Know your Enemy: Steve Bannon by Amy Goodman

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Always were. The basic supply and demand mechanisms are factual observations, not just political theories or wish fulfillment fantasies like Marxist schemes.


Yes. These are obviously both necessary and beneficial.


Exploitation of cheap labor, mostly. When macroeconomic forces work against them, they often don't.


It's hard to tell, really.



Part of the reason Germany has such a strong economy is that they are selling manufactured goods to China, India and Russia, while taking advantage of low cost east European labor and low cost west European financing.


Flipping burgers? Home health care aide? What trades are we talking about? If a company wants to build a fleet of bulk carriers or tankers, there are good reasons not to do it here, no matter what kind of social engineering Bannon wants to use.

Here in New Jersey, he sounds pretty racist.

I agree. The people who voted Trump into office and Trump himself are not nearly as awful as some of the people he is surrounding himself with.

Bannon is neither a conservative nor a liberal but he is a right wing extremist who wants to tear down the current system and rebuild something more to his liking from the ruins. I think he will work for the economic interests of disenfranchised workers as long as that helps advance those goals.

That right there is probably the best "in a nutshell" description of why I tend to favor the right when it comes to political discussions, even when my own position might be more left.

You say "identity fluff". So are you talking about my attempts to advocate for myself as a trans autistic person with mental health problems? Are you talking about the injustices that disproportionately target black and brown people, such as a cost-prohibitive bail system, the school-to-prison pipeline, and the failure to provide indigent defense? Are you talking about people asking others to cut something out or do something differentlt because it's offensive?

You could be talking about any one of these things. Apparently, you don't think much of whatever you're talking about.

No, I'm talking about identity fluff. I'm all in favour of discussing specific issues where the goal is to identify and solve a problem.



And yet I'm not. I'm talking about the rejection of individualism, which is at the heart of liberalism, in favour of collectivism. I believe the best interests of the group are best served by protecting the rights and freedoms of the individual. Anything that impacts those rights and freedoms is anathema to individualism.

The important question is: Are you advocating for yourself as a "trans autistic person", or are you advocating for yourself as a person who happens to be trans and autistic?

Here are a couple of really good pieces on identity politics, from sources considered to sit at either end of the "left-right" divide:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/the-brown ... 38722.html

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/4 ... g-us-apart

And here's Sam Harris on the subject:



I highly recommend at least 'watching' the Sam Harris video. He rather succinctly summarises something I (and many, many others) have been arguing for years.

There actually are huge shortages in a lot of skilled trades, from experienced cooks to tool and die makers to machinists, too many kids are pressured into college when trade school might have been the better option.

I still don't see any evidence that Bannon is personally a racist, can you be against open borders and be a nationalist and not be considered a racist by your definition?

Right wing social engineering is probably an apt description of what Steve Bannon wants to do but I don't see that as any different than what left wing people want to do and have done. Left wing extremists were at one time the barbarians at the gate and they've made their mark on our culture and society; they tore down Christianity, the nuclear family, and pretty much all traditions that were held dear to further their agenda over the course of the last 40-50 years. Bannon wants to go a different direction and undo the excesses of the left that have left most of society worse off, things have gotten better for a small minority of the population but it has gotten worse for the vast majority. Did society want these institutions torn down or was this a social change forced upon them? What is ultimately the difference other than the ideology on subscribes to?

I don't know why you so flippantly dismiss the idea of teaching trades, there is this shortage or machinists/welders/plumbers/etc and I think higher education is kind of joke since the two of the most common degrees history and psychology aren't worse the paper they're printed on as far as jobs or really contributing to society. Interesting topics for people interested in them but not needed. I don't think the federal government should be guaranteeing undischargeable loans for useless degrees, that is selling yourself into slavery. Flipping burgers is not a trade or a career altho when I graduated high school that and retail were the ONLY jobs in the city I grew up in and it seems like middle aged people are now making up more of the ranks of these lowly fast food jobs. You should be able to get a job out of high school, the pushing of college on everyone has hurt our society tremendously. Our public schools don't prepare our children for a job or for college, it's just indoctrination and institutionalization. For a lot of the people I grew up with it was just a place to get a hot meal.

As for your chart, it's interesting but amount of regulations doesn't mean they're effective or were written without ulterior motives. In the US we have regulatory capture, there exists a revolving door between these big corporate industries and the regulatory agencies charged with watching over them which more times than not amounts to regulations which only serve the purpose protecting profits and stifling competition. You do not believe that industry can return to the US so must we accept our fate as serfs? How can one build a dynamic economy built on service industries without increasing inequality? I don't think that's possible, something has to give and to truth may be that a few eggs might have to be broken to create the new reality we want for ourselves.

Just to flip the script a bit, what is the difference between Bannon saying that there are too many Asian CEOs, and progressive activists saying that there are too many white CEOs?

Not much, unless what they are really saying is that there is systematic racism that is preventing qualified candidates from being considered as CEOs, something that would require documentation of actual practices and not just an observation about numbers.

People on the left sometimes make stupid claims. Some stupidly formulated attempts at egalitarianism even end up being racist. Nothing about that justifies Bannon's remark about Asians or rose tinted view of the racist immigration policies of the past.

But not every claim that whites are over-represented in management are racist. For example, activists helped to sue Texaco in the 1990s, because of discriminatory practices. One set of statistics that came up in that case was:

Does it sound like "too many whites?"
Maybe a little additional context helps:


http://www.nytimes.com/1996/11/10/busin ... exaco.html

If you want to claim that Bannon has some non-racist reason for saying there are too many Asians, I would love to see that explained, as long as it isn't just the he doesn't dislike them for being Asian but for having "Asian culture" or not having "American cultural values" -- unless you are prepared to document those claims about culture with some evidence--the kind of evidence that progressive activists had to supply to make their case against Texaco.

When people like Bannon and Sessions chat about the wonderful effect of the Immigration act of 1924, they are talking about the height of Jim Crow and the days (1928) when the Klan marched in numbers on Pennsylvania Avenue.


Is there some possibility that Bannon isn't racist but is just saying things which sound racist in order to get what he wants? Sure, I could believe he is that Machiavellian an operator. But until I see solid evidence that he isn't what he looks like, I will behave as if he is exactly that.

I am also not going to pay much attention to the arguments that I have to prove a court case against him, or else ignore my own instincts about what he means by this talk of too many Asians and how we need a pause like the good old days.

Was he talking about Asian and Indian Americans or foreign CEOs from Asia and India? If it's American citizens he is referring to then I would agree that it might be racist, you haven't posted the context tho so I don't know. There is nothing inherently racist about thinking there should be more American CEOs however in my opinion, do you think Steve Bannon is saying he wants to see more Russian or German CEOs versus Asian or Indian or is he just a nationalist? Very distinct difference! Do you not agree? You don't answer any of the questions about what you consider racist or not racist.

I think others have answered very well for me.
And if I call someone right wing, I mean they come across as right wing. I'm not insulting anyone, just pointing out a fact.

Right wing white men are evil.
Left wing white men atone for their atrocities.

I've been trying to warn Asians for a while, but also trying not to sound racist, about buying into being accepted as white. That offer was bound to be withdrawn eventually. To be frank, Asians I've met have had less concern than I would like about saying things that sound racist.

I can't predict the battle lines of a plausible race war anymore, and I hate the idea that Bannon & co might put me into a uniform despite my active opposition.

I didn't choose my skin color, and I won't have someone else telling me How to Be White.

You watch too much CNN and MSNBC obviously, the main promoters of race war in this country btw

Left wing platitudinous lies are smug and stupid.
Right wing platitudinous lies are honest mistakes by people with sincere hearts.

But here's the thing: Russian and German are adjectives denoting national identity while Asian denotes both a continental identity and a racial identity. See the difference there?


I suppose this relatively simple issue has been made complicated by the verbal gymnastics of SJWs and people who apply literary theories to political and economic issues and so this needs some definition.

What I mean when I say racist is ascribing fixed characteristics and relative superiority or inferiority to people based on clusters of superficial physical characteristics like skin color, eye color, hair color and texture, eye shape, ear shape etc.--the physical characteristics that have historically defined the concept of race.

Clear enough for you?

I reject the notion that racism is somehow related to power. A destitute person from a despised outcast group can be a racist if they subscribe to the idea that race determines social and moral traits or intrinsic value.

So you see there being two interpretations, just as well do you think Steve Bannon wants more European CEOs versus Asian and Indians or it is about geography instead of race? I take it he is talking about wanting more American CEOs in Silicon Valley rather than more white people. That's how I see it, you might not like how 'literary theories' are applied to all aspects of life now but it doesn't change the reality that they are being applied that way or the impact it has had on our culture.

I agree with your definition of racism but what you are quite a bit to the 'right' of the SJW position FWIW, most would call you racist for the limited scope of what you consider racist altho in practice you seem to have different standards. I do no believe what we know about Trump or Bannon makes them racists, coming where I come from I see their populist beliefs as something that particularly benefits disadvantaged Americans as they are the ones that disproportionately suffer because of the policies of both your mainstream Republicans and Democrats. I don't see Trump's position on NAFTA, war, or illegal immigration as 'white interests' but rather our national interests or at least the local interests that have been relevant to me my entire life.