. Erosion of Civic Faith: As detailed in your briefing notes regarding foreign cyber threats, disinformation, and election certification challenges, the primary objective of these overlapping pressures—both internal political maneuverings and external hybrid warfare—is to erode public trust in decentralized, democratic voting systems.
  3. The Divine Right Reframed: By presenting democratic processes as intrinsically compromised or “corrupt,” the autocrat positions himself and his network as the only stable alternative. The vote is replaced by the sovereign’s promise of permanent protection for the favored estate.

Through this alignment, traditionalist religious frameworks—historically anchored in pre-modern concepts of absolute hierarchy and divine order—are utilized as the ultimate ideological engine to roll back modern constitutional democracy, replacing public governance with private patronage.

Appendix: Terms: Political Science & Political Psychology

Ai La Mer used the term “prebandal” in her chart, and for knowing nothing like it in contemporary use, I had to look it up. From old reading–and still recommended: Pipes, Richard.  Russia Under the Old Regime: The History of Civilization.  New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1974–the term “Patrimonial Authoritarianism” spans both the medieval world and the worlds familiar to Vladimir Putin and apparently desired by Donald Trump. Associated with the two state mafia chiefs: Malignant Narcissism. The order is accidental, a consequence of bounding between AI sources, one of them personal, and the others representing off-the-cuff queries. In any case, here are the three terms in one place.

*Prebandal

Prebendal is an adjective that means relating to a prebend, which is a stipend or land grant given to a member of the clergy (such as a canon) from the revenues of a cathedral or collegiate church. [1, 2, 3]

Key Meanings and Contexts

  • Ecclesiastical: Pertaining to a prebendary, a clergyman who holds a prebend, or to the physical stalls and offices they occupy.
  • Political and Social (Prebendalism): Relating to a system where public officeholders treat state resources and public revenue as personal benefits to be distributed to political supporters, ethnic groups, or allies. [1, 4, 5, 6]

Reference

[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/prebendal

[2] https://www.dictionary.com/browse/prebendal

[3] https://www.dictionary.com/browse/prebend

[4] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/prebendal

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prebendary

[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prebendalism

Concept Cogent and Related: Patrimonial Authoritarianism

Patrimonial authoritarianism is a system of governance where a leader treats the state as a personal family business or private property rather than a public institution. [1, 2, 3]

Originally rooted in Max Weber’s theory of Patrimonialism, this style of rule merges public power with private gain. [4, 5]

Key Characteristics

  • Personal Loyalty Over Merit: Officials get jobs based on personal allegiance to the ruler rather than professional expertise.
  • No Public-Private Divide: The boundaries between the ruler’s personal finances/interests and state resources completely disappear.
  • Transactional Politics: Power is maintained by handing out rewards to loyal supporters and punishing opponents, rather than following a strict legal framework.
  • Anti-Bureaucratic: Unlike traditional heavy authoritarian states that rely on vast public administration, patrimonial systems often fight or dismantle standard bureaucracies to ensure absolute central loyalty. [2]

Impact on Society

  • Public goods and state capacity deteriorate because competence takes a backseat to obedience.
  • Corruption and institutional decay flourish, often leading to erratic policymaking and weak economic development. [2, 4, 5]

Reference

[1] https://www.populismstudies.org/prof-kopstein-trumpism-better-understood-in-patrimonial-terms-treats-the-state-as-a-family-business/

[2] https://principiamentis.com/blog/exposing-2-flaws-of-patrimonial-systems/

[3] https://www.populismstudies.org/professor-hanson-trumps-patrimonial-rule-treats-the-state-as-personal-property-and-undermining-impartial-governance/

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrimonialism

[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gM5KXWttd78

[6] https://www.facebook.com/groups/1077620615994293/posts/2097277684028576/

Most Cogent and Related for Donald Trump: Malignant Narcissism

Signal: delusional, grandiose, messianic ideation absent of normal boundaries and limits, i.e., the parameters of normal conscience.

Process: https://conflict-backchannels.com/2022/07/10/malignant-narcissistic-process-distilled/

Ramifications–> https://conflict-backchannels.com/2023/01/20/ftac-why-putin-wont-stop-until-stopped/; https://conflict-backchannels.com/2024/04/22/trump-delusional-and-innocent/

Note regarding Trump-Putin: “Great Again” and “Greatness” would seem to refer to the deeds and works of feudal-medieval power with each himself a chief as well as head of his own private system of patronage.

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“Iraq . . . only its shell remains” – Kurdish Major General Aziz Weysi Bani

09 Tuesday May 2017

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars

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Posted by Clarion Project, May 9, 2017.

BackChannels has repeated made the case and point that ISIL had been incubated — protected early on from annihilation — by Assad’s preferring to fight the west (and democratic liberalism in the distribution of power) first at the outset of the Syrian Tragedy, and that decision had been flanked by Moscow and Tehran.

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2017/04/09/ftac-reprise-how-isil-serves-moscow-damascus-and-tehran/

By electing to make the primary enemy “The West” and only halting the advance of al-Nusra and other al-Qaeda-type organizations at critical points, Bashar al-Assad created conditions in which the true terrorist opposition could gather and grow.  While Syrian forces were creating the horrific conditions that would spur the influx of jihadists into Syria while also inducing mass displacement and migration, it turns out that Saddam Hussein’s old Baathist officer corps had in mind some similar ideas regarding their own lives as puppeteers.

Haji Bakr was sent by the group into Syria in late 2012, as a part of a tiny advance cluster, with the mission to help plot out the steps for the emergent “Islamic State,” to capture as much territory as possible in Syria, and from there to launch an invasion back into Iraq. Haji Bakr settled obscurely in the small Syrian town of Tal Rifaat, north of Aleppo, where he put his immense knowledge of Saddam’s intelligence and totalitarian practices to work, charting out the invasion of Syria and emergence of the “Islamic State”—plans that were later meticulously carried out by ISIS.[17]

Haji Bakr was killed by a Syrian rebel group in 2014,[18] but not before he had transmitted his knowledge and intelligence plans learned inside Saddam Hussein’s former totalitarian regime to the nascent “Islamic State.” The documents he produced, discovered after his death, consist of 31 pages of handwritten organizational charts, lists, and schedules, all of which describe how to step-by-step subjugate a nation.

http://www.icsve.org/research-reports/the-isis-emni-the-inner-workings-and-origins-of-isiss-intelligence-apparatus/ – 12/3/2016.

It is into this greater intersection between “east and west” — actually: feudal dictatorship and western democracy — that the pro-democratic talking Kurdish presence and armed Peshmerga have emerged as forces for modernity.

Given, perhaps, that few in the general public get this far into the machinery of war, it’s possible that “Moscow-Tehran” and “baby Damascus” (between them) may now engage ISIS  . . . more sincerely, with Moscow recovering some face and flexibility for doing so.  As much may account for the Peshmerga’s wishing to work with Moscow against ISIS, but as ISIS has made for Moscow, Damascus, and Tehran the most useful enemy, there may be a little bit of funny business in attempting that.

Duplicity would seem much less known where American forces and political resolve have been involved although Turkey’s preference for suppressing the Kurds (while developing its own dictatorship) has complicated the Yankee do-good in the Syrian-Iraq theaters.

BackChannels feels that Washington and others may try to match Moscow in the realm of corrupt “realpolitik” but may suggest that working modern ideals against bad deals may better suit everyone’s future.  Moscow may make a show of shutting down ISIS, but its clinging to dictatorship and totalitarian show business bodes ill for genuinely western and western-leaning cooperation.

“Right now, Sunnis, Shias, and Kurds can’t live together under a single administration.”

While the Hebrews are back in the Land of the Hebrews and mighty independent about being so, Baloch, Kurdish, and Pashtun communities, among others, continue to struggle against the dominance of hitherto more powerful states.

BackChannels would promote ethnolinguistic cultural community and political autonomy — i.e., what is really meant by the term “cultural self-determination of a People” — with central and margin-bearing features.  To get there, however, requires great strength in independent cultural identity plus the cooperation of tribal leaders in producing a coherent unified proto-national politics.

Is the once communist Kurdish PKK the same as it was back in the 1970s, and may that account for some turn toward Moscow today?

BackChannels hasn’t that answer today.  The last time this editor looked into that question was 2007 (as a rank political science beginner on an entirely different blog: http://commart.typepad.com/oppenheim_arts_letters/2007/10/turkeys-pkk-hot.html — Turkey looked every inch a democracy back then; and the PKK looked like old bandits holed up in caves and just about finished as a political force.

Oh my how things have changed!

At this time, it appears that fighting ISIS in Iraq and Syria has brought the multiply suzerain Kurdish community together as never before.  Now it needs to sustain its cohesion and strength against the pressuring of the errant Arab and Persian worlds once swayed by the Soviet Union and still hungover from the increasingly anachronist experience.

A little BackChannels rah-rah for the home team:

What has given the American model its power has been first and foremost the immense adventurousness and imperialism of the British Empire AND it’s intellectual experience and loading with equal measures Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian cultural experiences.  Had the ideals of the Cyrus Cylinder held sway in the middle east, the conversation would be quite different, but its Magna Carta that has worked its will through the western experience and now returns to intercede on behalf of cultures overrun by gross and malign power.

From the Kurdish general:

“Iraq needs to be divided into three neighboring countries, and each country to govern themselves according to the reality of the region.  Sunni and Shia Arabs have different approaches in making relations with others.  The Kurdish approach is different than both of them.  These things have to be considered, so then each one will be responsible for their people, place and country.  And these three groups are better as neighbors.  Our message for the world is that Iraq is no longer the same, only its shell remains.”  

At the moment, Turkey is not what it was either!

BackChannels suggests the United States would do well to deepen the bond with the pro-democracy forces of the Kurdish political community.

–33–

Video

FTAC – ‘This is Moscow’s Game’

29 Wednesday Jun 2016

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

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This is Moscow’s game.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03pk9c1*

Today, Putin plays “ends against the middle” by supporting Far Right and Far Left movements and personalities; he indulges in breathtaking political theater — Sochi or Syria, both have been about demonstration of political values; and he’s ruthless (poor Assad), enough so to have engineered through influence the incubating of ISIS (for the production “Assad vs The Terrorists”) and the creation of an EU / NATO stressing immigrant headache, to which the Brits have responded and played directly into his bid to keep restored feudal political absolute power.

Related in the news: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/06/29/post-brexit-the-u-k-is-in-its-worst-political-crisis-since-1940-and-the-e-u-may-be-about-to-unravel/ – 6/29/2016.

Most of the public will keep Putin’s feudal revanche in Russia separate from the issues attending the Great Britain – European Union split, but the general weakening of the European Union and NATO would seem fit to his own image of himself as the unassailable primary political force in a state suspended between a secret police organization (FSB) to whom he refers to as the “New Nobility”, himself, and the financial oligarchy that he controls.

*In the above cited and linked video, attend to Moscow’s creation of a conflict that it chooses to manage from both sides.

-33-

FTAC – On the Meaning of Al Aqsa

04 Friday Mar 2016

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, A Little Wisdom, Anti-Semitism, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Islamic Small Wars, Political Psychology, Politics, Religion, Syndicate Red Brown Green

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I can’t endorse the sentiment, ______, having taken a moderate course, but I hope that more and more Arabs will take note of the abuse of the refugees at the hands of their leaders and the medieval disinformation and manipulation campaigns that have led to The Preoccupation not only with the Jews but their own self-concept and status in the world. Too many fathers like al-Husseini have put them on the worst imaginable track, i.e., the emulation of Hitler and the Nazis. Some who have embraced that most may be due to wake up from the nightmare within them that has long masqueraded as their dream.

BackChannels now has plenty of information as to how the Israelis, the west, the refugees of 1948 and their generations, got to this unpretty pass.  The themes erupting in WWII — that Stalin-Hitler thing — have been sustained in the middle east conflict; the Soviet promotion of anti-Semitism in the middle east and the concomitant terrorism of the PLO and PFLP have been similarly and perhaps exhaustively covered; the formation and presence of what has been referred to here as “Syndicate Red Brown Green”; the self-dissolve of the Soviet on December 26, 1991 also has been remarked in these virtual pages, as have the feudal kleptocracies kept floating along in its place and around it; less has been remarked as regards the post-Cold War Era around the world, but BackChannels believes we’re in that realm as this is being posted.

All in all, and with Khamenei pressing for Israel’s destruction while a smattering of Sunni-majority states brand Hezbollah as a terrorist organization (that move took a while plus some “war by proxy” on Iran’s part), the world, even in one of its most medieval appearances, appears to want to move forward, not backward — and forward would seem toward the classical liberalism of the west.

The comment to which the excerpt responds called for the realization al-Husseini’s manipulative lie: the Jews haven’t any desire to “take over” Al Aqsa Mosque — never did and never will — because while being Jewish involves attending to self defense, it also involves being about and for others, and that includes the Arab brother and sister.

Two of Hillel the Elder’s most famous statements ring down through the ages: “That which is distasteful to thee, do not do to another.”  That is an idea predicated on the concept of human self-restraint.  Israel may produce harm when harmed itself, but it does not have to prove its power through making others suffer with impunity.  If met with the force that would do that to people, including its own people, then it may answer in kind.

The second of Hillel’s language-based corrals:  “If I am not for myself, who will be for me?  If I am not for others, what am I?  If not now, when?”

Some Palestinians may be surprised to find Israelis for them in peace, but peace is needed as part of a sea change in the character of our humanity.

# # #

FTAC – Margins and Shadows

06 Thursday Aug 2015

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Epistemology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Journalism, Political Spychology, Politics, Syndicate Red Brown Green

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The Machiavellian “behind the curtains” has been supplanted by “in the shadows” and into the shadows may be where mainstream media fears to tread.

Both the Bond movies and Le Carre novels, and I’ve enjoyed both in series, have reflected in fiction the issues (as well as atmosphere) of their day, each work of art in essence packaging up the look and spirit of a part of a decade using the secret world as its window. For the writers, intuitive exploration may turn out more secure than looking into essentially powerful secret societies.  In fact, the possession of private power and wealth may be inseparable today from the control of political influence and movement in the mirrors of criminal and lawful worlds and the feudal and democratic ones in which the bad guys work in secrecy and the good guys do as well but, perhaps, differently.

http://www.madmagazine.com/blog/2013/04/23/mad-spy-vs-spy-prints-for-sale

In real life, someone leads an organization that kidnaps an Israeli Olympic team at the event — and someone else leads another organization that quietly hunts down the miscreants.

Must the journalists know all? And when?  As history?  As now?

Many stories emerge over time.

I haven’t yet watched _Kill the Messenger_ but from description it appears that it will fit with a stack of nonfiction histories about the security services of states. Whatever happened may be done, but the processes may not be done, and that’s where the public becomes curious in its own interest. However, journalism has also a politics of discretion belied by the terms of art “on the record” and “off the record” and the public may never know what has been imparted “off the record”, much less what has been sealed in the minds of agents and the vaults of the KGB/FSB and others.

I’m more inclined to trust The Washington Post than, say, Alex Jones 🙂 , but one may suspect that the Post must also keeps secrets.

With conventional warfare somewhat nulled by the immense firepower developed by would-be adversaries, the twists that are “low-intensity conflict”, “hybrid warfare”, “war by proxy” and so on depend on mafia-type arrangements and relationships to produce activity (or perhaps as much has been always the way of the street in which conflicts are conceived and worked into reality).

Posted to YouTube 12/1/2014.

In books available through Amazon and in videos on YouTube, there’s a surfeit of material covering the history of spying, from The Bible, no less, and forward.  One has only to look.  Of historic interest and, perhaps, contemporary curiosity, may be the depth of control and integration a state has with its people along this axis.  From the 20th Century experience, the mere mention of “Gestapo”, “STASI”, and “KGB” summon the vision of totalitarian police states operated by political elites with security forces sufficiently populated to reach down through their societies to the extent that even children are made into informants.

The prompt for this post was Diane Weber Bederman’s recent piece in the Canadian Press, “Media dereliction of duty to the citizenry” (August 6, 2015) about the film Kill The Messenger (which I have not yet seen, but I like IMDB’s quotation of the tag line: “Can you keep a national secret?”).

When Mr. Putin and company set out to preserve the privileges of the Soviet without the Soviet (reference: Karen Dawisha’s book, Putin’s Kleptocracy), the drive appears to have been developed precisely for interest already established within the KGB and Party to preserve power and wealth and the ability to distribute the same to similar favored elites.  As a king to knights and lords, so has Putin been to his “new nobility” (another title in the Russian Section of this blog’s library).

Do the services of western powers mirror the security systems that maintain Russia’s neo-feudal governance (yes/no?) and, if so, democracy by democracy, how?  What’s similar? What’s different?

I’d rather imagine the answers and work in fiction — and may, for this lonesome blogger is not The Washington Post or The New York Times, and even the “best and brightest” in those companies may choose — or have long chosen — to exercise discretion.

Who’s to know?

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Gaza – Four Little Boys on a Beach | Hamas – Family Business

24 Friday Jul 2015

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Gaza, Gaza Suzerain, Islamic Small Wars, Middle East, Politics, Syndicate Red Brown Green

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Inside the pressure cooker, the battle between the clans and Hamas ebbed and flowed according to the fortunes and political needs of the Islamist group. One of the first clans targeted by Hamas was the al-Bakr family, which controls much of the strip’s fishing fleet. Known as Fatah loyalists, they came under attack during the clashes between Hamas and Fatah in June last year; after suffering heavy casualties, more than 200 al-Bakr gunmen surrendered to the Hamas fighters.

Buck, Tobias.  “The clans of Gaza take on the men of Hamas.”  FT Magazine, November 22, 2008.

From threaded chat correspondence with independent forensic media analyst Thomas Edward Wictor (July 21, 2015):

The problem is that reporters don’t bother to educate themselves, and words are losing their meaning. I have idiots arguing with me that shrapnel now means any fragment of a projectile. Fine, but the four victims had round holes in them, and not a single IDF munition uses round metals balls, whether you call them shrapnel or potato chips.

The IDF MAG Corps report says that the IDF fired two missiles. I can find physical evidence of only one missile being fired. The second missile left no trace evidence. No crater and no debris.

There’s video evidence of three separate explosions. One was the IED below the terrace of the Adam Hotel, one was the IDF missile hitting the shipping container, and one was the IED going off in the rubbish bin behind the Avenue Restaurant and Coffee Shop.

Those are the only explosions I know for sure took place.

If there’s a difference between the “Rule of Law” and the feudal alternative that is the “Rule of the Lawless”, it lies in final obedience to dispassionate courts working the representative will of a free people — free to speak; free to argue law in creation, theory, and fact; free to seek and hold office; free to submit themselves to their own best common and deeply argued and informed wisdom.

Wictor’s forensic investigations engage assertions and incidents that could do with such courts.

In relation to the murders of Mohammed Bakr, Ahed Bakr, Zakaria Bakr, and Ismail Bakr on July 16, 2014, Wictor has assembled raw video footage, media footage, research (as above) on Gaza’s true underlying political history and sociology, and both meticulously and repeatedly queried the same.

While Wictor may not represent a court of the lawful either — not more than anyone else — he represents a different kind of public defender and prosecutor: a global citizen fighting — in relation to this incident — the defamation of the Jewish People, which is equally a struggle for what is truthful and possessed of integrity regardless of the interests of men: good principal, good law, honest research — “clear, accurate, and complete” remains the journalist’s standard — and discerning, reasoned, and responsible judgment.

And if Wictor’s collection of conclusions remains doubtful?

Examination by a court of the lawful would begin with “discovery” in the presence of the prosecutor and the accused.

Here is a smattering of Wictor blogs on this piece.

“Timeline of the Hamas Gaza Beach Operation.” October 6, 2014.

“Hamas used three IEDs in the Gaza beach operation.”  October 16, 2014.

“Why did Hamas threaten journalists in Gaza?” October 18, 2014.

“Reader questions, Hamas beach operation.”  October 25, 2014.

“Gaza beach operation: the four decoys.”  December 27, 2014.

“Journalist confirms Gaza beach deception operation.” April 10, 2015.

“The IDF conclusion on the Bakr boys.”  June 11, 2015.

In the last article listed, Wictor says of himself, “What I’ve become—without either knowing it or planning for it—is an investigative reporter. I use what are known as open sources, meaning everything that I study is available on the Internet. This is something anyone can do. All it takes is patience.”

Do others see what Wictor sees?

The answer is unimportant, for it should be understood that the findings of one investigator remain subjective, however clinical and objective the undertaking: the presenter of so many reports — and ruminations — would appear to know that he is neither also judge nor jury nor even colleague or professional rival.  Still, there is only one true story about what happened on July 16, 2014, and Wictor has done more to look it over twice, three times, and more in the public venue that is his blog and the “Hamas Operation on Gaza Beach” portion of it.

Related Reference

Hamas, which promotes political Islam, has mounted occasional crackdowns on more radical groups that chafe at its engagement with Abbas and truces with Israel. Such groups support the broader struggle led by Islamic State and al Qaeda.

Al-Mughrabi, Nidal.  “Palestinian gov’t condemns Hamas for killing Islamic rival in Gaza.”  Reuters, June 2, 2015.

Jewish Virtual Library.  “Fact Sheets: The Hamas War on Palestinian Rivals.”  Updated May 2015.

Hamas has attempted to crack down, often through violent means, against opposition displays in Gaza. In May, the Palestinian entity demolished a mosque that was allegedly a recruiting ground for ISIS jihadis. At the time, a tweet from a Gazan ISIS-aligned group said, “Armed men from Hamas came to Deir Al-Balah and destroyed the mosque, acting in a way that even the Jewish occupiers and the Americans have not acted.” Also in May, a group that claimed to be affiliated with ISIS claimed responsibility for the bombing of Hamas headquarters.

Schachtel, Jordan.  “ISIS Threatens to Take Gaza From Rival Terror Group Hamas.” Breitbart, July 1, 2015.

# # #

Link – Erdogan’s Turkey – Israel’s Image

12 Friday Jun 2015

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Anti-Semitism, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Israel, Political Psychology, Politics, Syndicate Red Brown Green, Turkey

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A large number of the citizens of Turkey, a NATO member, see Israel and the United States as enemies.

A survey conducted recently in Turkey found that nearly half the country’s citizens (42.6%) see Israel as the biggest security threat, followed by the United States (35.5%), and only then Syria (22.1%).

How do they visualize Israel, a country with which they have made several military and trade agreements, as being a security threat? Do they think Israel would ever invade Turkey? Bomb Turkey? Nuke Turkey? This view seems to be based on either religion-induced paranoia caused by Islamic anti-Semitism, or else their understanding of reality has been distorted Nazi-style by Turkish leaders and the media.

Bulut, Uzay.  “Turkish Journalist Uzay Bulut — Turkey’s View of Israel.”  IsraelSeen.com, June 10, 2015.

Turkey was the first – and for decades the only – Islamic country to recognize the Jewish state, opening diplomatic relations in 1949. While Turkey became a member of NATO in 1952, and Israel served during the Cold War as a Western ally to counter Soviet alliances in the Arab world, relations between the two states were low-key through the decades of wars fought between Israel and the Arabs. Yet Turkey never severed the relationship despite Arab pressure to do so. With the end of the Cold War, Israel and Turkey emerged as the most democratic and economically dynamic states in the region. Their foreign pro-Western orientation and their self-perception as bastions of democratic and free market values in an unruly neighbourhood placed them, as was the case during the Cold War years, in the same strategic boat.

Inbar, Efraim.  “The Resilience of Israeli-Turkish Relations”.  11:4 (591-607) Israel Affairs, October 2005; reprinted by The Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, Bar-Ilan University, Mideast Security and Policy Studies No. 63; posted as a PDF online.

Given the neo-feudal and fascist will of Syndicate Red Brown Green, the resilience of Israeli-Turkish relations has not looked good for some years.

What may be looking forward, however, is how well humanity-adverse and anti-Semitic drives and manipulations may be overviewed on the World Wide Web.  Not only may pro-democracy true progressives in the west do the homework on the Putin-Erdogan relationship, brave and independent souls in Turkey (and elsewhere worldwide) may search up “Putin, Erdogan, Democracy”.

Other cool related searches: “Putin, palaces”; “Erdogan, white palace”.

After a while, in the same fashion as the Reuter’s piece on Khamenei, these reports that develop online — and they do add up thematically — create a certain impression and, perhaps, also leave a lasting impression.

Additional Reference

Martel, Frances.  “Erdogan’s Putin-Style Internet Trolls Blamed for Turkish AKP’s Election Losses.”  Breitbart, June 10, 2015.

Sadar, Claire.  “Dreaming of Russia in Ankara: Is Erdogan Following in Putin’s Footsteps?”  Foreign Affairs, February 12, 2015.

Tisdall, Simon.  “Erdogan plan for super-presidency puts Turkey’s democracy at stake.” The Guardian, March 25, 2015.

Relevant on BackChannels: “Anthropolitical Psychology“

I fear to see the term “anthropolitical” take off, but it could happen: in a New Age Strange Way, we’re all going to be part of distinct and meaningful legacy (and ethnolinguistic) cultures, but any will have the option at all times to overview the same rapidly — to see their world mirrored in real time — and inquire into its intellectual arrangements.  From that may come greater discrimination in preferences in values plus an active delineation of “desirable universals” and “critical positive” cultural and intellectual assets.

The English x persons x language shall not rule the world: the worlds of the world must rule themselves differentially even if and while wrapped in a unifying global communications environment.

Addendum – June 15, 2015

Efraim Inbar, a professor of political studies at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University and director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies (BESA), is not optimistic about AKP’s imminent political downfall and does not expect a change in Turkey’s attitude toward Western nations and Israel.

“The struggle over the soul and identity of Turkey continues,” Inbar told JNS.org, explaining that while “the election is definitely a blow to the AKP, [the party] still remains the major political force in Turkey.”

JNS.org via The Algemeiner.  “Will Erdogan’s Election Setback Mean Improved Relations With Israel?”  June 14, 2015.

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FTAC – Obama – Ambivalence, Feudalism, Obscurantism, and Political Jiu Jitsu – A Comment

06 Monday Apr 2015

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Political Psychology, Politics, United States of America

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He’s done more than screw up the region — or address larger political tectonics like the post-Soviet collapse of Soviet arrangements and behaviors. Boasting transparency, he has removed from popular observation the underlying policies of his Administration, transforming America’s democracy into its own neo-feudal world, a mirror perhaps of the feudal world he has engaged.

I remain both ambivalent and clinical cold in my “reading” of Obama’s domestic and foreign political policy involving his avoidance of confrontation and a kind of almost (!) but not quite complete rollover to the infiltration and possible perversion of intellectual assets (from advisors to campuses to think tanks). The U.S., perhaps others as well, has absorbed the agents of malicious movements, but it has also weakened the legs of the post-KGB Putin-Khamenei programs. The end of the Cold War and suspension of the Soviet failed to permanently transform Russia into a rule-of-law state. Colonel President Emperor Putin has extended the old program under cover of a neo-feudal nationalism and Obama has been either stuck with its disassembly or made part of its longevity.

Credit Obama with destabilizing the Soviet holdovers in international business and criminal relationships.  The “Putin-Assad-Khamenei” arrangement has been looking a bit rough lately (I understand the preferred enemy — as opposed to a moderate popular revolutionary one — the “Islamist Front”  — because it makes a better self-glorifying story for our malignant narcissists — has drawn close to the gates defending whatever remains of Assad’s governing power [he has really destroyed his own crib]).

Also looking unmasked and pale: Venezuela’s Maduro may handily deal with the direct opposition using the tools familiar to dictators, but with the economic woes derived from his own disastrous national policies, he appears bound to deal with enemies within his own circles as well.

Related Reading and Additions

Leopoldo López has been imprisoned in a military prison for one year and a month. Leopoldo is innocent, he shouldn’t remain as a prisoner for another day. He is imprisoned because of his words, because of what he thinks, for daring to say what the majority of Venezuelans wanted to hear.

He denounced Maduro’s regime as undemocratic, corrupt, inefficient, and repressive. Those words are now more alive than ever.

Marty, Belen.  “Lilian Tintori: “Leopoldo Surrendered to Unmask Maduro.”  Pan Am Post, March 31, 2015.

It was a sign of how bad things are in the Americas. Authoritarian governments now rule in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Venezuela, Ecuador, Argentina and Bolivia. All employ, to varying degrees, at least some elements of the Cuban model in which the executive consolidates power, civil society is suppressed, and due process is passe.

Elections are rigged. Rulers expropriate at will. Media outlets that dare to differ from the party line face legal burdens that can wipe them out.

O’Grady, Mary Anastasia.  “Obama Rehabilitates the Castro Brothers: The Organization of American States is now open to dictatorships.”  The Wall Street Journal, April 5, 2015.

Hiding dictatorship — how it works its ugliness, what it really looks like — from the young appears increasingly difficult given American Presidential attention.  While American conservatives frame Obama’s about-to-happen meet-and-greet with Raoul Castro as a gross compromise of the American democratic spirit, as much also highlights how really awful — “state capitalist” (actually), criminal, manipulative, and repressive Cuba’s governing elite have been all along:

But a second activist, from Argentina, reported on social media suffering similar treatment.

Micaela Hierro Dori said “the same happened to me”, and that she was threatened with being deported to Argentina.

“They are looking to silence the young,” she said.

Alexander, Harriet.  “Cuban dissident arrested on arrival at Panama’s Summit of the Americas.”  The Telegraph, April 6, 2015.

Perhaps the young will wish not to be silenced this year.

Be that as it may, Obama’s friendly reach-out-and-touch-someone-awful tour appears to have a way of uncloaking or uncovering ageing despots: it appears some are getting the attention — the global spotlight — they themselves have long craved.

More From the Awesome Conversation:

Old southern joke about an drunk accused of arson: “Your honor,” he says, “the bed was already on fire when I got into it!”

For Obama, the middle east, so delicately balanced in power, was well screwed up when he got into office, and given both the clout and ruthlessness of the enemies of democracy and modernity, the direct “Arab Spring” may have been due to fail if too much associated with Washington. Instead, the demonic — those “malignant narcissists” — have been given their wish: highest visibility and plenty of room for showing the world how they do business and what the world — and its latest generations — really thinks of them.

We often let attitude and predisposition establish our beliefs when what is wanted may be a lot of observation and a little bit of “wait just a minute”.

While fretting over Khamenei getting The Bomb, have we given much thought to the impact on Iranians of various revelations about the Khamenei brothers wealth? What is that information doing to both colleagues and constituents within each despotic state?

Out of necessity, American presidents find themselves hitched to the momentum of American programs. They might fiddle with some things — get in some licks on behalf of their own inclinations and sentiments — but the machinery is larger than they are and, so far, it has survived every one of them.

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