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Tag Archives: Putin

FTAC: Aghanistan, Corruption, and Greed

28 Tuesday Sep 2021

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, Afghanistan, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Europe, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Islamic Small Wars, North America

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

C&G, EU/NATO, Putin

While the Modern West most certainly appears to be at war with feudal-medieval, narcissistic, and totalitarian forces and tendencies worldwide, there seems a part in which the Modern face off with the Modern over the management of corruption and greed. This note From the Awesome Conversation may be accompanied by a minimum of inline or separate references, but I do believe each claim or implication easily substantiated with a little bit of online research effort on the reader’s part.


From the Awesome Conversation (Now Growing Old as I Grow Old) ๐Ÿ™‚

Inline URLs have been added to the original plain text.

***

HE was thinking “Putin”, whose black market provided the Taliban with arms and materiel and whose white market sells defense goods to allies on Afghanistan’s border. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/08/20/trump-peace-deal-taliban/ Grand Game thinking and Rare Earth Minerals have been a part of this tug-of-war between Moscow and Washington as has been the intent of “updating” Islam or Islamists hewing to impossibly archaic beliefs and execrable behavioral standards. Russia now has the Taliban where it has needed them — in power, out in the open, and free of any kind of support from Washington. ๐Ÿ™‚

Moscow’s “Absolutism”, “Active Measures”, “Hybrid Warfare”, and Medieval “Realpolitik” have been somewhat proven against EU/NATO, which by “Reflexive Control” (see “Business Insider, Zawahiri, Russia“) has itself been pushed toward the “New Nationalism” with Hungary, Italy, Poland, and Turkey motivated most of all to march forward into the feudal-medieval past.

Add the arc of Soviet / post-Soviet alliances x Areas of Control x Regions of Influence, and one may glimpse the persistently barbaric and feudal world Moscow has in mind for the global future.

Not only Zawahiri but Jeffrey Epstein as well had Moscow stays in Russia], and the medieval emphasis on “kompromat” — and potential public embarrassment — may have come through most clearly during the Trump Administration (and Trump especially had relationships involving criminal elements and substantial sums of Russian money — start with Craig Unger on all of that).

One more note on Afghanistan: the fate of that state would seem inseparable from corruption and greed on the part of all involved, from the native warlords to American industries fueled by Big Defense contracts and supported by complex battle systems requiring the cooperation and presence of ready assets, especially air-related, and the administrative and technical abilities needed to run and sustain operations.

***


Related Online

Kazmin, Amy, Benjamin Parkin, Katrina Manson. “Low morale, no support and bad politics: why the Afghan army folded.” Financial Times, August 15, 2021.

Wilkie, Christina. “‘9/11 millionaires’ and mass corruption: How American money helped break Afghanistan.” CNBC, September 10, 2021.

–33–

Ukraine: Putin Is In Control

13 Tuesday Apr 2021

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Eurasia, International Development, Political Psychology, Russia, Ukraine

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

MaligNarc Putin, Putin, Ukraine, Ukraine v Russia

Putin hasn’t to move one tank into Ukraine to control Ukraine, for he has already made himself central to Ukrainian (and NATO) awareness, fear, mobilization, and reflection.

Everything Ukraine may now do (and think) will have to do with whatever Putin chooses to do first.

Putin is in control.

Consider the Ukrainian defender’s now about seven-years-old experience and position with a belligerent and bullying Russia repeatedly and with impunity injuring or killing Ukrainian troops daily and weekly for all those years.

Where is that pain to be harbored and kept in check?

For how many more hours, days, weeks, months, years should Ukrainians tolerate the status quo of a “frozen conflict” sustained by the same criminals driven out in the 2014 Maidan?

Putin is in control.

How should Ukrainians feel about reaching out to a NATO that hems and haws over its imperfect governance while aspiring to meet modern democratic standards in rule-of-law?

Oh, has anyone had a good look lately at the degrees of corruption and rancor in relation to domestic political behavior within the United States?

At least the voting will of the American People voted out their own corrupt autocratic infection, but should any of the Atlantic Alliance have fallen so far to now have to bend over fully to pick up the reins dropped from the horse?

Hungary, Italy, Poland, Turkey have each gone at least partially — two especially — back toward family control or, alternatively, ownership of states by nobility, i.e., either way, the feudal mode in political absolutism.

Who’s next?

Putin is in control.

Posted to YouTube by France 24, April 13, 2021.

How tense the atmosphere? How dark the clouds? How near the enemy?

Putin is in control.

However far Russia dares to go with its annexation of Ukraine — and its thieving from Ukrainian business and industry and all else Ukrainian and good — Ukraine will have to stand up and go further, and God help NATO embrace and defend Ukraine.

Ukraine: is Putin in control?


Related Online

Applebaum, Anne. “Putinism: The Ideology.” (PDF). LSE Ideas, Strategic Update 13.2, London School of Economics, February 2013.

Haltiwanger, John. “Biden issues warning to Putin, proposes summit as Russian troops amass along the Ukrainian border.” Business Insider, April 13, 2021.

O’Toole, Brian, Daniel Fried. “What if Russia invades Ukraine (again)? Consider these options for sanctions escalation.” New Atlanticist, April 13, 2021.


UNIAN. “Russia’s new offensive may spill into World War 3 — Ukraine’s chief settlement negotiator. April 13, 2021:

“I heard Zelensky’s words as he said that Ukraine is ready to repel aggression. The fact is that he didn’t just say it’s ready today, it’s been ready for seven years already. It’s only that it’s a different level of readiness, because itโ€™s hard to say when Russia might put their aggressive rhetoric to life,” Kravchuk told Current Time, a Russian language project created by RFE/RL with the participation of VOA.

He noted that Russia’s top leadership are directly threatening Ukraine and its sovereignty, including warning of “collapse of the state.”


Wikipedia. “Dark triad”.

Wikipedia. “Locus of control”.

Wikiepedia. “Malignant narcissism”.

–33–

FTAC: South Africa: Look Twice Before Leaping on the White Right Bandwagon

17 Monday Dec 2018

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, Africa, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, South Africa

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Historic Reversion, modern democracy, Moscow, New Feudalism, New Nationalism, New Nobility, Putin, Ramaphosa, South Africa, Sovereignty and Domain, White Right

There is also a democracy that needs to update in relation to national sovereignty from earlier and apartheid days.

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2018/08/27/unfiltered-south-african-president-ramaphosa-on-land-reform-parliament-on-the-same-earlier-this-year/

Although citing political motivations serve White Right claims, black raiders may as well be brigands for all anyone really cares. That police and other SA domestic defense services are inadequate may be true. The frontier qualities have not receded from the land space nor the need with it for fierce independence to be there.

Would South Africa become another Zimbabwe (God bless the farms of New Zealand and reference When A Crocodile Eats the Sun for that story)? That threat has been used as a bludgeon to stoke white fear, but the ousting of Jacob Zuma this past year may address that question, and the leader of accomplished businessman Cyril Ramaphosa should quell capitalist doubt.

President Putin appears to want a feudal world of absolute power repleted with racial and other forms of segregation. I urge taking a second look at South Africa’s working democracy and Cyril Ramaphosa’s concerns for the further development of a modern democratic African state.



Moscow’s Contribution to World Horror Distilled: Anti-Semitism and Socialist and Nationalist Totalitarianism

31 Wednesday Oct 2018

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

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

anti-Semitism, feudal political absolutism, medieval vs modern, medieval worldview, Moscow, nationalism, Putin, Russia, socialism, totalitarianism

Regarding resurgent nationalism and authoritarian populism in EU / NATO: https://conflict-backchannels.com/2017/03/11/reflexive-control-process-allahu-akbar-terrorism-new-nationalism-neo-feudalism/

Moscow has long had hold of two immensely manipulative levers in its often malign and narcissistic vying for the control of political circumstance and their image as perceived: anti-Semitism most of all: Okhrana | Protocols –> Germany via White Russian fleeing the Bolsheviks, especially contributing to the Holocaust: Max Erwin Von Scheubner-Richter. The other lever: socialist | nationalist totalitarianism. Revival of the Russian Orthodox Church as a sop for Russian disgruntlement, and, of course, revival of the military as a power need little explication. The effect intended, imho: weaken democracy in EU / NATO and revive what Russia has known best: a paternal and authoritarian feudalism that is itself also absolute in power.

Some politicians may not be aware or self-aware in relation to their admiration for feudal political absolutism, As much has been my interpretation of the portion of western politics that I’ve been able to follow.


–33–

Re. Syrian SAM Shoot-Down of Russian Surveillance Aircraft

18 Tuesday Sep 2018

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Israel, Middle East, Political Psychology, Russia, Syria

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

east-west conflict, IDF, Israel, Latakia, op-ed, Phantoms of the Soviet, Putin, Russian surveillance aircraft, shootdown, Syria

Moscow (CNN)Syria inadvertently shot down a Russian military plane after an Israeli attack on Syrian positions, killing 15 people on board, Moscow said.
The Russian military said Tuesday that the Russian maritime patrol aircraft was shot down by Syrian regime anti-aircraft artillery amid the Israeli attack on Monday, state news agency RIA-Novosti reported.

Moscow blamed Israel for putting its aircraft in the line of fire, Russian state news agency RIA-Novosti reported.

Starr, Barbara, Ryan Browne and Nathan Hodge. “Syria accidentally shot down a Russian military plane.” CNN Politics, September 18, 2018.


While it’s good that the IDF took out advanced weapons manufacturing facilities focused on producing missiles intended to challenge Israel’s existence (from the CNN report: “from which systems to manufacture accurate and lethal weapons were about to be transferred on behalf of Iran to Hezbollah in Lebanon”), the attack will bring into focus the greater east-west conflict and run-up, perhaps, to greater direct engagement between Russian and Israeli (western-backed) forces.

Here’s the verbatim from earlier comment the editor made on Facebook:


Clearly, “Assad v The Terrorists” has half destroyed Syria (in the years since 2011 — give him a few more years in power, and the state will be gone altogether) but in a surreal fashion clings to the hope of destroying Israel and the Jews. The IDF’s target(s) appears to have been advanced weapons manufacturing facilities from which the output would have been used to challenge Israel.

Medieval Russia has been trying to recover its imperial and imperious attitude in its middle east presence. It may be suggested — at least I will do it — that it may have been shielding the Syrian manufacturing site with the presence of its surveillance aircraft. If true — and we may never know — that would account for Israel short notification to Russian military.

In the larger window: Washington has closed the PLO office serving as a proto-embassay and expelled its representative, a move congruent with the expulsion of Russian spies in the past couple of years. Before that closure, there has been of course the advancing of the U.S. Embassy into Jerusalem, another step forward toward forcing a conclusion to the middle east conflict.

This latest attack may represent further progress against what I have been calling the “phantoms of the Soviet”, i.e.,the continuation of older KGB-managed arrangements in the middle east.


What’s happening between Moscow and Washington and Damascus and Jerusalem is always war, as such may be in the nature of the political lives of nations, but this morning BackChannels feels it is seeing an amplification of conditions.ย  CNN last week reported a build-up in the presence of Russian warships off the Syrian coast (September 13, 2018).ย  About two months ago, the west appears to haveย  evacuated Syrian civilians and White Helmet volunteers into Jordan fromย  Assad’s theater.ย  Clearly, the west has been with the Syrian people — and Syrian Sunni Arabs — against the ravaging sadism of the Assad regime and its chief enablers in Moscow and Tehran.

This morning, one of BackChannels contacts said in a brief audio exchange, “The Syrian people are closer to the west anyway.ย  They would rather have Israel prevail in Syria rather than Assad and Iran.”


BackChannels doubts that Vladimir Putin, whose forces have bombed so many Syrian hospitals and abetted so much horror, pain, and sorrow visited on the children of Syria — adults and children — that the west would have him were he to somehow pivot westward.ย  Again, he has engaged in or produced active — blood soaking — conflicts in Syria and Crimea and appears to be surrounded in the chaos and horror he himself may have wanted as the “Phantom of the Soviet”.


Also from the awesome conversation:

The timing of this news is propitious, for today marks the evening start of Yom Kippur. The Jewish high holy days remain ever the target dates for anti-Semitic aggressors, essentially pulling the IDF and their support out of the synagogues and away from family on the most cherished and respected of religious observances.


Update – September 18, 2018

MOSCOW โ€” Russian President Vladimir Putin confirmed Tuesday that Israel did not shoot down a Russian military reconnaissance plane with 15 people on board, saying the downing of the plane by Syrian air defenses was a โ€œchain of tragic accidental circumstances.โ€

Agencies and TOI Staff. “Putin says Israel did not shoot down Russian plane, calls it a tragic accident.” The Times of Israel, September 18, 2018.

Related comment from The Still Awesome Conversation:

Putin knows that to hold Russia’s place and avoid further ruin, he has to make Russia THE responsible actor in a different kind of competition with the west. In the TI piece, he may have signaled a small shift toward the west. No one knows, but now he has as much as said that he’s not going to act — at least not rashly — for Assad and Khamenei. He’s not going to play Erdogan demanding an apology from Israel for the Mavi Marmara incident — and, in retrospect, what a hideous thing that apology was!


Update, September 23, 2018

AP. “Russian Blames Israel for Downing of Plane by Syrian Forces.” VOA, September 23, 2018.

But Konashenkov on Sunday accused Israel of using the hotline to mislead Russia about its plans. He said the Russians were unable to get the Il-20 to a safe place because an Israeli duty officer had misled them, telling them of an Israeli operation in northern Syria while the jets were actually in Latakia, in the country’s west.

Konashenkov said an Israeli fighter jet flying over Syria’s Mediterranean coast shortly before the downing deliberately used the Russian plane as a shield, reflecting “either lack of professionalism or criminal negligence.”

Russia Blames Israel for Downing of Plane by Syrian forces https://t.co/YZxAjUKciX pic.twitter.com/mx1LibZ7YB

— The Voice of America (@VOANews) September 23, 2018


–33–

FTAC: Putin, Terrorism, Autocracy, and the New Nationalism

14 Wednesday Feb 2018

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Europe, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Hungary, Middle East, Political Psychology, Political Spychology, Politics, Russia, Turkey, United States of America

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

authoritarianism, autocracy, autocrats, creation of political chaos, dictatorship, Erdogan, i24, malignant narcissism, New Nationalism, Orban, political narcissism, Putin, Reflexive Control, Ryan Mauro, terrorism, Trump

When Russian jets first overflew Turkish airspace in 2015, Erdogan stood fast in his refusal of apology.

https://www.cnn.com/2015/11/26/middleeast/syria-turkey-russia-warplane-shot-down/index.html

Six months later, he did what Netanyahu had done in relation to the Mavi Marmara: he apologized.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/27/kremlin-says-erdogan-apologises-russian-jet-turkish

Setting aside the Israeli story a moment, points of leverage may have involved the “Turkish Stream” energy project, a piece of “realpolitik”, and an appeal to the narcissistic concept of cultural leadership and state in which the “Great Leader” is the embodiment of the living state concept _and entitled_ to aggrandizement and glory without limit (or, clinically, “unlimited narcissistic supply). Putin’s vision appears to me to be that of the medieval world sustained with raw power put in place of democracy.

The look of the mode — big palaces, nepotism on a royal scale, confusion in relation to the boundaries of person and state (and the state’s treasury) — marks the medieval mind and related revanche.

Men like Putin, Assad, Khamenei, Erdogan, Orban may consider true popular democratic government as impeding their own authority, sovereignty, and will. While the term “autocrat” sounds quite bureaucratic, similar concepts — caliph, emperor, king, sultan — fit these guys.

Because we know of the “Moscow Apartment Bombings” and that Russia has been arming the Taliban in Afghanistan — and there’s more back there with Zawahiri and others — it may not be too far fetched to suggest that Moscow has manipulated terrorism to induce in struck targets a predictable patriotic new nationalism and that “the terrorists” — ISIS or PKK — now provide a platform for conflict, all against all, and without end. Where Putin has held sway, he has turned back history’s clock.

Our President Trump has had no issues bearing and wearing the mantle of authority, but it would be facile to say he hasn’t had some issues with the “Estates” of a matured democracy. ย In that regard, he may fit the world to which Putin has wished to return the world.


Inspiration for the above note:

–33–

FTAC: A Thought on Powerful Global Elite and America’s Own Holy War in Defense of Democracy

14 Tuesday Nov 2017

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

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

authoritarianism, defense of democracy, political absolutism, Putin

Our (American / EU / NATO) failure to so far address Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, Russo-Iranian support for tyranny in Syria and war by proxy in Yemen, and our manner of perhaps chiding China (and trying to talk down North Korea off its military nuclear-development platform) may signal both result and cause for ceding the fullness of an authentic (!) democracy to the capricious will of politically absolute (authoritarian / dictating) elite and joining that at the expense of democratic constituencies.

Theresa May isn’t having it with Russia, but have a look again at what Tayyip Recip Erdogan has done to “NATO” member Turkey and at how Viktor Orban in Hungary has attached himself and family to state patronage.

Who else?

The American Jihad — why not appropriate the term and really confuse some issues? — may be to struggle against the extremist politics that divide us and to struggle against the “absolutism” or fascism and chimera of “national socialism” that may be in the process of being forced upon all of us.


I’m not sure the note was even relevant to the prompt, for the words came to mind after watching this June 2017 BBC documentary focused on Vladimir Putin with side trips into his relationship with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump:

As the Phantoms of the Soviet loom over America’s international affairs, two other BackChannels posts may be worth a look as regards reminding ourselves just how audacious totalitarian manipulation can be:

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/12/09/syria-assad-isil-background/

BackChannels believes that Moscow / Moscow-Tehran account in large measure for the contemporary experience of Islamic Terrorism and continues to promote the idea that Syria’s tyrant Bashar al-Assad incubated ISIS to deal himself the tool of a most useful enemy. ย Ifย you have a device that can prick or sting the body politic of a target state, then that same tool may become a part of bending your enemy’s political and security cultures to your own authoritarian will:

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2017/03/11/reflexive-control-process-allahu-akbar-terrorism-new-nationalism-neo-feudalism/

Check the references.

Check the fit with other high-integrity and decidedly UnFake News.

–33–

 

 

FTAC: Kurds, Trump, Democracy

10 Saturday Jun 2017

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

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

21st Century Feudalism, 21st Century Neo-Feudalism, Kurdish Autonomy, Kurdish Liberation, Kurdish State, Kurdish struggle, Kurdistan, Putin, Trump

The gang was indulging in Trump bashing and only loosely discussing the surfacing of the “Kurdish Question” — should Kurdistan become a state representing the autonomous self-determination of 35 million souls now subjugated in suzerainty across five states: Armenia, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey?


Not to poop on the party, but you know that’s what I’m going to do. ๐Ÿ˜ฆ

Prepare.

๐Ÿ™‚

On the surface and pro-Kurdistan:

–The Kurds have been producing a rapidly developing and modernizing society;

–The Kurds appear inherently communal and tolerant in their views of themselves and others;

–Of course, the Kurdish Peshmerga and separate men’s and women’s defense units form the advanced line against ISIS in Iraq and Syria;

–For a glimpse of Utopian values in place, it would be hard to beat the experience of Rojava (enjoy the look-up).

On the surface and negative:

–Since we’re all just one big family, what’s your may be theirs, at least in the minds of remote brigands;

–The suzerainties (Armenia, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey) support about 35 million people governed by many chiefs. Having been defeated by the arms of militarized states, they’re seeking a sub-state state of confederation, which may work for peace and prosperity but remain far from the American and other western experiences;

–Finally, the push-back against stronger states involved a guerrilla movement / terrorist organization aligned with the Soviet Union (1978) known as the PKK, and although the organization has been displaced by updated banners, it may be that the same personalities continue the good fight for autonomy and statehood. (Look-up Kyle Orton’s piece in The New York Times).

I explore a little bit at a time from the desktop; try to get in some background reading; and certainly try to “meet” (virtually) personalities much closer to the politics at hand.

The United States has betrayed the Kurdish desire for independence numerous times; however, noting that, the Kurdish leadership has also leaned back toward Moscow — effectively a dictatorship today — in its development politics, rather like India and Pakistan in earlier days playing east against west and back and forth, the ambivalence of the west would seem understandable.

http://www.nrttv.com/EN/birura-details.aspx?Jimare=6333 – “A Russian Revolution: Can the Rosneft Deal Reverse Kurdistan’s Fortunes?” by Megan Connelli.ย 

Between the Feudal and Modern Worlds

I’ve gotten the impression that the Kurds in earlier days had used the mountains as their defensive barrier against the barbarism of others, but the greater world and changes in the technology of martial force have put them in the position of leveraging decent ideals and values, would that they would keep to them.

Those who patiently make their way through my words (more than once) know that I regard Putin’s Russia as representing feudal absolute power bent on compromising the economies, ideals, and values of the EU and NATO states, and toward that end, Russia has gotten its way with Erdogan in Turkey, a NATO signatory but no longer NATO in at least official spirit. Putin’s preference in leadership has involved other autocrats, and not so much for exacting cooperation, which he gets, but most for reinstalling the feudal and medieval worldviews in the modern democracies.

Now: tell me how Putin has done so far and where Donald J. Trump fits in that scheme.

That, I believe, is what the fussing is all about in Washington.

Do Americans want a real democracy and greater cohesion around it or rather another of the world’s sham democracies masking elite governance and kleptocracy (that’s how things usually work out with autocrats)?


You decide.

–33–

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Epigram

Hillel the Elder

"That which is distasteful to thee do not do to another. That is the whole of Torah. The rest is commentary. Now go and study."

"If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am not for others, what am I? If not now, when?"

"Whosoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world. And whosoever that saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world."

Oriana Fallaci
"Whether it comes from a despotic sovereign or an elected president, from a murderous general or a beloved leader, I see power as an inhuman and hateful phenomenon...I have always looked on disobedience toward the oppressive as the only way to use the miracle of having been born."

Talmud 7:16 as Quoted by Rishon Rishon in 2004
Qohelet Raba, 7:16

ืื›ื–ืจื™ ืกื•ืฃ ืฉื ืขืฉื” ืื›ื–ืจื™ ื‘ืžืงื•ื ืจื—ืžืŸ

Kol mi shena`asa rahaman bimqom akhzari Sof shena`asa akhzari bimqom rahaman

All who are made to be compassionate in the place of the cruel In the end are made to be cruel in the place of the compassionate.

More colloquially translated: "Those who are kind to the cruel, in the end will be cruel to the kind."

Online Source: http://www.rishon-rishon.com/archives/044412.php

Abraham Isaac Kook

"The purely righteous do not complain about evil, rather they add justice.They do not complain about heresy, rather they add faith.They do not complain about ignorance, rather they add wisdom." From the pages of Arpilei Tohar.

Heinrich Heine
"Where books are burned, in the end people will be burned." -- From Almansor: A Tragedy (1823).

Simon Wiesenthal
Remark Made in the Ballroom of the Imperial Hotel, Vienna, Austria on the occasion of His 90th Birthday: "The Nazis are no more, but we are still here, singing and dancing."

Maimonides
"Truth does not become more true if the whole world were to accept it; nor does it become less true if the whole world were to reject it."

"The risk of a wrong decision is preferable to the terror of indecision."

Douglas Adams
"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?" Epigram appearing in the dedication of Richard Dawkins' The GOD Delusion.

Thucydides
"The Nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools."

Milan Kundera
"The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting."

Malala Yousafzai
โ€œThe terrorists thought that they would change our aims and stop our ambitions but nothing changed in my life except this: weakness, fear and hopelessness died. Strength, power and courage was born.โ€

Tanit Nima Tinat
"Who could die of love?"

What I Have Said About the Jews

My people, not that I speak for them, I nonetheless describe as a "global ethnic commune with its heart in Jerusalem and soul in the Land of Israel."

We have never given up on God, nor have we ever given up on one another.

Many things we have given up, but no one misses, say, animal sacrifice, and as many things we have kept, so we have still to welcome our Sabbath on Friday at sunset and to rest all of Saturday until three stars appear in the sky.

Most of all, through 5,773 years, wherever life has taken us, through the greatest triumphs and the most awful tragedies, we have preserved our tribal identity and soul, and so shall we continue eternally.

Anti-Semitism / Anti-Zionism = Signal of Fascism

I may suggest that anti-Zionism / anti-Semitism are signal (a little bit) of fascist urges, and the Left -- I'm an old liberal: I know my heart -- has been vulnerable to manipulation by what appears to me as a "Red Brown Green Alliance" driven by a handful of powerful autocrats intent on sustaining a medieval worldview in service to their own glorification. (And there I will stop).
One hopes for knowledge to allay fear; one hopes for love to overmatch hate.

Too often, the security found in the parroting of a loyal lie outweighs the integrity to be earned in confronting and voicing an uncomfortable truth.

Those who make their followers believe absurdities may also make them commit atrocities.

Positively Orwellian: Comment Responding to Claim that the Arab Assault on Israel in 1948 Had Not Intended Annihilation

“Revisionism” is the most contemptible path that power takes to abet theft and hide shame by attempting to alter public perception of past events.

On Press Freedom, Commentary, and Journalism

In the free world, talent -- editors, graphic artists, researchers, writers -- gravitate toward the organizations that suit their interests and values. The result: high integrity and highly reliable reportage and both responsible and thoughtful reasoning.

This is not to suggest that partisan presses don't exist or that propaganda doesn't exist in the west, but any reader possessed of critical thinking ability and genuine independence -- not bought, not programmed -- is certainly free to evaluate the works of earnest reporters and scholars.

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