15 Friday Jun 2018
Tags
21st Century Neo-Feudalism, Donald J. Trump, Kim Jong Un, medieval v modern, North Korea, political screenshot, Russia, United States
Is perception reality?
Should The People leave Big Business to Big Daddies?
Should we all just adore our Great Leaders?
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09 Friday Jun 2017
Are all conversations between American presidents and government employees classified?
It appears that the President attempted to leverage Comey’s personal loyalty to take care of an uncomfortable “matter” being investigated by the FBI. Comey then shared the experience with a friend who forwarded the same to the press, and so Comey lost the executive’s confidence. Where was the classification for the memos; where is the nondisclosure covering the conversation?
As AG Loretta Lynch has been relieved of her position, her blocking actions regarding Clinton will probably be ignored, imho. The elections over; she’s over: attention has shifted to where public attention is most needed: America’s political character, Russia’s political character, and the relationship between the two at the highest levels of governance.
The note on Comey’s so-called “leak” may reflect the fact that classification and discretion were within Comey’s authority to call, and given the President’s behavior and the FBI’s mission to defend the Constitution, the antagonism developed between the two would seem to have developed naturally in the defense of the democracy.
Lynch: old news.
Related on BackChannels for any newly arriving from Mars: Moscow’s Rules.
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08 Saturday Apr 2017
Tags
dictatorship, feudal political absolutism, modern humanist values, Syria, Syrian air strike, United States
Posted to YouTube by The New York Times, April 7, 2017.
Comment:
The public presentation of conflict may attempt to keep separate Syria, Ukraine, Russia, and Iran, but I don’t think the Kremlin (this is a good comment for Kremlin Watch) has an “Off” button in association with the defense of the autocratic feudal past that each dictatorship represents. Expect “mission creep”.
The inflammatory header now running in the UK’s The Sun: “‘ONE STEP FROM WAR’ Furious Russia warns Trump he has ‘completely ruined’ relations with Moscow after Syria gas attack revenge bombing – as Putin sends warship to the Med” – https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/3275613/donald-trump-us-attacks-syria-chemical-attack-sarin-latest-news/
And at this time in the more moderate European News:
http://www.euronews.com/2017/04/08/un-urges-restraint-as-washington-and-moscow-clash-over-syria
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20 Monday Mar 2017
Posted by President Trump Live Speech and Press Conference
Related:
Rep. Schiff spoke both points in session.
Also regarding President Trump’s assertion of Obama Administration wiretapping, FBI Director Comey reports, “The Department has no information that supports those tweets.”
Related: http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/20/politics/comey-hearing-russia-wiretapping/index.html – “Comey confirms FBI investigating Russia, Trump ties” (Stephen Collinson).
Related on BackChannels to “east-west-” Russo-American political relations: https://conflict-backchannels.com/2017/03/11/reflexive-control-process-allahu-akbar-terrorism-new-nationalism-neo-feudalism/
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Re. Roger Stone, Paul Manfort: https://www.rawstory.com/2017/03/former-top-trump-aides-roger-stone-and-paul-manafort-both-wanted-for-questioning-in-russia-investigations/ 3/19/2017
“FISA 702”. U. S. House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
v
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06 Monday Mar 2017
Tags
21st Century Neo-Feudalism, Brown vs Red-Green, Charles Murray, fascism on the left, Middlebury, polarized politics, political extremism, United States
Four days ago, conservative libertarian Charles Murray stood on a stage at Vermont’s Middlebury College to talk about his latest book, Coming Apart: The State of White America, with political science students. Instead of being heard out, this in Murray’s own words is what happened before a packed house:
Then I went onstage, got halfway through my first sentence, and the uproar began.
First came a shouted recitation in unison of what I am told is a piece by James Baldwin. I couldn’t follow the words. That took a few minutes. Then came the chanting. The protesters had prepared several couplets that they chanted in rotations—“hey, hey, ho, ho, white supremacy has to go,” and the like. It was very loud, and stayed loud. It’s hard for me estimate, but perhaps half the audience were protesters and half had come to hear the lecture.
BackChannels readers are by now familiar with terms like “Active Measures” and “Reflexive Control”(URL –> PDF) that connect the amplifying of America’s political polarization with Moscow and its efforts to destabilize the European Union and NATO to better establish the feudal worldview on which depends the greater promotion and sustaining of dictatorship in the world.
This blog’s readers know also the chains: Putin-Assad-Khamenei (or “Assad the Tyrant as flanked by Putin and Khamenei”); Putin-Orban; Putin-Erdogan; Putin-Le Pen. Such relationships need not be too friendly, only merely authoritarian and encouraging of conditions favorable to a shared “malignant narcissism“.
The below referenced tweet packages reflexive control, Moscow’s continued dabbling with terrorism (for more of how that works, see BackChannel’s post on ISIS as Moscow’s tool — follow up by looking up “Zawahiri, Russia”), and the induction of a disturbing new American politics: Republican Party associated “Brown” New Nationalism v Democratic Party associated “Red-Green” Resurgent Socialism.
Some of us Conservative or Liberal but definitely, perhaps becoming stridently so, more Middle have not been pleased by the eruption of Fascism on the Left and the appearance of a hardening contempt for the public (and media) on the Far Right, the latter falling just a little all white, all male, and all superior short of the ranks of the white supremacists.
There’s the possibility that any effort to bring people together may begin by seeing them apart, Farthest Left to Farthest Right, and, later, in Keith Ellison fashion, curbing the indignant toward accommodation. However, be that possibility as it may, Americans have most certainly experienced the development of a uniquely cant-ridden, contentious, uncivil, and unreasoning national politics.
As happens always in general combat, it’s those caught in the crossfire or whose turf — region, city, community, home — has been overrun that suffer most of all, and that whether in Syria (generated: 4.8 million refugees), Ukraine (generated: 1.7+ million Internally Displaced Persons), or the United States (okay, we’re a little uncomfortable here in the middle): for anyone else still hanging around the middle of the political aisle, this may be a good time to pull the wayward of the Parties back to reason — and then have a good push of the irredeemably immoderate back toward the margins where they have always been and, God willing, will return to grumbling.
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23 Thursday Feb 2017
Posted in 21st Century Feudal, Also in Media
Tags
east-west relations, nonproliferation, nuclear agreements, nuclear diplomacy, nuclear weapons, Russia, Ukraine, United States
In 1994, Ukraine joined the NPT as a non-nuclear weapons state, a decision that entailed relinquishing world’s third largest nuclear arsenal. This constructive move came at a price: the United States, Russia, and the United Kingdom pledged to Ukraine security assurances in a Memorandum on Security Assurances, signed in Budapest on December 5, 1994. The Budapest Memorandum, as the document became known, aimed at addressing precisely what happened in Crimea in 2014. The breach of the Memorandum by one of its signatories has been damaging enough. The removal of the sanctions for this breach by other signatories would render it utterly worthless and deal a devastating blow to the international nonproliferation regime, of which the Memorandum has become a constitutive part.
Source: The Nuclear Fallout of Trump’s Possible Détente with PutinHarvard International Review
29 Sunday Jan 2017
Posted in Also in Media
Tags
Cold War, defense of democracy, Donald Trump, political cohesion, political history, Ted Kennedy, United States, Vladimir Putin
Today, tweets from the President of the United States Donald J. Trump seem to suggest both trust of and a growing friendship for today’s Russian leader Vladimir Putin. Of course, Putin was himself a former KGB agent, who obviously learned well the methods of disinformation and propaganda taught him in KGB school decades ago. Now he used these techniques to, as the CIA report put it, to order “an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency.”
Source: When The Left Longed For Russian Political Interference – The Daily Beast
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29 Thursday Dec 2016
Tags
diplomatic harassment, expulsion of diplomats, Moscow, political spychology, Russia, United States, Washington
Start with the rules.
The Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961 is an international treaty that defines a framework for diplomatic relations between independent countries. It specifies the privileges of a diplomatic mission that enable diplomats to perform their function without fear of coercion or harassment by the host country. This forms the legal basis for diplomatic immunity. Its articles are considered a cornerstone of modern international relations. As of April 2014, it has been ratified by 190 states.[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_Convention_on_Diplomatic_Relations
Then proceed (bolds, colors, and italics added):
STATEMENT BY MARK TONER, DEPUTY SPOKESPERSON
December 29, 2016
Department of State Actions in Response to Russian Harassment
The State Department today declared persona non grata 35 Russian officials operating in the United States who were acting in a manner inconsistent with their diplomatic or consular status. The Department also informed the Russian Government that it would deny Russian personnel access to two recreational compounds in the United States owned by the Russian Government.
The Department took these actions as part of a comprehensive response to Russia’s interference in the U.S. election and to a pattern of harassment of our diplomats overseas that has increased over the last four years, including a significant increase in the last 12 months. This harassment has involved arbitrary police stops, physical assault, and the broadcast on State TV of personal details about our personnel that put them at risk. In addition, the Russian Government has impeded our diplomatic operations by, among other actions: forcing the closure of 28 American corners which hosted cultural programs and English-language teaching; blocking our efforts to begin the construction of a new, safer facility for our Consulate General in St. Petersburg; and rejecting requests to improve perimeter security at the current, outdated facility in St. Petersburg.
Today’s actions send a clear message that such behavior is unacceptable and will have consequences.
“Family members have been the victims of psychologically terrifying assertions that their USG (U.S. government) employee spouses had met accidental deaths,” the embassy reported. “Home intrusions have become far more commonplace and bold, and activity against our locally engaged Russian staff continues at a record pace.
“We have no doubt that this activity originates in the FSB. Counterintelligence challenges remain a hallmark of service at Embassy Moscow.”
http://www.jpost.com/International/The-curious-case-of-a-diplomat-Wikileaks-reveals-all – 12/8/2010.
The British and American governments are acutely aware of the FSB’s campaign of intimidation. But neither has publicly complained about these demonstrative “counter-intelligence” measures, for fear of further straining already difficult relations with Vladmir Putin’s resurgent regime. Putin, a former KGB lieutenant colonel, was head of the FSB.
British sources admit they have files “five or six inches thick” detailing FSB break-ins and other incidents of harassment against Moscow embassy staff. “Generally we don’t make a fuss about it,” one said. So pervasive is the FSB’s campaign that the British government is unable to staff fully its Moscow embassy. The intrusions are designed to “short-tour” diplomats so they leave their posts early, the source said.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/sep/23/russia-targeting-western-diplomats – 9/23/2011.
But many of the recent acts of intimidation by Russian security services have crossed the line into apparent criminality. In a series of secret memos sent back to Washington, described to me by several current and former U.S. officials who have written or read them, diplomats reported that Russian intruders had broken into their homes late at night, only to rearrange the furniture or turn on all the lights and televisions, and then leave. One diplomat reported that an intruder had defecated on his living room carpet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_manipulation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_Convention_on_Diplomatic_Relations
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zersetzung (East German Psy-Ops)
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