Tuesday, May 9, 2017

Empire Files: Abby Martin Exposes Steve Bannon

I've been reading the UK Guardian recently and I'm shocked at how the readership has been so programmed into believing that Putin is the new Hitler. They all seem to be baying for his blood. Idiots, don't they realise that they are being primed for war by the ruling establishment because they believe they could make a lot money out of subjugating Russia and privatising all its industries and then putting them on the City of London and Wall Street stock exchanges.  It's just piracy, outright robbing imperialism. But, the ruling elite own most of the world anyway, so why do they want more risking the lives of billions of people or the complete destruction of the planet.

Anyway, Steve Bannon is someone who is truly awful but he hasn't been backlisted by the media as someone very dangerous to our livelihoods or the planet. He doesn't get the bad press Putin does. There should be more exposé of him. Abby Martin in this Empire Files documentary shows you what he actually is: an absolutely ruthless, warmongering, predator, whose probably a psychopath. He's as rich as hell and could live a good life and yet he is prepared to blow half the planet up to make a bit more.  Can you imagine the whole continent of Europe and Russia gone, how can anyone think like that?






19 comments:

MRW said...

Bannon is smart, Kaivey. He reads. He's not a monster. What do you expect from the Guardian.

Peter Pan said...

Bannon is a bit of a lunatic, fortunately he's on his way out. Washington has no shortage of lunatics with visions that are just as dangerous.

Tom Hickey said...

Bannon is not a lunatic at all. He has a well-thought out political stance that many people may disagree with that doesn't make him a lunatic or his politics lunacy.

While I don't agree with his views, I understand them and respect them for being well-thought out. Moreover, a whole lot of people that are neither lunatics nor "bad people" agree with this view.

Calling it "fascism" invokes Godwin's law.

Bannon's view is a type of traditionalism that is opposed to liberalism. A large number of people hold traditionalist views, although not necessarily overlapping completely with Bannon's.

Much of what is known specifically of Bannon's view is gleaned from remarks he made at conference of conservative Catholics at the Vatican some time ago, which was reported here. A lot of Catholics and Orthodox agree with much of his view.

Remarks of Stephen Bannon at a Conference at the VaticanRemarks of Stephen Bannon at a Conference at the Vatican

White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon, sitting beside Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, spelled out the Trump administration’s policy priorities during an interview at the Conservative Political Action Conference Thursday.

Here's Bannon at CPAC:

“I break it out into three verticals,” he said. “The first is national security and sovereignty, and that’s your intelligence, the Defense Department, Homeland Security.”

“The second line of work is what I refer to as economic nationalism,” he continued, “and that is Wilbur Ross at Commerce, Steve Mnuchin at Treasury, Lighthizer at Trade, Peter Navarro, Stephen Miller; these people are re-thinking of how we’re going to reconstruct our trade arrangements around the world.”

“The third, broadly, is deconstruction of the administrative state,” he said. Later, Bannon expanded on that point: “If you look at these Cabinet appointees, they were selected for a reason, and that is the deconstruction. The way the progressive left runs is if they can’t get it passed, they’re just going to put it in some kind of regulation in an agency. That’s all going to be deconstructed.
[emphasis added]

Bannon: We’ll Target The ‘Administrative State,’ Boost ‘Economic Nationalism’

Peter Pan said...

Good grief Tom, have you been drinking the kool-aid?

Bannon's apocalyptic vision of Islam versus Western civilization makes him a lunatic. He's in the same league as ISIS fanatics trying to bring about Biblical prophecy.

I'm not claiming that his recycled BS will lead to fascism, but that is where the US is headed already. If it weren't for his 'economic nationalism' he'd be compatible with the aims of the establishment.

These ideas aren't original in the least, it's a doubling down on measures to save a system in crisis. The quicker these ideas are implemented, the quicker capitalism will go down the tubes.

Bannon's view is a type of traditionalism that is opposed to liberalism. A large number of people hold traditionalist views, although not necessarily overlapping completely with Bannon's.

This has no place in the public sphere. Of course, what you do in your private life is your business, and you can be as traditionalist as you please. The problem is not the view, but its imposition on everyone. I dislike authoritarians of all stripes.

Tom Hickey said...

Well, you are a liberal, and in the eyes of traditionalists, a degenerate.

Peter Pan said...

Round me up with the apostates.

Tom Hickey said...

From the traditionalist POV, what liberals view as authoritarianism, traditionalists view as moral fibre and moral discipline, and what liberals view as fascism and intolerance, traditionalists view as nationalism and differences of culture.

These are competing views of the world. The traditionalist view is far older than the liberal view, and globally more people see the world in terms of traditionalism than liberalism.

This is a problem for liberal internationalism and liberal interventionism, which assume that spreading "freedom, democracy, and free markets" will automatically result in the adoption of Western values as the natural state of humanity. Not.

Tom Hickey said...

Not all traditionalists are authoritarians intent on shoving their values down everyone's throats. By the same token, 'liberal interventionists' who spread "freedom" with guns and bombs are authoritarian.

This is the basis of dialectical logic. At the bottom of everything is its opposite.

Taijitu

Peter Pan said...

That symbol depicts balance, not majority-minority. Is there a balance in our species between authoritarianism and its antithesis?

Tom Hickey said...

Look at the small black circle in the white half and the small black circle in the white half. Anything taken to its extreme turns into its opposite.

Sages knew this millennia ago.

Peter Pan said...

What sort of extremism do those small dots represent?

Tom Hickey said...

Take liberalism. Taken to its extreme it becomes authoritarianism.

The paradoxes of liberalism arise from this phenomenon.

Taken to its extreme, authoritarianism recoils on the authority through revolt.

Peter Pan said...

So most of liberalism is reasonable, not extreme. Presumably this is true of traditionalism as well?

Take traditionalism. Taken to its extreme it becomes ?

Tom Hickey said...



Fascism, racism, ethnocentrism, exceptionalism,

Tom Hickey said...

On the other hand perennial wisdom is form of traditionalism.

Taken to an extreme it can become superstition. It can also be used as means of control though mystification.

Peter Pan said...

The traditionalist and liberal POV of each other falls apart in this depiction. Only the smallish dots are to be guarded against. The question is how small or large those dots really are.

Anonymous said...

From another pov perennial wisdom becomes religion (control through mystification).

Night doesn’t balance with day nor hot with cold. Evolution spirals down to create and evolve a suitable form, and up to evolve the consciousness within the form. There is no pause button.

Here’s something to remember: - when a human being arrives here on this earth, it is not too long before someone claims him or her as their own. Then the cranium is opened up and all of the conditioning shovelled in.

But the human being belongs to Life and when the cycle of breaths run out, all is reclaimed. We did not come here for the society. We came here for something else, but did not pay attention. Society is just an expression of where the consciousness is at.

The play of the pairs of opposites are just night and day – the dots that connect them a matter of tone; not the main game.

We have to learn how to focus; through feeling. ‘The nature of the heart is simple’.

Peter Pan said...

Seems to me that if you strip perennial wisdom, leaving only a series of disconnected symbols, then that is what is presented as religion. Dumbed down spiritualism can be as baffling as esoteric knowledge.

Why am I here? To enjoy the banter.
Why do I live? To see what the future holds in store.

The future is pollen.

Kaivey said...

I'm glad they stopped people smoking in restaurants, bars, and pubs.