Know your Enemy: Steve Bannon by Amy Goodman

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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.

Amen! I'll holler it again: AMEN!! !

If Bannon was only interested in having more American CEOs in Silicon Valley as opposed to south Asians, then he wouldn't have opened Breitbart to Alt Right white nationalists. Birds of a feather.

So you agree with Jacoby then.

If he agrees with me, then yes. Jacoby and I, believe it or not, have been in agreement in the past, particularly regarding the evil posed by Saudi Arabia.

But why is he talking about limiting the number of Asians who become Americans if it's not about race? Legal immigration means blocking people who want to join America and be Americans.

I don't think there are two interpretations, because the "region" interpretation doesn't make sense. Region doesn't determine culture. There is more than one culture in India, more than one culture in China and more than one culture in Japan, There is certainly no common Aisan or South Asian culture. Really, trying to pass this off as a reference to culture and not race makes no sense at all.

btw, Story on how wrong Bannon's numbers were here

More on Bannon's influence on Trump here.


I don't believe that Bannon doesn't know what the Asian Exclusion Act was about. You can't talk about the immigration act of 1924 without opening the door to all that hellish stuff from the dark past.

East St. Louis: 1917. Arkansas: 1919. Tulsa: 1921.Rosewood Florida: 1923.Immigration Act 1924.

It's worth noting that Italians were the victims of racist violence in that era--less frequently than citizens of African ancestry, but subject to the same kinds of violence. There is a short, informative film about this here

We like to forget how intensely the white nationalists of those days fought anyone they thought might be a threat to their vision of a racially pure America, but a man like Bannon has read the histories and knows this subject well.

The campaign to ethnically cleanse the west of Chinese is one that most Americans would rather forget, unless they are thinking it was a good thing. A roundup of related violence here.
It's worth noting that the first time the word "racism" was used in Supreme Court deliberations was in Korematsu v. United_States in 1944, right in the middle of Bannon's golden age of immigration restriction.

The racist immigration act of 1924 emerged from that background and was ended by the immigration act of 1965. That change was part of a movement that alse ended the legal excuse for racism provided by the Jim Crow laws with passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the end of the systematic disenfranchisement of citizens with African ancestry in the with passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Bannon's pal Sessions not only thinks the Immigration Act of 1924 was just great, but also has worked against the Voting Rights Act of 1965 throughout his career. Read about it here (Caution: trigger warning for those with delicate constitutions, it's a left wing source!)

Bannon is not saying these things in a vacuum.

Given that, I will continue to consider him a racist unless he gives some very compelling explanation for how his support of racist laws and his racist comments about immigration are not indicative of racism.

So far the efforts to downplay the racial significance of his remarks on this topic seem to exist somewhere in the vicinity of the risible, the unconvincing or the implausible.

Is there something like racism which is related to power?

I just have two definitions, academic and schoolyard, and consider both useful. If we need another word for the academic term for the structural effects of schoolyard racism, I'm okay with having one.

Although, some powerless shouting wouldn't be a real serious problem by itself. I think that sums up part of the right's argument, that it's just harmless shouting. That simple assertion ignores a lot of social psychology.

Thank you for finally posting the context of that statement, I would definitely say Bannon is guilty of making an ignorant statement for falsely stating that two-thirds or three-forth of Silicon Valley are from India or Asia but I think it is one ultimately about nationalism rather than something about race. It mentions the troublesome H1-B visa as the program for 'highly skilled foreign workers' which doesn't mention the rampant abuse of this program by the tech industry. Silicon Valley should be held in similar regard to Wall Street in its callousness towards working people, they are among the chief exploiters on planet. There are also economic and cultural considerations that have been dismissed as irrelevant or even racist, this is where political correctness is suffocating. Do you think opposing illegal immigration racist?

No.

Though it can be. It depends on how you do it.

Nobody is downplaying the "racial significance". You made a very specific assertion "Bannon is racist" that you haven't supported with evidence.

I've listened through the entire interview (CLICK ME), and the context is American jobs for American citizens, and the condemnation of H-1B visas by Mike Huckabee (who was on the show later). Relevant part starts at 15:40-ish.

There is nothing to provide further context that might inform us as to how Bannon was going to finish his thought before Trump interrupted him. He does, however, clearly say "Sessions" before the "America is a civic society" part, and I'd be interested to know if he was quoting him directly. Going to keep digging and see if I can find anything that fits - though it's made difficult by the obfuscation of hundreds of articles running the same story.



That's how I see it too, Jacoby, especially in the wider context of the entire broadcast. He's doing a lead-in to his next (or a later) guest and the topic they're going to cover.

Huckabee interview is here: CLICKY

I'm listening to it right now.

No. I have explained that what I have presented here seems like evidence of racism to me and I have provided an explanation of why that seems racist to me.

You may disagree with my conclusions, but it's simply untrue to say I haven't supported it with evidence.

From my perspective, if you look at that evidence and don't see it as racist, there must be something filtering things out of your calculations in a very distorting way.

I think we will almost certainly have to agree to disagree about this, and I am equally confident that a majority of people will see Bannon's enthusiasm for keeping foreigners from legally immigrating, even if they are whiz kids who are likely to start new enterprises that will add many jobs to the economy-the specific scenario raised by Trump that Bannon rejected-for what it is. If Bannon is the sort of person he seems to be to me, he will reveal more as time goes on.

No, it really isn't.

Your own definition of racism (which I broadly agree with) 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."

If that's your genuine position you would need to prove mens rea in the absence of actus reus. You've provided evidence for neither. How someone else interprets what he is (and didn't even finish) saying is not evidence.



From my perspective, suggesting that someone who disagrees with you has a very distorted perception of things is either bigotry, ignorance or desperate ad hominem in a last-ditch defence of cognitive bias. I have no vested interest in whether or not Bannon is racist, but seemingly you do. I've spent some time trying to find evidence of him being racist, but turned up nothing. How far have you gone to attempt to disprove your own position?

The "filter" I'm applying is that of scepticism. If you look at that "evidence" and see racism, you're very likely viewing it through a filter of presupposition.



Whereas I don't claim to know what it is. I don't claim to know how Bannon was going to finish his sentence. I don't claim to know if he was quoting someone else, clumsily reading from his notes as a lead-in to the next segment, making a hypothetical analogy or any one of the numerous other possibilities, none of which have any context apart from that very clear "Sessions".

It's not beyond the bounds of reason that, assuming he is quoting (or paraphrasing) Sessions, he's quoting something that is itself a racist proposition. If I can turn anything up, I'll post it here.



He's got a very public profile and body of work, years of publicly available radio, writing, interviews, etc. Of all that time, this utterly ambiguous few sentences are the very best they've uncovered. And "they" includes numerous people and organisations with far greater resources than I have, especially in terms of manpower, and who have a vested interest in locating that smoking gun.

The worst we can accuse Bannon of is either exaggeration, misrepresentation of facts, or horrendous standards of fact checking - all of which are perfectly valid criticisms of him as a journalist, but none of which are racism.

Your demand for "evidence" is clearly based on double standards given that Bannon himself cited 2/3 to 3/4 without evidence. The actual figure is at under 14% for Asians in executive positions who make up 27% of the population in Silicon Valley overall. Not only is 2/3 to 3/4 astronomical; it isn't even mathematically possible. While questionable words or phrases associated with racism might leave some room for plausible deniability, fabricating numbers is indefensible and leaves room for none whatsoever. It's one thing to give him the benefit of the doubt based on the former; it's another thing to stubbornly refuse to question his motives based on the latter.

Some of this reminds me of the laws some European countries used to have on the books to protect their cultures from Americanism, limiting how much American tv or radio programming could air, that kind of thing. I think Bannon might have similar ideas about protecting American culture, which I would call misguided, but not necessarily racist. I should add, racist is such a powerful and damaging accusation these days that I'm extremely hesitant to apply it unless the evidence is truly damning, which I don't think it is in this case.

You reject my interpretation and explanation for it, fine. Your prerogative.

You tell me how to think or what to think-sorry, no.

I'm not going to not interpret things that people say on the basis of what I know about the world because I don't meet some stranger on the internets' standards of skepticism or legal proof.

Again, we'll have to agree to disagree.

If you have any compelling evidence that he is not racist, other than his saying "I am not racist" (something nearly all racists do) I would be happy to see it. In the meantime, I am going to continue researching him and sharing what I find here.

At present, that research leads me to conclude the he is, in fact, a racist.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/27/us/p ... house.html



You might read that and find evidence that he is not racist in statements like the friend's report.
I read "She's different. She's Family." and find evidence that he is racist.

Another take on Bannon:
http://www.richmond.com/news/local/gove ... 0b89c.html

His outfit promoted Richard Spencer and he wants to limit the vote to property owners.


Can you imagine what an attempt to pull that off would do to this country?

A second amendment solution situation for many. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

I am not inclined to assume that kind of talk is harmless when the speaker sits at the center of national and global power.