Understanding Steve Bannon (Like Bernie but corrupt)

[sonnaroo]

I highly recommend watching at least the first 20 minutes of this Steve Bannon interview with PBS:

I kind of just wrote off Bannon and Breitbart as crazy racists. While he's definitely corrupt, manipulative, and (probably) xenophobic, he's also got a pretty solid grasp of the systems that have run American life and the excesses of neolib/neocon capitalism. His description of what's been happening sound like they could've come straight from Bernie or AOC. Later you see that his values & solution to the problems are far, far different, it definitely broadened my perspective. 

A few quotes that explain this:
"The voiceless working class and lower middle class had no representation. Theyve been voting for Republicans that work exactly against their economic interest". "Here's the joke: Amerian elites have allowed the nation to decline. They've managed the decline with benefit to them and unacceptable outcomes to average citizens because they [elites] don't have to bear the brunt of it"
"There's left wing populism and there's right wing populism. They're about more state involvement to solve these problems while we're about tearing them down".


The day to day sensationalism we see in the news about events and Trump's personality (while important) somewhat distracts from bigger things that are also valuable. Questions like - how did the neocons recon with right populism? How should DSA/left populism address neolibs?

And more personally - how can we set aside our personal biases and reactions to learn from someone we may despise?

[Leo Gura]

Hehehe...

Yeah, right-wing populism has a long and rich tradition.

Hitler's whole appeal was that he was supposedly restoring power to the ordinary working German which was stolen from him by elitist communist globalist Jews.

Meanwhile Bannon worked for Goldman Sachs and was arrested on a $25 million yacht.

Meanwhile Trump's tax cuts gave neo-libs and globalists billions in tax breaks while screwing the working class.

Bannon is a neo-lib globalist in his personal business life. He just happens to have a veneer of nationalist ideology over top of that.

Nothing new here.

Such people have no intellectual integrity and they are nothing like Bernie or AOC.

[sonnaroo]

Interesting stuff!

Seems useful to study for a new generation. A lot of Democrats often think that they're purely "smarter" than Republicans. While that's often partially true (blue -> green), it's useful IMO to break that out with Ken Wilber's waking up and growing up. 

Even with stage green complexity (postmodern deconstruction of systems), you can get people like Bannon that understand what's going on but have a completely different and (imo) devilish take. Seems like it comes from a lack of waking up - their spiritual dimension is stuck in a lower rung, there's some narcissism going on, obsession with power, etc. Your cult videos explain some of it too probably.

Anyway, too much to kind of conceptualize in a comment. I think it's useful for others on the forum to watch so we can increase our understanding, expand our perspectives, and reduce our stereotyping/labeling of the side we don't agree with. Seems like it's necessary for collective yellow

'preciate the response Leo! Watching your videos from high school on have changed my life and made me how I am. 

[Leo Gura]

56 minutes ago, sonnaroo said:

you can get people like Bannon that understand what's going on but have a completely different and (imo) devilish take.

Every ego's take is partial and self-biased.

Every ego has a POV as to what's going on in the world, and all of these POV are biased and shaped by one's survival needs and level of consciousness.

There is going to be a kernel of truth even in things which Bannon or Hitler say. The real test is how they act when they get power.

[Milos Uzelac]

H@Leo Gura

The term "Right-wing populism" serves today, as an advertising label and tool for a respective ideology within the Republican Party in the US and other "populist" parties around the world, the almost the exact same identitical purpose, in the beggings of their conception, that ambiguous label's and idiosyncratic ideologies such as national syndicalism, national socialism and fascism served for the new and on the rise authoritarian and nationalist movements in Spain, Germany and Italy in the 20's and 30's of the last century. 

That purpose was to garner away support of domestic working classes and lower-middle classes away from supporting and joining socialist and communist parties and affiliated labor unions and to present themselves and brand themselves as the real movements that truly care about the wellbeing of all their countrymen during a global economic crisis and international relations crises and that they are the only authentic ones willing and able to pressure and work with their respective countries states to better all their countrymen's economic condition during them, and are therefore respectively the only ones that will fight against actors that want to use the domestic working and lower classes of their countries as trojan horses for some esoteric international elite scheme that is in the interest and for the sole benefit of fulfilling murky plans that a small and powerful, rich global elite has for the whole world or as tools for the aims of outside foreign powers that want to politically manipulate them to serve the goals of their own states (e.g. USSR).

It is basically almost the same labelling and branding tactics, that these contemporary political movements use, that 20th century fascist movements used to get and steal support from middle-class conservative and working class folk during time of extreme economic hardships to dissuade and scare them from supporting and even trying to vote for actual populist and economic reformist platforms put forward by socialist and/or anarchist parties by distracting them with added conspiratorial non-sense as part of their campaigning on their own disingenuous and false promises economic platforms. 

Same tactics and political aims with slightly different labels. 

Edited August 22, 2020 by Milos Uzelac

[Leo Gura]

@Milos Uzelac Still, today's right wing is less extreme and more evolved than the fascists of the 1920's and 30's. So it's not identical, but there are important similarities.

[Milos Uzelac]

@Leo Gura Yes, I agree on the range of what would be today acceptable and allowed as political and social behaviour for them to gain any support in the first place in the contemporary political climate. 

I think you right on the point of even extremer right-wing movements being more civil and morally evolved in what would they consider acceptable to achieve their aims of gaining power within the state in the material, legal and technological conditions of contemporary times in developed countries. 

However, I am of the layman's opinion, that those conditions and moral and civil constraints might face their hard test ever and get severely altered and eroded if the effects and conditions extreme climate changes are throw into the mix in the next couple of decades.

Do you think these movements steaming from a conservative consumer lifestyle and mindset base would be willing to go much further (i.e. aim to find ways to legalize increasing deportations of existing population's from different backgrounds that came as migrants from less developed places in the world, aim to try to make it legal to deport and persecute Muslim populations in their countries and/or be even more brutal and perhaps even aim to make it legal to kill migrants and refugees on the border from the third world trying to enter the country and escape the effects that extreme drought, increased storms, resource shortages and rising sea levels as parts of the consequences of extreme climate change will have on their poor, underdeveloped and unprotected countries most likely in the near future) in order to horde and retain privelleges over more scarce and limited resources and shield their perceived necessary parts of the domestic population's to secure their votes and support in the conditions that the effects of climate change and global warming will possibly create in the next couple of decades or will they be able to evolve in time and accept people of different cultures and ethnicities, forced to migrate to escape the effects of global warming in their countries, into their midst as inevitable new part of their societies because of the unavoidable consequences that global warming would have for human habitation on some parts of the planet?

Sorry for being a bit long-winded in my question, just wanted to ask about your view of how do you see these contemporary right-wing movements in their current mindset and behaviour reacting and responding  to increasingly worsening and/or rapidly changing living conditions and possible global impact in the international world order due to the effect that the extreme climate change may have in the world over the upcoming decades?

 

 

Edited August 22, 2020 by Milos Uzelac

[sonnaroo]

Awesome takes and discussion - Thanks Leo & Milos!

[Aspiraling Wizard]

Careful with the Pre-Trans fallacies here, gang!

[Milos Uzelac]

@sonnaroo Hey thank you first and foremost for opening up this topic, that makes an interesting discussion possible.

Also read your point about spiral dynamics contemporary relationship between different stages of consciousness playing more of a role today possibly producing different outcomes more so than in the past and higher consciousness stage level environments to consider for these newer movements, that is also, I think, à key to understanding them more contextually and holistically as a phenomena in the 21st century. 

Edited August 22, 2020 by Milos Uzelac

[Milos Uzelac]

9 minutes ago, Aspiraling Wizard said:

Careful with the Pre-Trans fallacies here, gang!

Could you maybe be kind to perhaps  set time later explain to me exactly how does that fallacy manifest itself in this context? Is that I am not a high enough consciousness stage of development to see these global developments and events from a contextual and bird's-eye view? If I understood correctly, if that is what you are saying? 

Edited August 22, 2020 by Milos Uzelac

[Leo Gura]

16 hours ago, Milos Uzelac said:

Do you think these movements steaming from a conservative consumer lifestyle and mindset base would be willing to go much further

Not too much further, as it becomes self-defeating.

I think most decent conservatives are starting to see that Trump is a disaster and he is incapable of really helping them.

There will always be an extremist fringe, but I don't see them taking over the government. Trump was their best chance and he failed.

[Milos Uzelac]

20 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Not too much further, as it becomes self-defeating.

I think most decent conservatives are starting to see that Trump is a disaster and he is incapable of really helping them.

There will always be an extremist fringe, but I don't see them taking over the government. Trump was their best chance and he failed.

Yeah, I trust you are probably right in having that perspective and prediction about future outcomes regarding this topic of discussion. However I intend to research more about the possible outcomes the effects of climate change in the future will have on world as a whole and in some specific parts of it, to better inform my views regarding the probability of worst case scenarios of it possibly manifesting themselves in the functioning of society in the near future, in about of couple of decades from irreversible effects and changes in world climate point. 

Thanks a lot, for setting time to answer me when I posed you these questions. I really appreciated your perspective on them. 

[Leo Gura]

13 minutes ago, Milos Uzelac said:

the possible outcomes the effects of climate change in the future

I wasn't talking about the effects of climate change. Those are more long-term. I was talking more about the next 10-20 years.

The effects of immigration crises due to climate change and the right-wing backlash that could cause is potentially be a big deal, but I don't see that happening yet for at least 20+ years and it's too hard to predict anything that far into the future.

[Milos Uzelac]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

I wasn't talking about the effects of climate change. Those are more long-term. I was talking more about the next 10-20 years.

The effects of immigration crises due to climate change and the right-wing backlash that could cause is potentially be a big deal, but I don't see that happening yet for at least 20+ years and it's too hard to predict anything that far into the future.

It does sound really grim from the snippets of it I read elsewhere (This Civilisation is Finished by Rupert Read and Simon X (can't rember his last name now) is the most grim perspective I have found on it) , and it seems to me to call for one to consider now how to prepare on a personal moral level in one's life and in one's stance in society towards it when such situations and conditions may indeed demand it from you, to take a clear stance towards in society. 

Edited August 22, 2020 by Milos Uzelac

[Leo Gura]

49 minutes ago, Milos Uzelac said:

This Civilisation is Finished

Civilization is only just beginning.

It's not finished, it's just transitioning from a caterpillar into a butterfly.

[Milos Uzelac]

20 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Miloš Uzelac: This Civilisation is Finished. 

I think he specifically meant the current mode of unrestrained consumption and unregulated production - today's consumer capitalism in short when he titled his book that way. Which is to mean the end of orange consciousness based dominanted societies in the developed world. 

Here's a cool chapter contents summary of (Rupert Read's and Samuel Alexander's conversation turned small book) which I have a plan to print and read, I'll post picture of it for you too see if the content piques your interest enough in coming about to consider giving it a read. Here are chapter's:

 

 

[Annoynymous]

3 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Not too much further, as it becomes self-defeating.

I think most decent conservatives are starting to see that Trump is a disaster and he is incapable of really helping them.

There will always be an extremist fringe, but I don't see them taking over the government. Trump was their best chance and he failed.

@Leo Gura so are you convinced that trump is not gonna get reelected?

[Leo Gura]

8 hours ago, Annoynymous said:

@Leo Gura so are you convinced that trump is not gonna get reelected?

I think it's highly unlikely.

But he's already cheating by shutting down mail-in voting in blue states, so who knows.

Its' gonna get ugly because he will not admit a loss.

[Jennjenn]

8 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Its' gonna get ugly because he will not admit a loss.

Yeap, and people that know him know it, and his base will believe him and riot.