Trump, Bannon and the Coming Crisis

[SomeGuy]

(02-12-2017, 10:33 AM)Mikebert Wrote:

(02-11-2017, 07:08 PM)SomeGuy Wrote: They have since been selling them to prevent a precipitous decline in their currency, and are down to a little over $1 trillion.  A breakdown in trade between the two would obviate the need for this process.  They are already struggling to compete on price terms with newly industrializing countries in SE Asia/Bangladesh.

This is confusing. If they are struggling to compete on price terms they would *want* a decline in their currency.

Not if their leadership is trying to move up the value chain, has large import bills, huge corporate debt problems, and is trying to avoid a destabilizing capital flight.

Quote:I read a bit about it.  China and Japan have sold a small part of their dollar reserves likely for the same reason the stock market went up, they anticipate US stimulus by the Trump administration (strong economies are bad for bonds).  Also there are buying yuan to strengthen their currency, for reasons that are not clear to me--probably something political.

But these are short term issues.  The point I am making is our trade deficit has resulted in the export of trillions of US dollars to China.  These dollars have to be spent in order to recover their value.  The fact that there is a trade deficit means these dollars are not being spent on US goods and services.  The place you can spend dollars and get something for them is in the US,  And if they aren't buying dollars then they must be buying assets.  Assets include a lot of things besides government bonds: stocks, corporate bonds, real estate.

A SMALL part of their dollar reserves?  You should check the figures again.

I also told you where for the most part they are parking their dollar assets.  You should also remember that the US Dollar is not just America's domestic currency, but can be used for trade between non-US countries for things like, I dunno, oil imports and the like.

[Eric the Green]

(02-17-2017, 04:00 PM)Mikebert Wrote:

(02-17-2017, 03:29 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(02-17-2017, 01:31 PM)Mikebert Wrote:

(02-16-2017, 10:41 AM)SomeGuy Wrote: Oh, and roughly 80% of German casualties were suffered on the Eastern Front.  Large Communist movements existed in France, Italy, and other places in Western Europe during that period.  Had the US not intervened, the Red Army probably would have pushed through to the Channel.

I disagree.  Without the US there would have been no Western front.  Germany was not a pushover and it would have taken the USSR quite some time to defeat them one-on-one. Britain might have tried something in the Balkans, and when they got bogged down maybe settle for recovering Norway.  As the USSR rolled back the German positions at some point I think Churchill would have grown fearful of exactly what you suggest.

Hitler came to power partly because German capitalist elites preferred the Nazis to the Communists.  In the end I think Churchill would have come to the same conclusion and made peace with Hitler.  But Churchill had gambled that the Americans would get involved, in which case his side would have the preponderance of the power and the capitalist West would in the end come out on top (as they did in 1991).

Good points, EXCEPT there is no such thing as making peace with Hitler.

There wouldn't be peace for Hitler. He would still be fighting the USSR. Peace with Britain would simply mean that the Brits would stop launching ineffective assaults against Germany, allowing them to deploy their full power against Russia. Leaving a still -powerful Germany intact could have resulted in an eventual Russian-German settlement that would put the "iron curtain" (to use Churchill's simile) further East than it ended up.  Hitler would eventually die, and his empire would as well, just as did the Soviet empire.

Over the years the Russians and Germans fought, the British could absorb the French and German overseas empires into their own.

I rather think that if Churchill had made peace with Hitler (which was not in his nature to do anyway), the Germans would have regrouped and invaded Britain successfully eventually. Hitler's empire could never have been stable like the Soviet one. It was inherently expansionist, while the Soviet one was a buffer against aggression from The West. When The West no longer appeared to be a threat, the Soviet Empire dissolved.

Who knows what might have happened if The West had made "peace" with Hitler. But if Hitler had survived without a western invasion for another 20 or 30 years, he would never have made peace with Russia. His primary goal in life was to defeat it and take over the European part of it at least. Hitler was a romantic conqueror, like Napoleon and Alexander the Great. There are those who say that those three were all the same person, through reincarnation.

Hitler would never have given up on conquering Britain either. Without the USA, German advances in rocketry and nuclear weapons might have enabled them to subdue the world without further fighting, and enact a new Dark Age. WWII was an existential threat to the USA and all civilization, IMO. And there was a time limit imposed by the time it would have taken Germany to build the bomb. As the PBS series about Nazi mega-weapons shows, the Germans were brilliant at weapons technology.

[Marypoza]

(02-21-2017, 01:04 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(02-17-2017, 04:00 PM)Mikebert Wrote:

(02-17-2017, 03:29 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(02-17-2017, 01:31 PM)Mikebert Wrote:

(02-16-2017, 10:41 AM)SomeGuy Wrote: Oh, and roughly 80% of German casualties were suffered on the Eastern Front.  Large Communist movements existed in France, Italy, and other places in Western Europe during that period.  Had the US not intervened, the Red Army probably would have pushed through to the Channel.

I disagree.  Without the US there would have been no Western front.  Germany was not a pushover and it would have taken the USSR quite some time to defeat them one-on-one. Britain might have tried something in the Balkans, and when they got bogged down maybe settle for recovering Norway.  As the USSR rolled back the German positions at some point I think Churchill would have grown fearful of exactly what you suggest.

Hitler came to power partly because German capitalist elites preferred the Nazis to the Communists.  In the end I think Churchill would have come to the same conclusion and made peace with Hitler.  But Churchill had gambled that the Americans would get involved, in which case his side would have the preponderance of the power and the capitalist West would in the end come out on top (as they did in 1991).

Good points, EXCEPT there is no such thing as making peace with Hitler.

There wouldn't be peace for Hitler. He would still be fighting the USSR. Peace with Britain would simply mean that the Brits would stop launching ineffective assaults against Germany, allowing them to deploy their full power against Russia. Leaving a still -powerful Germany intact could have resulted in an eventual Russian-German settlement that would put the "iron curtain" (to use Churchill's simile) further East than it ended up.  Hitler would eventually die, and his empire would as well, just as did the Soviet empire.

Over the years the Russians and Germans fought, the British could absorb the French and German overseas empires into their own.

I rather think that if Churchill had made peace with Hitler (which was not in his nature to do anyway), the Germans would have regrouped and invaded Britain successfully eventually. Hitler's empire could never have been stable like the Soviet one. It was inherently expansionist, while the Soviet one was a buffer against aggression from The West. When The West no longer appeared to be a threat, the Soviet Empire dissolved.

Who knows what might have happened if The West had made "peace" with Hitler. But if Hitler had survived without a western invasion for another 20 or 30 years, he would never have made peace with Russia. His primary goal in life was to defeat it and take over the European part of it at least. Hitler was a romantic conqueror, like Napoleon and Alexander the Great. There are those who say that those three were all the same person, through reincarnation.

-- well you know what Nostradamus said about Napoleon & Hitler

Eric Wrote:Hitler would never have given up on conquering Britain either. Without the USA, German advances in rocketry and nuclear weapons might have enabled them to subdue the world without further fighting, and enact a new Dark Age. WWII was an existential threat to the USA and all civilization, IMO. And there was a time limit imposed by the time it would have taken Germany to build the bomb. As the PBS series about Nazi mega-weapons shows, the Germans were brilliant at weapons technology.

-- thanx Eric. That's what l was trying to tell those dudes

[TeacherinExile]

Neil Howe penned an interesting column for the Washington Post, the Most Read article today.  It is well worth the read.  At least one of the predictions he claims that he made I can find no explicit reference to in The Fourth Turning.  (I'm currently re-reading the book to see if I can find it.)

"Where Did Steve Bannon Get His Worldview? From My Book."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertain...80423e2899

I would suggest reading the Comments, too, that follow the article.  The comment by Jerry Rosen was particularly insightful.

[Warren Dew]

(02-17-2017, 01:57 PM)SomeGuy Wrote:

(02-17-2017, 01:31 PM)Mikebert Wrote:

(02-16-2017, 10:41 AM)SomeGuy Wrote: Oh, and roughly 80% of German casualties were suffered on the Eastern Front.  Large Communist movements existed in France, Italy, and other places in Western Europe during that period.  Had the US not intervened, the Red Army probably would have pushed through to the Channel.

I disagree.  Without the US there would have been no Western front.  Germany was not a pushover and it would have taken the USSR quite some time to defeat them one-on-one. Britain might have tried something in the Balkans, and when they got bogged down maybe settle for recovering Norway.  As the USSR rolled back the German positions at some point I think Churchill would have grown fearful of exactly what you suggest.

Hitler came to power partly because German capitalist elites preferred the Nazis to the Communists.  In the end I think Churchill would have come to the same conclusion and made peace with Hitler.  But Churchill had gambled that the Americans would get involved, in which case his side would have the preponderance of the power and the capitalist West would in the end come out on top (as they did in 1991).

Look at the production figures in Kennedy's Rise and Fall of the Great Powers again.  The USSR was outproducing Germany in all major military-industrial categories at the start of the war, and its lead would only grow.  It had more men, more oil, more steel, more of everything.  I am quite certain Churchill would have been happy to stand aside and see the two fight it out (I think I can find quotes of his to that effect if need be), but I doubt seriously he would have been willing to intervene on Hitler's behalf by the time Barbarossa got going.  By the 1940s Germany was but a middle power, and could no more have prevailed over the Russians than the Japanese could have against the US.

How does that look when you add Austria, Czechoslovakia, and France to the German column?  And account for the roughly factor of two force multiplier of German superiority in technology and operational doctrine?  And let's not forget lend lease aid from the US which far predated  the second front.

[SomeGuy]

Other than France, none of those places you mentioned were separate countries at the time, and the analysis reflects this.  Germany alone was the bulk of European industrial capacity at the time, and it stripped the rest of the Continent of resources and men in order to supply its war-machine.  And yet, it still failed to reach the AA-line, or take Moscow or St. Petersburg.  The USSR outproduced it in key indices (steel, oil, airplanes, tanks, etc.) before the war even began, and much of its industrial capacity had been moved over the Urals previously.  


Quoting PBS shows on "wonder weapons" reflects people's ignorance of what industrial war actually entails.  Germany simply didn't have the resources to defeat the Soviet Union.  Or the United States for that matter, over whom the Germans had similar operational and technological advantages.

[Warren Dew]

(02-25-2017, 01:17 PM)SomeGuy Wrote: Other than France, none of those places you mentioned were separate countries at the time, and the analysis reflects this.  Germany alone was the bulk of European industrial capacity at the time, and it stripped the rest of the Continent of resources and men in order to supply its war-machine.  And yet, it still failed to reach the AA-line, or take Moscow or St. Petersburg.  The USSR outproduced it in key indices (steel, oil, airplanes, tanks, etc.) before the war even began, and much of its industrial capacity had been moved over the Urals previously.

If you have a reference, I'd appreciate it.

Quote:Quoting PBS shows on "wonder weapons" reflects people's ignorance of what industrial war actually entails.  Germany simply didn't have the resources to defeat the Soviet Union.  Or the United States for that matter, over whom the Germans had similar operational and technological advantages.

The Germans did not have the same operational and technological advantages over the US.  They might have had a slight advantage over the US in optics, but they had a large advantage over Russia, and optics was important to accuracy of, for example, tank and antitank weapons.  The Americans had a radio in every tank, just like the Germans; the Russians had one per platoon or company, which had major negative implications for tactical command and control.

[SomeGuy]

Quote:If you have a reference, I'd appreciate it.

I'm drawing largely from Paul Kennedy's The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers.  Here is a link, the relevant section is between pages 275 and 343. 

[Drakus79]

My thoughts on Steve Bannon: He was born in 1953, so he's a core boomer. His childhood view was shaped by the postwar high. Communism and "backwards" Eastern values = bad / Capitalism and "civilized" Western values = good.

He worked for Andrew Breitbart. If you read Breitbart's book, "Righteous Indignation" one of the most important chapters focuses on "Cultural Marxism". This is basically the idea, some of it true, but some of it conspiracy theory, that a lot of the post-modern studies that came about on college campuses, namely critical theory which includes gender studies, political correctness, blaming the west for the ills of the world, and a wider acceptance of socialism and communism, was a result of the Frankfurt School, a school founded by Communist Jews who fled Nazi Germani before the war broke out. Breitbart was, himself, Jewish, so it's hard to make the claim that he was anti-semitic or was a white nationalist, but I think it's safe to say that Breitbart was a civic nationalist who hated "cultural marxism" and felt it was destroying the country. Most of the people who work for Breitbart feel the same way, including Bannon.

Many right wing conspiracy theorists believe that Andrew Breitbart was murdered, allegedly shot by the CIA's "heart attack gun" after he uncovered human trafficking sex ring connected to prominent celebrities in Hollywood and Washington. These conspiracy theories have now become part of the infamous "fake news" controversy that is pizzagate. I have no doubt Breitbart, and perhaps maybe even Trump and Jeff Sessions, believe it all to be true. If indeed it is true, perhaps they've been keeping quiet about it because prominent Republicans, including some on Trump's own team, are connected somehow to the human trafficking ring (and Trump himself, who's visited Jeffrey Epstein's ranch, may have a lot to answer for himself).

Personally, I think there's probably some truth to some of these stories, but it's hard to give creedence to all of the crazy unverified conspiracies. Under normal circumstances it could all safely be dismissed and ignored. But now that we actually have prominent politicians in power, like Bannon, Trump, Sessions and the recently resigned Flynn, who probably believe most of this stuff and want to to set out to prove it, the situation has changed and those in power who have a lot to lose from uncovering all of these conspiracies can't ignore it and are pushing back hard. If Jeff Sessions truly was chosen to prosecute major celebrities and politicians involved in the human trafficking rings while at the same time using it as a means to uproot "cultural marxism", we may be in for a political/celebrity witch hunt like none we've never seen before.

[SomeGuy]

[Odin]

Some of Steve Bannon’s biggest intellectual influences are fascists and white supremacists

Quote:Steve Bannon just can’t help himself. Despite the media glare that comes with being the president’s chief strategist, the former Breitbart editor-in-chief continues to cite fascists and white supremacists without compunction or even discretion.

A recent investigation by the Huffington Post exposed how Bannon’s fondness for “The Camp of the Saints”, an obscure French novel that portrays a race war between the “civilized” white West and the evil brown hordes of the so-called East. The Huffington Post highlighted several interviews in 2015 and 2016 in which Bannon compared global politics and the refugee crisis to the plot of the book, which has been likened to Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf”.

“The Camp of the Saints”, which takes its title from the Bible, was written by ultra-reactionary French author Jean Raspail, who openly describes himself as a “royalist” who wants to restore the Catholic monarchy. In the book, he describes hordes of Indians trying to conquer white Western Christendom as “thousands of wretched creatures” and “turd-eaters.”

The Huffington Post described the novel Bannon admires as “nothing less than a call to arms for the white Christian West, to revive the spirit of the Crusades and steel itself for bloody conflict against the poor black and brown world without and the traitors within.”

Yet Bannon’s admiration of “The Camp of the Saints“ is by no means an isolated example of his extreme far-right politics. The New York Times pointed out that Trump’s right-hand man cited Nazi-affiliated Italian philosopher Julius Evola in a 2014 speech at a Christian conference.

Benito Mussolini, the founder of Italian fascism, greatly admired Evola. The Italian leader of the extreme right-wing Traditionalist movement wrote for fascist publications and journals, espousing anti-democratic and anti-egalitarian ideas. Evola was virulently racist and anti-Semitic and openly claimed that non-European races were inferior. He also condoned patriarchal domination of women and advocated rape.

A big fan of Nazi leader Heinrich Himmler, Evola spent years in Nazi Germany, where he gave lectures. He personally welcomed Mussolini to the Wolf’s Lair, Hitler’s military headquarters. In a post-war trial in 1951, Evola denied being part of Mussolini’s fascist movement, which was apparently not bombastic enough for his tastes; instead, he proudly declared himself to be a “superfascist.”

Neo-fascist leader Richard Spencer told the Times he was excited that Bannon knew of Evola.

“It means a tremendous amount,” Spencer said, adding that Trump’s chief strategist “is at least open to them.”

I reported on Bannon’s 2014 speech, in which he described his belief in an intractable violent conflict between the “enlightened” Christian West and the forces of Islam, secularism and socialism.

“We’re at the very beginning stages of a very brutal and bloody conflict,” Bannon warned. “We are in an outright war against jihadists, Islam, Islamic fascism.”

He condemned the “immense secularization of the West” and the increasing secularism among millennials, and insisted that Christians must “bind together and really form what I feel is an aspect of the Church militant, to really be able to not just stand with our beliefs but to fight for our beliefs against this new barbarity.”

Right-wing pundit Glenn Beck went so far as to compare Bannon to the Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels, calling Bannon “quite possibly the most dangerous guy in all of American politics.”

Fascist forces in the West are not the only ones that find a kindred spirit in Bannon. Bannon’s mortal enemy, Islamist extremists, share Bannon’s eschatological, clash-of-civilizations worldview. In fact, al-Qaeda identifies so much with Bannon’s ideas, it put him on the front page of an affiliated newspaper, al-Masra.

The genocidal Islamic State has made it clear that its goal is to destroy the so-called Grayzone, or space where Muslims are accepted in Western countries. Far-right leaders like Trump and Bannon—along with their extreme, anti-Muslim counterparts Marine Le Pen in France, Geert Wilders in the Netherlands and beyond—help extremist groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda fulfill their missions.

ISIS has rejoiced at Trump’s presidential victory. An ISIS-affiliated media network said, in a translation quoted by the Washington Post, “Trump’s win of the American presidency will bring hostility of Muslims against America as a result of his reckless actions, which show the overt and hidden hatred against them.”

Before becoming Trump’s right-hand man in the Oval Office and CEO of Trump’s campaign before that, Bannon was previously chair of the far-right website Breitbart News, and a founding board member. Bannon proudly described Breitbart as “the platform for the alt-right,” using the popular euphemism for the white supremacist movement led by neo-fascists like Richard Spencer.

Spencer, who adores Trump, is an avowed white supremacist who coined the term “alt-right” and edits a website of the same name, where he has published articles justifying “black genocide.” At a fascist conference in Washington, D.C., in November, Spencer was caught on camera shouting “Hail Trump! Hail our people! Hail victory!” a reference to the Nazi slogan “Sieg Heil.”

[SomeGuy]

It's funny you mention Raspail's Camp of the Saints, but then don't mention what the book was actually about.  It was actually fairly prescient, based on the synopsis at least.

PS It's on my reading list.

[Kinser79]

Odin...Salon is a rag. You should stop reading it. It is junk food for the brain.

[Galen]

(03-10-2017, 04:18 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: Odin...Salon is a rag.  You should stop reading it.  It is junk food for the brain.

Its right down there with HuffPo which is what you read to find out how the enemy looks at the world.  I would have said to find out what they are thinking but whatever the left is doing these days it is pretty clear its not thinking.

[Kinser79]

Gotta disagree there. For that I go to the NY Times. The toilet paper of record. That is the main thing I'll miss after the ultimate demise of print media--the fact that websites cannot be re-purposed to the the task of cleaning one's anus after defecation.

[Odin]

(03-10-2017, 04:18 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: Odin...Salon is a rag.  You should stop reading it.  It is junk food for the brain.

Says the guy who reads Breitbart.

[Odin]

(03-10-2017, 04:26 PM)Galen Wrote:

(03-10-2017, 04:18 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: Odin...Salon is a rag.  You should stop reading it.  It is junk food for the brain.

Its right down there with HuffPo which is what you read to find out how the enemy looks at the world.  I would have said to find out what they are thinking but whatever the left is doing these days it is pretty clear its not thinking.

No, HuffPo is tabloid shit that I avoid like the plague, comparing it to Salon, The Atlantic, The Nation, and other high-content, high-information sources is dishonest. Just because you disagree with their ideological slant doesn't mean what they are saying is factually false.

[SomeGuy]

I dunno, I rate Salon and HuffPo about the same.  The Atlantic is kinda hit-and-miss these days.  The NYT is about the same, but I am not willing to give them money anymore and I no longer have a smartphone to play the "Stop loading paywall" bit, so I don't bother with them anymore.


Almost a pity, I read the NYT almost daily for 15 years.  It was definitely on the decline.

[Galen]

(03-10-2017, 04:50 PM)Odin Wrote:

(03-10-2017, 04:26 PM)Galen Wrote:

(03-10-2017, 04:18 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: Odin...Salon is a rag.  You should stop reading it.  It is junk food for the brain.

Its right down there with HuffPo which is what you read to find out how the enemy looks at the world.  I would have said to find out what they are thinking but whatever the left is doing these days it is pretty clear its not thinking.

No, HuffPo is tabloid shit that I avoid like the plague, comparing it to Salon, The Atlantic, The Nation, and other high-content, high-information sources is dishonest. Just because you disagree with their ideological slant doesn't mean what they are saying is factually false.

Now you are talking about the current American equivalent of Pravda and Tass in the Soviet Union.  The stuff you read to find out what the lies you are supposed believe are.

[TeacherinExile]

Listen, I'll readily admit that Steve Bannon worries me far more than Trump does.  I prefer not to have any ideologue sitting at the right hand of the president.  I admit, as well, some discomfort that Neil Howe lent his participation to Bannon's patently slanted documentary Generation Zero, to which I took issue--even umbrage--at a number of his suppositions.  (More on that later.)

Okay, so Steve Bannon has made some speeches, and has read more than a few books.  I get the concern, and attention must be paid, I'll grant you that.  But the key question for me boils down to this:  Is there more than "six degrees of separation" between Bannon the provocateur and Bannon the president's chief political strategist?  Because if there is, maybe we need to dial down the volume just a bit.  (I have, though I remain watchful, to the extent that that's possible for an ordinary citizen.) 

How will we know if Steve Bannon--and by logical extension, Trump--is using any text as a "playbook" for domestic and foreign policy? Was Bannon's recent language about establishing a "new political order" lifted right out of The Fourth Turning?  Is that alone sufficient evidence on its face to accuse Bannon of orchestrating a self-fulfilling prophecy with Trump's tacit approval?  (Some us may recall that George H.W. Bush spoke of a "new world order," which some Americans immediately interpreted in strictly conspiratorial terms.)

Wouldn't it be glaringly obvious if our president was using any radical text--Mein Kampf, included--to hoodwink the American public, and bring about some dystopian vision?  Does totalitarianism come that easily to a mature democracy?  Or will it come creeping in on "little cat's feet" in a guise--and for a purpose--with which we are comfortably familiar?  Some astute observer speculated that if fascism ever comes to America, it will be a fascism created to fight another fascism (say, Islamofascism).  That I can buy, especially if our "fascism" is in response to a terrorist attack that makes 9-11 pale by comparison.  One pundit has even ventured so far as to say that we are one such attack away from the end of the "open society" as we know it.  Perish the thought.  That event might coincide with some kind of authoritarianism--benign or otherwise.

It's not going to be so easy as suddenly slipping a "black hood" over our heads and carrying us off to...whatever.  There will be more to go by--something other than old speeches and a controversial reading list--to alert us that liberal democracy is about to meet its demise.