From Moscow to Tel Aviv, the triumph of the absurd

 

From Moscow to Tel Aviv, the triumph of the absurd

Orient Le Jour / By Slavoj ŽIŽEK , September 9, 2023

 
https://www.lorientlejour.com/article/1348838/de-moscou-a-tel-aviv-le-triomphe-de-labsurde.html

When a country's social contract unravels, conditions are ripe for the circulation of rumors and nonsense. Even when they are outrageous and blatantly delusional, they can express a people's deepest fears and prejudices.

This is the case today in Russia, where Sergei Markov, former advisor to President Vladimir Putin, warned that Ukraine was creating “homosexual supersoldiers” to wage war against his country: “Military theorists and historians know which army was the strongest in Greece, remember? The Spartans. They were united by a homosexual brotherhood. They were all gay. This was the policy of their leaders. I think they plan the same thing for the Ukrainian armed forces. »

Of course, this mixture of homophobia, falsified history, and the idea of ​​supersoldiers inspired by Marvel comics indicates that Markov does not wish to encourage critical thinking and reasoned analysis. No matter: such idiotic statements apparently resonate with at least some important segments of Russian society.

Disturbances
The same disruption increasingly applies to Russian historical memories of major national traumas and crimes. At a recent ceremony in Velikiye Luki, in Russia's Pskov region, a priest known as "Father Anthony" sprinkled holy water on a 26-foot statue of Stalin. Although "the Church suffered" during Stalin's long reign of terror, he noted, Russians today should be grateful to have so many "new Russian martyrs and confessors to whom we pray today and who help us to revive our motherland.

Such perverse reasoning comes close to evoking the kind of argument that Jews should be grateful to Hitler for paving the way for the State of Israel. In fact, this is precisely what has already happened. According to a 2019 investigation by Channel 13 newsIn Israel, rabbis teach future Israeli army officers at the state-funded Bnei David Military Preparatory School that “the Holocaust was not about killing Jews. This is nonsense. And the fact that it was systematic and ideological makes it more moral than a random murder. Humanism, secular culture, this is the Holocaust. The real Holocaust is pluralism. Nazi logic was internally consistent. Hitler said that a certain group of society was the cause of all the evils in the world and that it must therefore be exterminated (...) For years, God has been shouting that the diaspora is over, but the Jews do not obey not. It is their illness that the Holocaust must cure (...) Hitler was the most just. Of course, he was right in every word he said. His ideology was correct ".

And the lesson doesn't stop there. Students also learn that , “with God’s help, slavery will return.” The non-Jews will want to be our slaves. The people around us have genetic problems. Ask an average Arab what he wants to be. He wants to be under occupation (...) They don't know how to run a country or anything else (...) Yes, we are racist. We believe in racism. Breeds have genetic characteristics. So we need to think about how to help them.”

Tendentious self-justification
Certainly, this extreme rhetoric is only openly endorsed by a tiny, fanatical religious minority. And yet it hints at the principle underlying the policies of the current far-right government in the West Bank. Comparing the situation in Israel and the occupied territories to Nazi Germany may seem like a ridiculous exaggeration, and if a non-Jew makes this comparison, he is immediately accused of anti-Semitism; but if prominent Jewish figures do it, we must listen to them. When a society has enveloped itself in layers of tendentious self-justification, it takes insiders to remove the shroud.

Consider the case of Amiram Levin, the former head of the Israeli Defense Forces' Northern Command. Having recently spoken on the situation in the West Bank on Israeli public radio and television , he affirmed that "there has been no democracy for 57 years, it is total apartheid (...) The Israeli army, which is obliged to exercise its sovereignty in this region, is rotting from the inside. They stand idly by, watches the rioters and begins to be complicit in war crimes.”

And when asked to clarify his thoughts, Mr. Levin went so far as to invoke Nazi Germany: "It's difficult for us to say, but it's the truth. Walk around Hebron, look at the streets. Streets where Arabs are no longer allowed to circulate, only Jews. This is exactly what happened there, in that dark land." 
The fact that a retired Israeli army general could come to such a conclusion speaks not only to his extraordinary ethical position, but also to the seriousness of the situation in this country. But as long as there are Israelis like Levin, there will be hope, because only with the solidarity and support of people like him will Palestinians in the West Bank have a chance.

Today, in Russia as in Israel, the social pact is cracking under the weight of colonialism and fundamental disagreements over basic principles. These conditions lend themselves to increasingly absurd and extreme forms of rationalization. But just because you can find a reason to do something doesn’t mean you should do it. When societies fragment, it often takes more strength to resist the wrong reasons than to follow the right ones.

By Slavoj ŽIŽEK
Professor of Philosophy at the European Graduate School and International Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities at the University of London. Latest work: “Heaven in Disorder” (OR Books, 2021).

And to say that this article was written before the entire debacle in Palestine/Israel even started on Oct. 7th 23 and the ensuing and continuing horrible war of genocide, plus a quick look at America and many other spots of the world, the same absurdity in politics and governance is happening and taking shape systematically, with the steady rise of authoritarianism and autocracy.

  
As always my profound many thanks to all my good readers.

MY SOUL IS IN A HURRY.....

A beautiful poem by Mário de Andrade (Sao Paulo 1893 – 1945) Poet, novelist, essayist and musicologist. One of the founders of Brazilian modernism
________________________________

I counted my years and discovered that I now had less time left to live than I had lived so far.

I feel like that kid who won a bag of candy; He ate the first ones with pleasure, but when he realized that there were few left, he began to savor them deeply.

I no longer have time for endless meetings where we discuss statutes, rules, procedures and internal regulations, knowing that nothing will happen.

I no longer have time to put up with absurd people who, despite their chronological age, have not grown up.

My time is short to discuss titles. I want the essentials, my soul is in a hurry...

Without a lot of sweets in the package…

I want to live next to human, very human people. Who know how to laugh at their mistakes, who are not vain about their triumphs. People who do not consider themselves elected before their time, people who do not seek to escape their responsibilities.

 I'm looking for people who defend human dignity, people who only want to walk on the side of truth and honesty.

The main thing is what makes life worth living.

*I want to surround myself with people who know how to touch people's hearts*...
People who have learned from the hard knocks of life to grow up with gentle touches in their souls.

Yes..., I am in a hurry..., I am in a hurry to live with the intensity that only maturity can give.
I plan not to waste any of the sweets I have left...I'm sure they will be more delicious than the ones I've eaten so far.

My goal is to arrive at the end satisfied and at peace with my loved ones and with my conscience.

We have two lives and the second begins when you realize you only have one...... 

Few beautiful and very expressive words, unfortunately very factual and expressive of our times, thanks to all for your time. 

THE DIRE SITUATION IN LEBANON

 

HOUNA LOUBNAN (This is Lebanon)
(Translation)

Ortagus's Final Warning: Israel Will Act!

Tony Issa

Special April 3, 2025

The approximate and "reasonable" deadline granted by Washington to Lebanon regarding the arms issue and the formation of negotiating committees, which was set at between two and three months, has almost passed. This deadline comes under pressure from the United States to suspend the work of the monitoring committee, give Israel carte blanche in its military operations, and allow its scope to extend to Beirut.

Tony Issa wrote for “Houna Lebanon”:

Certainly, the pillars of the government are now fully aware of the seriousness of the American and Israeli demands, whether it concerns the issue of disarmament north of the Litani River or the issue of normalization. But it is unclear how these people will react to the ultimatums: will they inform Washington of their rejection, accompanied by justifications, as previous governments and administrations have done? Or will they bide their time, hoping that Hezbollah itself will give in to realism and be persuaded to lay down its arms, thus avoiding any internal confrontation?

If those in power were to consider rejecting these demands, they would certainly be making an unforeseeable mistake. The days of handling dangerous issues "the Lebanese way" are over and will never return. The ceasefire agreement, which grants privileges to the Israelis and the Americans and was signed by Hezbollah, gives them capabilities they cannot afford to relinquish.

At the same time, Aoun and Salam's gamble of waiting for the party's response is a dangerous venture. It still clings to its weapon north of the Litani River as an existential necessity. Having lost its basic organizational structure, it has become increasingly tied to Iran, and weapons have become its only remaining asset in Lebanon, on the Mediterranean coast, and on the Israeli border, following the defeat of Hamas and the fall of the Assad regime.

As a reminder, the Americans directly oversaw Aoun and Salam's rise to power and received from them clear commitments to implement the ceasefire agreement, relevant international resolutions, and the Taif Accord, all of which imply disarmament. These are commitments that also concern the Israelis. It would be dangerous for both men to avoid this, or to circumvent it with different explanations and justifications. In such cases, the fatal consequences that could negatively impact them, the "party," and the country should not be underestimated.

Lebanon will not succeed in confronting Israel, nor in preserving its borders with Syria, nor in reviving the state and its institutions, nor in emerging from the financial crisis, nor in ensuring internal stability and strengthening the army, without Washington's approval and full support. This means that Aoun and Salam, without any stubbornness and under any circumstances, cannot afford to stubbornly reject its demands, however difficult they may be, from weapons to normalization.

The Donald Trump administration is expressing its position boldly and insistently, under threat of withdrawing its hand from Lebanon. It is convinced that the government and Hezbollah have no choice but to comply. In any case, given the lack of transparency in the ceasefire negotiations and in the text of the agreement itself, the question becomes legitimate: are there unstated clauses or commitments that the Lebanese side promised the Americans, and the day of reckoning has come to fulfill them?

When a weak, bankrupt, and politically unbalanced Lebanon agrees to enter into agreements involving Israel, the greatest power in the Middle East, and sponsored by the United States, the greatest power in the world, it must conform and accept the interpretation of the powerful. This is the rule that governs relations between countries. For example, the Assad regime and Tehran implemented the Taif Agreement for a quarter of a century, arbitrarily and according to their interests. Today, the power equation is reversed. This fact must be taken into account, in particular, by Hezbollah, which made "the mistake of its life" by launching a war against Israel.

However, the approximate and "reasonable" deadline granted by Washington to Lebanon regarding the arms issue and the formation of negotiating committees, which had been set at between two and three months, is about to expire. This deadline comes under American pressure to suspend the work of the monitoring committee, to give Israel carte blanche in its military operations, and to allow its scope to extend to Beirut. It is highly likely that the rocket attacks from Lebanon towards Israel are simply Hezbollah's attempts to test Israel's response. The responses have been very harsh.

According to what is being said in Washington, the American deadline will likely expire when Morgan Ortagus decides to return to Lebanon to inform everyone what they must do decisively and without delay, or Israel will have carte blanche to resume the war where it "left off" on November 27. Ortagus has repeatedly postponed her arrival to give those involved more opportunities, convinced that they would comply because they had no other choice. "Soft" diplomacy is not as soft as it sounds. Rather, it is one element of Donald Trump's vast machine aimed at transforming the Middle East. Israel has been waiting for this opportunity for a long time.

 a very serious, urgent and dangerous circumstance that causes great fear or worry, implying a need for immediate action or intervention. And now, the US envoy Morgan Ortagus is in Beirut, and it seems is doing and saying exactly what this report says, the Lebanese officialdom is still stalling and dragging, with it Hizbolla and all political parties, Lebanon has no valid outside help, not failing  Iran nor Saudi Arabia or Russia and surely not Syria or Iraq. Meanwhile Netanyahu is in Washington discussing and promoting his many issues with President Trump, surely the war in Lebanon and the total supremacy and aggrandizement of Israel and the total destruction of Lebanon and the M-E are on the menu. A dire situation indeed. 

As always, my many thanks to all my good readers and friends. 

   

A HARSH REALITY......

 

When some people hear the words “tax policy,” their minds immediately jump to percentages, dollar amounts, and spreadsheets.
But fundamentally, tax policy is about something broader.
It’s about who our government works for.
Does our government only work for billionaires and billionaire corporations, or does it work for everybody?
Does our tax system reward the rich, or does it look out for someone who’s putting together two or three jobs just to keep their family above water?
I’m bringing this up right now because Washington has major decisions to make about tax laws.
Donald Trump’s tax breaks for the rich that he passed in 2017 — mostly sucked up by millionaires, billionaires, and giant corporations — are set to expire. And Congressional Republicans are working to extend them, following Trump’s lead, who promised to cut taxes for his “rich as hell” donors.
In the U.S. Senate, I’ll keep calling out GOP plans to slash taxes for the rich. I’ll keep putting forward plans to protect working families from devastating cuts. And I’ll keep fighting to make our government work not just for the wealthy and well-connected but everybody.
And I won’t be alone.
People like you are raising your voices around the country — at town halls, on the phone lines, at local organizing events, at protests — and exposing the Republican agenda. If we can grow and sustain our momentum, we can create enough pressure in Congress and from the public to stop the GOP from handing billions more dollars to billionaires.
While the GOP gets ready to give handouts to the wealthy, Elon Musk works from the inside to free up room in the budget with his illegal funding cuts — because tax breaks aren’t free, no matter how hard Republicans try to fudge the numbers.
Musk is targeting everyone from the public servants who make sure your dad gets his Social Security check on time to the scientists who could come up with the next big lifesaving breakthrough.
And Congressional Republicans are charging forward with proposed budget cuts that would hurt every community in America.
Take Medicaid, which would be gutted under the Republicans’ plans. It covers more than 79 million people. About half of all births are covered by Medicaid. Over a third of all children have health care thanks to Medicaid. More than half of all nursing home residents are covered by Medicaid. Many people are counting on Medicaid to pay for medicine that treats their cancer, the hip replacement they need to walk, the prescription for their child’s inhaler, or the nursing home that takes care of their uncle with dementia.
If the program is cut, the harm will echo through nearly every home in America.
But Congressional Republicans seem to think that’s a-okay if it means a billionaire can get a tax break.
Billionaires win. Families lose.
That’s their plan. You can fit it on a bumper sticker.
Help seeing a doctor, help covering grocery bills, help getting an education if you come from a family that can’t write a big tuition check — it’s all under attack from Congressional Republicans.
They want to increase costs for health care, food, and education for working people so they can decrease taxes for millionaires, billionaires, and giant corporations.
They want to reach into working people’s pockets to pay for billionaires’ handouts.
Taxes reflect our values. Taxes show what — and who — we value enough to collectively invest in. And Republicans are showing, pure and simple, that they value a handful of the wealthy and well-connected. Not the working people they claim to represent.
And they don’t want you to notice what they’re doing.
Newsflash: We are paying attention.
Elizabeth
Elizabeth Warren
U.S. Senator, Massachusetts

Simply put, straightforward and unshowy words, describing a very factual scene happening nowadays in America and many parts of the world, the triumph of a small class mainly of billionaires and big corporate power and some dubious and questionable political ideologies, all at the expense of the majority of the masses. More so when we consider the last Tariffs imposed on everything we import from abroad , it is definitely a direct form of collective taxes, that wont hurt the very rich but make it more difficult to survive for the masses, and provide enough for the government to reduce taxes for the few at the top. 

My many thanks to all. 

AT THE HEART OF THE STORM......

 

Signal messaging at the heart of the storm
Le Temps March 26, 2025 ANOUCH SEYDTAGHIA

Despite recent amateur use by US officials, Signal is one of the most secure messaging services, ahead of WhatsApp or Telegram. However, the app is not recommended for government use. Here's our explanation.
This is a spotlight that Signal's executives probably wouldn't have imagined: the use of the messaging app by very high-ranking officials in the US government. Since Monday, it has become known that they are communicating via this app. It was Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic magazine, mistakenly added to a group, who revealed the affair. He was able to read exchanges with 18 people, including Vice President JD Vance, National Security Advisor Michael Waltz, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. This affair, which has triggered a political crisis in Washington, is an opportunity to take a closer look at Signal.

How does Signal work?
On the surface, it's like WhatsApp or Telegram. But Signal differs in two key ways. First, the business model, since the app is supported by a non-profit foundation based in the United States. Signal is free, without advertising or user tracking, and relies on user donations. The foundation was notably supported, through a $50 million contribution, by Brian Acton, co-founder of WhatsApp, who was disappointed with what Meta had done with it. The annual budget to run Signal is a similar amount.

The other difference from its competitors is Signal's transparent core. The messaging encryption protocol is open source, making it easily analyzeable by any external expert. Signal reportedly has between 50 and 100 million users, far fewer than the billion claimed by Telegram or WhatsApp's more than 2 billion customers.
Is Signal infallible?

Its security level is very high. "To my knowledge, the Signal protocol has never been cracked. But I know that governments are actively trying to do so, so there is no guaranteed protection forever," says Steven Meyer, director of the cybersecurity firm ZENData. "Apps like Signal and WhatsApp rely on end-to-end encryption that makes messages readable only by the sender and the recipient. It seems this technique is effective because several countries, including France, require these companies to introduce backdoors to gain access to information."

"The Signal protocol has never been cracked. But governments are actively trying to do so, so there is no guaranteed protection forever." STEVEN MEYER, CEO OF ZENDATA
"These applications are particularly vulnerable to organized crime or terrorism. It would appear that these applications are therefore very resistant to hacking," notes Jean-Marc Rickli, director of global and emerging risks at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy.

Recently, Signal CEO Meredith Whittaker defended this level of protection, saying that "end-to-end encryption is the technology we have to ensure privacy in an era of unprecedented government and corporate surveillance."
Signal is therefore very resilient. But be careful: if an outsider manages to take remote control of the phone—and many governments have the technical tools to do this—the situation changes. Because it's then relatively easy to access all of the phone's content, including the contents of messaging apps.

Another concern: the user. "The fact that a stranger could have been invited and the other members of the group didn't react also raises questions that have nothing to do with cybersecurity but with the basics of digital hygiene and common sense, which are often exploited in social engineering to hack individuals or companies," notes Jean-Marc Rickli.

How should Americans have communicated?
According to Jean-Marc Rickli, "Government officials can use such apps to exchange routine, unclassified information. But the Signal app is not approved by the U.S. government for sharing classified information. To share such information, officials or decision-makers must use sensitive, compartmentalized information facilities where smartphones are not permitted. In this case, there was a clear violation of these rules."

There was indeed negligence, confirms Steven Meyer: "Generally, at the military and government level, there are communication tools for classified exchanges that are very secure and controlled. The downside is that these systems are not very practical for everyday life. So whenever possible, people use "mainstream" alternatives. And in this area, Signal is clearly the best app," says the director of ZENData.

Steven Meyer notes that in Switzerland, the Swiss app Threema is used within the military and government to communicate on topics that are not highly confidential. For more sensitive topics, other services, inaccessible to the general public, are used.
■
Article Name: Signal messaging at the heart of the storm
Publication: Le Temps
Section:International
Author: ANOUCH SEYDTAGHIA
Start Page:6
End Page:6

This message was sent to me by e-mail, from a friend, originally an article in a Swiss publication, "Le Temps" in French, translated by Google and myself to suit our blog as the scandal of the App and its usage by the highest hierarchy of the American administration for highly sensitive and classified communications continues to reverberate in the US.  
As always, my many thanks to all my good friends and readers. 

WILL THE US BECOME HUNGARY ?

 

Will the US Become Hungary?

Some say that under Trump, the US will become like Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Hungary: an illiberal democracy in which elections take place, but institutions like the courts and media are largely subverted to authoritarian rule. Having watched Russia slide into authoritarianism, M. Gessen made that case on The New York Times’ The Opinions podcast in November. Others think it’s less likely. Pointing to the difficulty of changing the US Constitution, the power distributed to states, and other factors, Bálint Madlovics and Bálint Magyar argue in a Foreign Affairs essay that Trump would find it more difficult to achieve the same thing here. They write: “Trump’s rampage through the federal bureaucracy and efforts to begin purges of civil servants, along with his flurry of executive orders that demonstratively challenge constitutional limitations on executive power, may seem shocking to U.S. democratic norms. But none of these plans have been put before Congress, and many of them will face legal and legislative roadblocks before they can be fully implemented.  By contrast, Orban has been able to use his disciplined supermajority in parliament to formally change Hungary’s legal foundations: tax laws, reforms, and even electoral amendments are regularly passed within days. Even the new constitution of Hungary has been amended 14 times by [Orbán’s party] Fidesz without public debate—something impossible in the United States, where constitutional amendments have been comparatively rare, requiring not only broad congressional approval but a laborious process of state ratification.” Some worry more actively. In another Foreign Affairs essay, Steven Levitsky and Lucan A. Way write that America’s “vaunted constitutional checks are failing. Trump violated the cardinal rule of democracy” when he refused to accept his 2020 election loss, as MAGA supporters attempted to block the transfer of power. Trump now has more experience in government and more fulsome control of the GOP. “[A]authoritarianism does not require the destruction of the constitutional order,” they write. “What lies ahead is not fascist or single-party dictatorship but competitive authoritarianism—a system in which parties compete in elections but the incumbent’s abuse of power tilts the playing field against the opposition.  Most autocracies that have emerged since the end of the Cold War fall into this category, including Alberto Fujimori’s Peru, Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela, and contemporary El Salvador, Hungary, India, Tunisia, and Turkey. …  [T]he system is not democratic, because incumbents rig the game by deploying the machinery of government to attack opponents and co-opt critics. Competition is real but unfair. Competitive authoritarianism will transform political life in the United States. … Democratic Party donors may be targeted by the IRS; businesses that fund civil rights groups may face heightened tax and legal scrutiny or find their ventures stymied by regulators. Critical media outlets will likely confront costly defamation suits or other legal actions as well as retaliatory policies against their parent companies.  Americans will still be able to oppose the government, but opposition will be harder and riskier, leading many elites and citizens to decide that the fight is not worth it.” Some strong words there, more so as the US is headed with sure steps into that direction, and more events of the sort taking place around the authoritarian world, take Israel and lately Turkey. As always, my many thanks to all for your time.

VOLTAIRE.......

 

Voltaire...and the thieves.

 In life there are two types of thieves:

1-The common thief : this is the one who steals your money, your wallet, your umbrella, etc.

 2 - The political thief is the one who steals your future, your dreams, your knowledge, your salary, your

education, your health, your strength, your smile, etc...

 The big difference between these two types of thieves is that the common thief chooses you to steal your property.

While you choose the political thief to steal from you.

 And the other big difference, which is not the least:

a. It is that the common thief is hunted by the police.

b. while the political thief is most often protected by a police escort....

Voltaire was a versatile and and prolific writer and philosopher, satirist and historian, producing works in almost every literary form. Famous for his wit and his criticism of the establishment , he was an advocate of freedom of speech, freedom of religion and separation of church and state, his short few words are often very factual and still applicable to our modern times.

As always, my many thanks to all.