890 Under Obama, "Being American Jews was hip. It was cool. It was the thing to be" - Forward

Under Obama, "Being American Jews was hip. It was cool. It was the thing
to be" - Forward

Newsletter published on 27 November 2016

(1) Steve Bannon doesn’t like the way Jews raise their kids to be 'whiny
brats'
(2) ADL & Southern Poverty Law Centre outrage over 'anti-Semite' Stephen
Bannon
(3) Steve Bannon 'the most dangerous Political Operative in America'
(4) Breitbart & Bannon, Storm in a Teacup: Jews accuse each other of
being 'Anti-Semitic'
(5) Hey Jared and Ivanka, Don’t Become Walking Anti-Semitic Tropes -
Jewish Forward
(6) Jewish Cosmopolitans see National Boundaries as Obstacles to be
Overcome - Forward
(7) And even worse, they’ve abandoned their fellow Jews - Jewish Forward
(8) Under Obama, "Being American Jews was hip. It was cool. It was the
thing to be" - Forward
(9) Liberal Jews (75%) reject Trump-voting Jews (25%) - Forward
(10) Globalists blame Populist revolt on Internet 'fake news'; Media
Assassination of Stephen Bannon
(11) Media Assassination of Stephen Bannon

(1) Steve Bannon doesn’t like the way Jews raise their kids to be 'whiny
brats'

http://forward.com/news/354329/will-steve-bannon-be-the-anti-semitic-firebrand-in-donald-trumps-inner-circ/

Will Steve Bannon Be the Anti-Semitic Firebrand in Donald Trump’s Inner
Circle?

Forward Staff

November 14, 2016

Steve Bannon, the right-wing media provocateur who turned Breitbart News
into a haven for white supremacy, the so-called "alt-right" and
anti-Semitic tropes, is poised to play a key role in the incoming
administration — setting off a firestorm of criticism from Jewish
leaders and anti-hate groups.

Bannon, who ran Donald Trump’s victorious presidential campaign, was
named a "senior strategist" on an "equal footing" with White House Chief
of staff Reince Preibus, a more establishment figure who ran the
Republican National Committee.

In fact, the official announcement of the appointments had Bannon’s name
first, suggesting he could even be a more powerful player than Preibus.

The reaction was quick and furious from Jews and anti-hate groups. The
Anti-Defamation League, which stays out of partisan politics and vowed
to seek to work with Trump after his election, denounced Bannon as
"hostile to American values."

We at @ADL_National oppose the appt of Steve Bannon to sr role at
@WhiteHouse bc he & his alt-right are so hostile to core American values
pic.twitter.com/qCVEPKoa7q— Jonathan Greenblatt (@JGreenblattADL)
November 14, 2016

Trump should rescind this hire. In his victory speech, Trump said he
intended to be president for "all Americans." Bannon should go.— SPLC
(@splcenter) November 13, 2016

Trump campaign CEO Stephen Bannon, the former chairman of Breitbart
News. Does Breitbart News Peddle Anti-Semitic Conspiracy Theories? Josh
Nathan-KazisAugust 18, 2016

Bannon transformed Breitbart News, which was founded by
ultra-conservative Jewish journalist Andrew Breitbart, from a fringe
site into a high-traffic haven for conspiracy theorists many of whom
with neo-Nazi or white supremacist ties.

He is known as a take-no-prisoners political junkie, which may be why
Trump has rewarded him with the position at the very pinnacle of his
inner circle.

Selection of Steve Bannon for senior WH role unsurprising but alarming.
His alt-right, anti-Semitic & misogynistic views don’t belong in WH—
Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) November 13, 2016

Even center-right Republicans were appalled.

Let’s be clear here media. Stop using "Alt Right." It is the racist,
anti-semitic, fascist extreme right. Please be clear & stop normalizing—
John Weaver (@JWGOP) November 13, 2016

The appointment also raises serious questions about Trump’s much-touted
claim that he will be a strong supporter of Israel. Many on the
alt-right regularly denounce Israel and international financial
organizations as part of a worldwide power structure run by Jews.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, perhaps the leading face
of the pro-Israel lobby, was reportedly upset about the appointment, but
critics called on it to speak out publicly.

Sources: @AIPAC is privately apoplectic about Steve Bannon appointment—
Jonathan Franks (@jonfranks) November 14, 2016

This election has shown us who the Nazis are. W/@AIPAC silence re:
Bannon, we’re finding out who the Judenrat is as well.— Rachel Shukert
(@RachelShukert) November 14, 2016

If @AIPAC can’t speak up now - loudly and with unequivocal language -
against Bannon, it has no business claiming to care about US Jews.—
Jeffrey Sachs (@JeffreyASachs) November 14, 2016

Besides offering a platform for racists and anti-Semites, Bannon has
also been accused of anti-Semitism in his personal life. Steve Bannon
Didn’t Want Children Going to School With ‘Whiny’ Jews

Forward Staff

November 14, 2016

His ex-wife, Mary Louise Piccard, reportedly claimed during their
divorce that Bannon did not want their daughters to attend private
schools in Los Angeles because there were too many Jewish students there.

According the court documents, Piccard stated: "He said he doesn’t like
Jews and that he doesn’t like the way they raise their kids to be ‘whiny
brats.’"

He also asked why there were "so many Chanukkah books" in the library of
another school.

Newt Gingrich, a senior Trump supporter who is a candidate to be
secretary of state, shot back Sunday that Bannon could not be an
anti-Semite because he worked in Hollywood and for Goldman Sachs.

(2) ADL & Southern Poverty Law Centre outrage over 'anti-Semite' Stephen
Bannon

http://www.smh.com.au/world/us-election/donald-trumps-choice-of-antisemite-stephen-bannon-for-strategist-brings-wave-of-outrage-20161114-gspewm.html

November 15 2016 - 10:43AM

Donald Trump's choice of anti-Semite Stephen Bannon for strategist
brings wave of outrage

Paul McGeough

Washington: They were asides in an Obama press conference on Monday –
"gestures are important;" and later, "it's important to send signals of
unity – to reach out to minority groups and others who were concerned by
the tenor of the campaign."

The outgoing president deliberately sidestepped invitations to join a
critics' pile-on over Donald Trump's naming of the white nationalist
lightning rod Stephen Bannon as his chief strategist in the White House.

Stephen Bannon is widely expected to soon be one of the most powerful
men in America.

But in saying as little as he did, Obama spoke volumes about the
controversy of having the likes of Bannon so close to the Oval office.

Likewise, senior elected Republicans made their criticism of Trump's
embrace of Bannon as loud by saying virtually nothing about it – instead
they heaped praise on Trump's good sense in appointing Republican Party
chairman Reince Priebus as his White House chief of staff.

Trump is enamoured of Bannon for his role in converting what had been a
chaotic presidential campaign into a stunningly winning venture. But
Bannon came to Trump from Breitbart News, an online haven for conspiracy
theorists and for the so-called alt-right, an outlier conservative
movement steeped in racist rhetoric, white nationalism and anti Semitism.

You be the judge – here are links to a selection of Breitbart's more
offensive offerings:

Bill Kristol: Republican spoiler, renegade Jew   Lesbian bridezillas
bully bridal shop owner over religious beliefs   Teenage boys with tits:
Here's my problem with Ghostbusters   Hoist it high and proud: The
Confederate flag proclaims a glorious heritage   There's no hiring bias
against women in tech, they just suck at interviews   Pamela Geller's
Muhammad cartoon contest is no different from Selma   Sympathy for the
devils: The plot against Roger Ailes   Gabby Giffords: The gun control
movement's human shield   Birth control makes women unattractive and
crazy   Roger Stone: Clinton aide Huma Abedin 'most likely a Saudi spy'
   The solution to online 'harassment' is simple: Women should log off

Demanding that Trump rescind the Bannon appointment, the respected
Southern Poverty Law Centre tweeted: "Stephen Bannon was the main driver
behind Breitbart becoming a white, ethno-nationalist propaganda mill."

The Anti-Defamation League weighed in, calling it "a sad day." And the
Council on American-Islamic Relations criticised Breitbart for peddling
"misogynistic and racist stories targeting women, people of colour and
immigrants."

In photographs of Washington's always coiffed and cuffed political
class, Bannon invariably stands out as a rakish persona who might be
more at home on the set of the DC political thriller House of Cards.
Describing Bannon as a "legitimately sinister figure," who inspired fear
in employees, former Breitbart editor Ben Shapiro wrote earlier this
year: "He is a vindictive, nasty figure, infamous for verbally abusing
supposed friends and threatening enemies."

Bannon was often cited as the creator of the worst moments of the Trump
campaign – like the parading of women who claimed to have been abused by
former President Bill Clinton just minutes before the second candidates'
debate between Trump and Hillary Clinton in St Louis.

Trump's campaign manager Kelly Anne Conway rejected all criticism,
telling reporters on Monday that Bannon had been "the general of this
campaign," and also that he had a Harvard business degrees, was a former
naval officer and was "a brilliant tactician."

Bill Kristol, the neo-conservative editor of the Weekly Standard, tweeted:

Is there precedent for such a disreputable & unstable extremist in WH
senior ranks before Bannon? Sid Blumenthal? But Bannon more powerful.
— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) November 14, 2016

John Weaver, a Republican strategist and adviser to Trump's rival for
the GOP nomination and Ohio governor John Kasich, tweeted:

The racist, fascist extreme right is represented footsteps from the Oval
Office. Be very vigilant America.   — John Weaver (@JWGOP) November 13, 2016

And rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner, director of the Religious Action Centre of
Reform Judaism, lashed out: "In his role as editor of the Breitbart
website and as a strategist in the Trump campaign, Mr Bannon was
responsible for the advancement of ideologies antithetical to our
nation, including anti-Semitism, misogyny, racism and Islamophobia."

It didn't help to calm anxiety at Bannon's inner-sanctum appointment
when Richard Spencer, president of the white nationalist National Policy
Institute, hailed Bannon's role as Trump's most senior strategist,
tweeting: "Bannon will answer directly to Trump and focus on the big
picture, and not get lost in the weeds. He'll be freed up to chart
Trump's macro-trajectory. The question is: Which way is the arrow
pointing? It is pointing towards the #AltRight!"

The logic in Trump's first and critical appointments – of Bannon and
Priebus – seemingly is an effort to appease the president elect's very
different constituencies – Bannon is a thinking bomb-thrower who will be
seen by the GOP base as anti-establishment; Priebus is a sophisticated
Washington insider who is well placed to build bridges between Trump and
the GOP establishment.

But though a Trump statement billed Bannon and Priebus as "equal
partners," much was made of the fact that Bannon was mentioned first in
the statement and, as observed by The Washington Post, while Priebus had
merely brought in donations and helped to keep wobbly Republicans in
line, while it was Bannon who had set Trump's direction and never became
a critic of Trump.

72 comments [...]

   As for Paul McGeough is clutching at straws after his poor election
predictions. When will the mainstream media learn that calling someone a
"white nationalist lightning rod" without presenting facts to support
the argument is one of the reasons why only 6% of the population trust
the media in the US. Citing the opinions of leftist groups and those
with vested interests doesn't support the statement either. It's a poor
substitute and lazy journalism at best. You can argue he's not a very
likable guy, but playing identity politics without argument is one of
the main reasons Trump won and will continue winning until the lightning
bulb goes off and the mainstream media relearns how to present a
balanced counter argument of their liberal western ideals without
shouting down those whose opinions differ as "racists" or "misogynists."
The mainstream media are the biggest losers from this election and after
one week, it would appear they have not yet learned their lessons. If
this continues they will lose the fourth estate.     RogerNov 15 2016 at
11:33am

(3) Steve Bannon 'the most dangerous Political Operative in America'

From: chris lancenet <chrislancenet@gmail.com> Date: Wed, 16 Nov 2016
03:27:26 +0900 Subject: Steve Bannon: This Man Is the Most Dangerous
Political Operative in America

This Man Is the Most Dangerous Political Operative in America

https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/graphics/2015-steve-bannon/

Steve Bannon runs the new vast right-wing conspiracy—and he wants to
take down both Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush.

By Joshua Green | October 8, 2015

It’s nearing midnight as Steve Bannon pushes past the bluegrass band in
his living room and through a crowd of Republican congressmen, political
operatives, and a few stray Duck Dynasty cast members. He’s trying to
make his way back to the SiriusXM Patriot radio show, broadcasting live
from a cramped corner of the 14-room townhouse he occupies a stone’s
throw from the Supreme Court. It’s late February, the annual
Conservative Political Action Conference is in full swing, and Bannon,
as usual, is the whirlwind at the center of the action.

Bannon is the executive chairman of Breitbart News, the crusading
right-wing populist website that’s a lineal descendant of the Drudge
Report (its late founder, Andrew Breitbart, spent years apprenticing
with Matt Drudge) and a haven for people who think Fox News is too
polite and restrained. He’d spent the day at CPAC among the conservative
faithful, zipping back and forth between his SiriusXM booth and an
unlikely pair of guests he was squiring around: Nigel Farage, the leader
of Britain’s right-wing UKIP party, and Phil Robertson, the bandanna’d,
ayatollah-bearded Duck Dynasty patriarch who was accepting a free-speech
award. CPAC is a beauty contest for Republican presidential hopefuls.
But Robertson, a novelty adornment invited after A&E suspended him for
denouncing gays, delivered a wild rant about "beatniks" and sexually
transmitted diseases that upstaged them all, to Bannon’s evident
delight. "If there’s an explosion or a fire somewhere," says Matthew
Boyle, Breitbart’s Washington political editor, "Steve’s probably nearby
with some matches." Afterward, everyone piled into party buses and
headed for the townhouse.

"Honey badger don’t give a s---" is the Breitbart motto

Bannon, an ex-Goldman Sachs banker, is the sort of character who would
stand out anywhere, but especially in the drab environs of Washington. A
mile-a-minute talker who thrums with energy, his sentences speed off
ahead of him and spin out into great pileups of nouns, verbs, and grins.
With his swept-back blond hair and partiality to cargo shorts and
flip-flops, he looks like Jeff Spicoli after a few decades of hard
living, and he employs "dude" just as readily. [...]

"I come from a blue-collar, Irish Catholic, pro-Kennedy, pro-union
family of Democrats," says Bannon, by way of explaining his politics. "I
wasn’t political until I got into the service and saw how badly Jimmy
Carter f---ed things up. I became a huge Reagan admirer. Still am. But
what turned me against the whole establishment was coming back from
running companies in Asia in 2008 and seeing that Bush had f---ed up as
badly as Carter. The whole country was a disaster." [...]

Most days, Bannon can be found in his Hyde persona, in the Washington
offices of Breitbart News. Operating from the basement of his
townhouse—known to all as the Breitbart Embassy—Breitbart’s pirate crew
became tribunes of the rising Tea Party movement after Barack Obama’s
election, bedeviling GOP leaders and helping to foment the 2013
government shutdown. [...]

But in a gauge of how media standards have shifted since the ’90s, the
ostracization of Breitbart News didn’t last long. Less than a year
later, when the site caught Weiner tweeting pictures of his genitals,
Andrew Breitbart was welcomed back on Fox News. The experience taught
Bannon the power of real news. [...]

(4) Breitbart & Bannon, Storm in a Teacup: Jews accuse each other of
being 'Anti-Semitic'

http://forward.com/news/348040/does-breitbart-news-peddle-anti-semitic-conspiracy-theories/

Does Breitbart News Peddle Anti-Semitic Conspiracy Theories?

Josh Nathan-Kazis

August 18, 2016

Hillary Clinton’s campaign says that the right-wing news website run by
Donald Trump’s newly minted campaign chief trucks in "anti-Semitic
conspiracy theories."

The site’s executives say that’s nuts.

But as Breitbart News has become inextricably linked to Donald Trump
with the August 17 appointment of the company’s chairman, Stephen K.
Bannon, to run Trump’s campaign, the question of Jews and Breitbart News
has taken on new urgency.

So is the conservative news website a peddler of anti-Semitism or just a
strident voice that pushes the envelope in an ever more-polarized
political world? Here’s what you need to know about Breitbart News and
the Jews.

Breitbart Was Jewish

Andrew Breitbart, the conservative media provocateur who founded the
site and died in 2012, was Jewish. So were many of his colleagues and
successors, among them former Breitbart News editor-in-chief Joel Pollak
and former Breitbart News editor-at-large Ben Shapiro (more on him
later). The site has an Israel-dedicated vertical called Breitbart
Jerusalem, where its coverage and opinion content are generally in line
with the hawkish end of the pro-Israel spectrum

"They say that we are ‘anti-Semitic,’ though our company was founded by
Jews, is largely staffed by Jews, and has an entire section dedicated to
reporting on and defending the Jewish state of Israel," Breitbart
executives said in response to the Clinton campaign’s attack.

"Renegade Jew"

Clinton campaign manager Robbie Mook didn’t say why he thought Breitbart
News was pushing anti-Semitic conspiracies, but he may have been
referring to a recent dustup over a headline on Breitbart’s site that
called anti-Trump neoconservative pundit Bill Kristol a "renegade Jew."

The author of the piece, right-wing firebrand David Horowitz, is himself
Jewish. Even so, the Anti-Defamation league at the time called the
headline "inappropriate and offensive." Writing in Slate, Michelle
Goldberg argued that Breitbart was mainstreaming anti-Semitism.

"To define someone as a ‘Renegade Jew’ in a column about scheming elites
written for an audience full of white nationalists is to signal to the
sewers," Goldberg wrote.

‘Ben, No One Hates Jewish People’

Shapiro, 32, quit Breitbart in March after the site appeared to side
with the Trump campaign against a Breitbart reporter who claimed she had
been assaulted by Trump’s then-campaign manager. (Local prosecutors
declined to press charges against the campaign manager.)

After he quit, Shapiro was bombarded with anti-Semitic harassment on
Twitter. Breitbart News responded to the harassment with an odd piece in
which an author identified as "Pizza Party Ben" dismissed the notion
that anti-Semitism even exists. "He has started playing the victim on
Twitter and throwing around allegations of anti-semitism and racism,
just like the people he used to mock," the writer said of Shapiro. "Ben,
no one hates Jewish people."

In an August 18 op-ed in the Washington Post, Shapiro accused Bannon of
turning Breitbart "into a cesspool of the alt-right," a movement he
described as "shot through with racism and anti-Semitism."

Anti-Semitic Caricatures are Just Like Long Hair and Rock & Roll

Milo Yiannopoulos is a senior editor at Breitbart and a leading figure
in the so-called "alt-right" movement that Shapiro decries. He is
perhaps best known for being permanently banned from Twitter for
allegedly leading a harassment campaign against "Ghostbusters" star
Leslie Jones,

In a long March article at Breitbart, Yainnopoulos, who identifies as
having Jewish ancestry, brushed away allegations that the alt-right is
anti-Semitic. He said that anti-Semitic caricatures are the "long hair
and rock’n’roll" of 2016, employed mostly to "shock older generations."

Shapiro, in his own March essay, pointed out that people who Tweet like
racists are often indistinguishable from actual racists.

"When I can’t tell the difference between a David Duke tweet and a tweet
from Milo’s biggest fans, that’s not my fault – that’s the fault of the
person tweeting like David Duke," Shapiro wrote.

(5) Hey Jared and Ivanka, Don’t Become Walking Anti-Semitic Tropes -
Jewish Forward

http://forward.com/opinion/355060/jared-and-ivanka-separate-business-from-politics-before-you-become-walking/

Jared and Ivanka, Separate Business From Politics Before You Become
Walking Anti-Semitic Tropes

Jane Eisner

November 22, 2016

Dear Ivanka and Jared,

Please excuse the informality of my greeting. Your celebrity has become
so ubiquitous that first names are all that’s needed. You are, right
now, the most powerful Jews in America, and I trust you recognize the
significance of your position seriously enough to listen to my plea.

Because I’m worried. The anti-Semitism unleashed during the presidential
campaign is demonstrably more prevalent than anything I’ve experienced
in my lifetime, and I’m closer to your father’s age than I am to yours.
You must feel it, too — you must be aware of the shiver it is sending
through our community, the fresh uncertainty, the way more people are
crowding into the pews on Shabbat, looking for comfort and solidarity.
You live a far more rarified life than I do, our annual incomes
separated by many, many zeroes, but I’m sure you care about the future
of your three Jewish children as fervently as I care about the future of
mine.

So please don’t make it worse.

This isn’t a question of policy or politics; I’m not here to lobby you
on reproductive rights or gun control or the U.S. relationship to
Israel. We can agree to disagree on all manner of issues. But what I
hope we can agree on is the absolute necessity for you to represent the
concerns of American Jews to the person who will soon be president, and
to recognize that everything you do can make our situation more secure,
or more precarious.

The nasty associations of Jews with money and power, the insinuation
that we are a people who thrive on getting rich off of others and seek
political influence to shore up our own wealth, are resurfacing on the
fringe of American discourse and pushing their way into the mainstream.
We saw that in the anti-Semitic tweet your father’s campaign posted last
summer, tying together a Jewish star, gobs of cash and "corrupt" Hillary
Clinton. We saw that in the final ad of the Trump campaign just before
Election Day, which evoked centuries-old anti-Semitic tropes implying
Jews maintained an insidious control of the global economy.

We see that in the appointment of Stephen Bannon as a senior strategic
aide to president-elect Trump — an appointment, Jared, that you
evidently delayed announcing until the end of Shabbat. Did you really
think that waiting until sundown would obviate the sin of elevating
someone who has published anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim,
anti-feminist writing on Breitbart News?

Bad enough, Ivanka, that you used your speech at the Republican National
Convention and your appearance with your father on national television
to hawk your own wares. I assume that by now you’ve recognized the
danger in treating civic duties as marketing opportunities.

Far more serious and consequential is the fact that the Trump family is
resisting disentangling its far-flung business empire from the reigns of
political power once Donald Trump is inaugurated in January. This is not
just a concern of sour-grapes liberals — no less than the Wall Street
Journal stated bluntly: "Mr. Trump’s best option is to liquidate his
stake in the company."

It should be obvious to you two why this is essential to the proper
functioning of American democracy, to the potential success of the Trump
administration — and to counteract the inevitable accusations that
Jewish monied interests control the strings of the most powerful office
in the world.

The president-elect has said that he intends to give control of the
Trump Organization and the more than 500 limited liability companies
through which he owns his assets to you, Ivanka, and your brothers
Donald Jr. and Eric. But he will still be associated with his
businesses, because you — his family — are hardly independent from him.
Even if as president your father does not directly manage his
businesses, he’ll continue to own them, and you and your brothers will
be involved in real estate deals and naming rights and other activities
across the globe.

Everything you do will be subject to scrutiny. As the New York Times
noted about your father: "The conflicts between his private interests
and his public role will be impossible to untangle."

And that will inevitably give rise to grave political consequences,
opening up your father’s administration to very real charges of
corruption and inside dealing, of using government to enhance a private
interest — of doing everything he accused Hillary Clinton of doing, but
this time, there will be a lot more proof. Remember, presidents can face
litigation in private matters. If you think everyone from the New York
State Attorney General to defrauded Trump University students were
willing to sue your father when he was just another rich guy, imagine
how huge a target he will be in the White House.

Layer on top of these manifest potential conflicts the prospect of your
own political entanglements — the hints that Jared is figuring out how
to skirt federal anti-nepotism rules to become an official advisor to
the president, or the suggestions that Ivanka will effectively act as
First Lady as her step-mother stays home in Manhattan or Miami — and the
situation becomes even messier.

Given the ability that a few anti-Semitic trolls have to infiltrate and
denigrate public discourse, it may only be a matter of time before they
turn on you. I say this with no predictive knowledge, or any pleasure,
but because I already see such sentiment bubbling up on far right wing
websites decrying "Trump’s associations with Jews." If the new president
doesn’t fulfill all of his outlandish promises, if he doesn’t build that
wall and deport millions and cancel foreign deals and so on, some of his
supporters will look to assign blame. And some of his supporters were
folks like the Ku Klux Klan, which endorsed him. Might they think the
worst of powerful Jews like yourself? Why, yes they might.

Anti-Semitism is not the fault of the victim, and Jews shouldn’t be held
accountable for awful things that other people say and do about us. But
in those rare instances when we hold positions of great power, we should
be mindful of the responsibility that entails and do our best not to
provoke anti-Semitism or any other sort of ugly behavior.

Jared and Ivanka, you have an extraordinary opportunity to do what is
right for America and what is right for American Jews. If you insist
that the new president forcefully and repeatedly denounce the
anti-Semitism evoked in his name, and if you persuade him to truly
separate his business interests from his elected office — which he long
ago pledged to do — then you will have helped him run a cleaner, more
respectable and more tolerant government. And you will help your own
people in the process.

Contact Jane Eisner and eisner@forward.com or on Twitter, @Jane_Eisner

(6) Jewish Cosmopolitans see National Boundaries as Obstacles to be
Overcome - Forward
http://forward.com/opinion/353837/what-does-it-mean-to-be-jewish-in-donald-trumps-america/

What Does It Mean To Be Jewish in Donald Trump’s America?

Jane Eisner

November 8, 2016

The question before liberal American Jews — and that is most of
America’s Jews — is whether we have a place in Donald Trump’s America.

Let’s put aside for the moment, if that’s possible, all the racist,
anti-Semitic, Islamophobic, anti-immigrant hate unleashed during this
campaign and deal with the issues that underlined Trump’s improbable
win. On point after point, they do not align with our interests and values.

We believe in government. We know that it must be streamlined and
reformed, that it is too tilted toward those with money and power. But
we do not want to blow it up, we do not want to "drain the swamp."
Enlightened government has been good to us — our fathers and
grandfathers furthered their education with the G.I. bill, populated the
suburbs by buying homes with federally-backed mortgages, benefited from
strong public schools, depended on government to protect our rights as a
religious minority.

We believe in America as a nation of immigrants because so many Jews
have come from other places. We don’t want to turn this country into a
fortress, and we certainly don’t want to deny entry to those who are
desperately fleeing war and destruction just because of their religion,
whatever it is. We know what that is like, to have the door slammed on
your one escape route, to be sent back to certain slaughter. Some of us
are old enough to remember when it happened to the Jews of Europe, and
that is why we are taught to always welcome the stranger — a commandment
mentioned more times than any other in our Torah.

We believe that a woman should have the right to control her
reproduction, and that our religious teaching allows for that choice,
and that we don’t believe bureaucrats, lawmakers or judges should tell
us — or our wives or mothers or daughters or friends — what to do with
their bodies.

We believe in an economy that is connected to the rest of the world.
Jews have long been traders and entrepreneurs — partly out of necessity,
when other professions were closed to us, and partly out of an innate
cosmopolitanism. If there are Jews everywhere, and there are, then we
don’t necessarily see the boundaries that others see, or see them as
obstacles to overcome rather than walls impossible to scale.

We believe in searching for the truth. Oh, do we ever! Intellectual
rigor is a hallmark of Jewish culture. It kept us alive during centuries
of oppression — the constant debate and refinement of an argument, the
introduction of a new fact or development that scrambled conventional
thinking. We use faith-inspired reasoning to make sense of the world.
That is what the Talmud did, and what our scholarship continues to do.

So how do we cope with a man whose ideology — if it can be called that —
reflects none of these values? How do we live in a country in which half
the inhabitants don’t see the world in the same way, at all?

We’re told those were the issues that propelled this unlikely political
earthquake — fear of globalization and trade, fear of immigration, fear
that a U.S. Supreme Court will maintain abortion rights, health care
rights, gay rights. That economically disadvantaged, less educated white
Americans were so resentful of their economic and social isolation that
they voted for the (supposed) billionaire who’s never served the public
and has demonstrated no inclination to actually master governance.

And I haven’t even mentioned his character.

This election was a sweeping repudiation of the elites — not just the
Clintons and their circle, but leaders of American industry, culture,
entertainment, media, thought. That order is clearly crumbling. Donald
Trump received fewer endorsements from newspapers that any candidate,
ever, and it obviously didn’t matter. In fact, he wore that as a badge
of honor. What does that say about the power of words and argument to
persuade?

I know that as a white, Jewish, well-educated woman living in a very
blue state, I have a civic obligation to understand those other
Americans, who are so different from me and who have determined our
national fate. I knew this before last night. I have tried to read as
much as I could to learn and empathize, to imagine policies to address
their crying needs, to think of ways that the Jewish community can
participate in the healing.

But I am not there yet. The hurt is too deep, the chasm too wide. I am
too afraid of the anti-Semitism directed toward me and my fellow
journalists from those who now are cheering the prospect of a Trump
administration, and I have no idea if his family — and here I include
his Jewish children, who have stayed unconscionably silent in the face
of documented harassment and threats — will do anything to help restore
civic tolerance.

I am too afraid of how minorities in this country less protected than we
Jews are will fare when the man who will occupy the Oval Office
belittles and berates them, only winning more votes in the process. And
as a woman, I am blindsided by the very notion of seeing someone who
blithely traffics in misogyny sit behind a desk that ought to have been
occupied by a woman.

America is a new place this morning, and I don’t know where I as a Jew
fit in. All I know is that my daughter is crying, and I don’t know what
to say.

(7) And even worse, they’ve abandoned their fellow Jews - Jewish Forward
http://forward.com/opinion/354569/the-breathtaking-hypocrisy-of-jews-who-line-up-behind-steve-bannons-twisted/

The Breathtaking Hypocrisy of Jews Who Line Up Behind Steve Bannon’s
Twisted Vision of America

Jane Eisner

November 16, 2016

For many years now, American Jews have been told to worry about
anti-Semitism from the left, from those whose criticism of Israel veers
into rank de-legitimization of the Jewish state. Well-funded efforts
have sprung up to defeat this "new anti-Semitism," especially on college
campuses, and it’s getting to the point where support of the movement to
boycott, sanction and divest from Israel is equated with betrayal of the
Jewish people.

So obsessed are we with looking for threats from one direction that we
have missed the growing danger from another.

Unleashed by Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and cemented by the
appointment of Stephen Bannon to a powerful position in the White House,
the anti-Semitic sentiments of the far right are closer to the center of
political power than they have been in recent memory.

This "new, new anti-Semitism" is largely limited to social media
onslaughts and is nowhere near as pervasive as the global efforts to
isolate Israel and Israelis. (For now.) But ignoring it, dismissing it,
excusing it, hoping it will go away — as some Jewish leaders are doing —
is not only perilous, it’s hypocritical and self-defeating. Some of
Stephen Bannon’s best friends could well be Jewish.

Unless we denounce and work against the hatred coming from the right
with the same energy and resources used to combat hatred from the left,
we risk losing allies and diminishing our own moral standing.

"We now know that there is a coherent threat from the right as well as
from the left," Yehuda Kurtzer, president of the Shalom Hartman
Institute of North America and a wise observer of the American Jewish
scene, told me. "I don’t know why there isn’t a coherent response to the
right."

When I spoke to him and others about this development late last week,
everyone was waiting to see what role, if any, Bannon might play in a
Trump administration before sounding the alarm bell. Now we know: chief
strategist and senior counsel to the president.

"We need to do a serious reckoning," said Deborah Lipstadt, who is
writing a book about anti-Semitism and as the preeminent historian on
Holocaust denial, knows of what she speaks. "It’s been so convenient for
people to beat up on the left, but you can’t ignore what’s coming from
the right."

Bannon is both the poster child for this development, and the reason it
will be a complicated reckoning. Some of the Jews who have worked with
him at Breitbart News are lining up to vouch for his tolerant character.

"I have Saturdays off, Jewish holidays off and Steve Bannon always
wishes me a ‘Shabbat shalom’ on Friday afternoon — just in case you were
concerned about that," Joel Pollack, Breitbart’s senior editor at large,
told NPR.

Even more, his Israel politics are hawkish enough to make Mort Klein,
the very hawkish head of the Zionist Organization of America, boast that
Bannon will attend the ZOA’s annual awards gala on Sunday.

Bannon may be, as Klein insisted, "the opposite of an anti-Semite," but
the news organization he oversaw until he joined the Trump campaign
unabashedly embraced the white supremacist movement that is
anti-immigrant, anti-feminist, anti-Muslim — and at times, anti-Semitic.
"We’re the platform for the alt-right," Bannon proudly told Mother Jones
last summer.

Some of those pro-Trump alt-right guys are the ones sending horrific
anti-Semitic messages laden with Holocaust imagery to Jewish journalists
— and others — around the country.

As our Naomi Zeveloff explained earlier this week, it’s possible to be
Zionist and anti-Semitic at the same time. Some, like Bannon, see in
Israel a (white) nationalist, anti-Arab country worth supporting — over
there. Here, in America, they may accept, even respect, individual Jews,
but their ideological aim is to cleanse the country of its
multiculturalism and restore privilege to white Christian males.

So, according to this logic, as long as you support certain policies of
the current Israeli government, it’s okay to pal around with people who
hate Jews.

That is, apparently, much more acceptable than being a proud, devout Jew
who doesn’t happen to support the policies of the current Israeli
government. That will earn you the title of anti-Semite.

The hypocrisy here is not only breathtaking, it’s self-defeating. The
Jews in America who are the target of anti-Semitic threats and
harassment — and here I include many of us at the Forward — must make
common cause with other minority groups who are experiencing this and
worse in today’s toxic political environment. The undocumented worker
fearful of deportation. The Muslim subject to hate crimes.

If, instead, Jews excuse the far right’s hateful behavior because some
of the people doing it happen to favor certain policies in Israel —
especially when those policies prolong a near-half century of occupation
— then they’ve abandoned the natural allies in the fight for a more
tolerant America.

And even worse, they’ve abandoned their fellow Jews.

That is what it means to support Steve Bannon’s America.

(8) Under Obama, "Being American Jews was hip. It was cool. It was the
thing to be" - Forward
http://forward.com/opinion/354344/steve-bannon-signals-coming-storm-for-jews-in-age-of-donald-trump/

Steve Bannon Signals Coming Storm for Jews in Age of Donald Trump

Chemi Shalev (Haaretz)

November 14, 2016

Those were the best of times, arguably, but these may be the worst of
times. That’s the way most American Jews must feel as they wake up with
a massive hangover from the shock election results and the reality that
Donald Trump will soon be President of the United States.

Whatever differences American Jews may have had with Barack Obama over
the Iran nuclear deal and Middle East peace, they’ve never had a
president who was more in tune with their Jewish and liberal essence.

Obama was the realization of the American Jewish vision of a
multicultural society, a dream come true for a generation of civil
rights activists. He promoted and embodied the liberal ideals that
American Jews are more attached to than any other religious group in
America.

And he was more knowledgeable about American Jewish culture and
Yiddishkeit than any previous president, bar none. Even when they
disagreed with him, most American Jews, with the exception of the vocal
minority that hated his guts, viewed Obama as a mensch.

It is probably no coincidence that during his tenure, American Jews
reached a pinnacle of social and cultural acceptance. Being American
Jews was hip. It was cool. It was the thing to be. From Jon Stewart to
Jerry Seinfeld, from Joe Lieberman to Bernie Sanders, Jews seemed to be
more entrenched than ever before in the American mainstream.

Pew Research Polls repeatedly confirmed that Jews were the most loved
and most admired religious group in all of America. Mashiach-zeit, old
timers would say, but with a note of caution, because if Jewish history
teaches anything, it is that all things must pass.

The election of Donald Trump has shattered the Jewish idyll, all across
the board. Although one must give the president-elect the benefit of the
doubt that he is not an anti-Semite himself, he has frequently promoted
disparaging Jewish stereotypes in his personal statements.

Sunday evening’s appointment of former Breitbart CEO Steve Bannon as
chief strategist in the White House is bound to exacerbate Jewish
tensions. He is considered the standard bearer for the racist,
anti-immigrant alt-right movement and has been accused of harboring
anti-Semitic sentiments himself.

Trump has repeatedly and unapologetically disseminated white supremacist
tweets. His campaign has used anti-Semitic symbols that Trump has failed
to disown even when advised of their offensive content. He has distanced
himself from his neo-Nazi supporters only under duress. And under his
wings, America has seen an unprecedented outburst of blunt and naked
hatred of Jews, which has only gotten worse since his election.

In recent months, most prominent Jewish journalists and other public
critics of Trump have been harassed by anti-Semites on social media, in
their mail at home and, in some cases, in close physical contact.
Swastikas have been painted at schools. Jewish students have been
threatened, taunted, told that Adolf Hitler was right all along. Along
with Muslims, Hispanics, and African Americans, they are being targeted
as the sworn enemies of the America First Weltanschauung that Trump is
bringing with him to the White House.

The shock that many Jews are feeling now is partly of their making. In
recent years, the American Jewish establishment has willingly enlisted
in the Israeli government’s effort to depict ever-widening circles of
anti-Israeli agitation on the left as anti-Semitism. The fight against
BDS and the efforts to portray it as hatred of Jews in another form has
consumed the time, energy and resources of the American Jewish
leadership, with the possible exception of the Anti-Defamation League.

Meanwhile, virulent and classic anti-Semitism lurking just under the
radical right’s surface was virtually ignored, concealed by the
mainstream right-wing’s overwhelming support for Israel. Even mentioning
it was considered to be an anti-Israeli provocation.

Trump’s triumph has unleashed the pent up resentment against Jews. His
reluctance to tackle manifestations of racism and white supremacism
among his supporters has energized and empowered it. If he and his
advisers don’t take assertive steps soon, anti-Jewish agitators will
feel they have a license from the White House to do as they please. They
will get bolder, grow stronger, recruit new adherents and increasingly
resort to violence: we’ve seen it before.

But even if brazen anti-Semitic incidents are quelled or die down by
themselves, there is no denying that Jews have transformed virtually
overnight from insiders to outsiders. Not only did they vote
overwhelmingly for Hillary Clinton, prominent conservative Jews who
could have allayed their concerns are the ones who have distanced
themselves from Trump over the course of the campaign and will play no
role in his administration.

American Jewish liberals are bound to feel alienated from their own
government in way they’ve never felt before. Most of the values, goals
and policy objectives of the Trump administration, even if they turn out
to be a paler and more palatable version of his campaign rhetoric, are
diametrically opposed to those of most American Jews. They support
immigration, pluralism, multiculturalism, social reform, government
intervention, separation of church and state, gay marriage, abortion
rights and on and on. It is easy to see, in fact, why so many of Trump’s
radical supporters would view the Jews as their mortal enemies.

As Shmuel Rosner rightly points out for the wrong reasons, Trump may
ultimately divide Israeli and American Jews. But the reason for that is
not limited, as Rosner asserts, to the yet to be proven assumption that
American Jews will resent their Israeli counterparts for liking Trump
because he is pro-Israel. It is because Trump’s core message, his
reactionary, nativist, chauvinistic, anti-foreigner, anti-immigrant and
mainly anti-Muslim worldview is shared by far too many, though far from
all Israelis, and is embraced by its ruling coalition. And because many
Israeli Jews are indifferent to right-wing anti-Semitism and indeed
share right-wing disdain toward the liberalism of American Jews.

Of course, all may not be bleak. Perhaps Trump will fight the
anti-Semitism on his radical fringe with increasing vigor. Possibly his
policies will be less offensive to American Jews. Perhaps the American
Jewish establishment will produce a leadership capable of meeting these
trying times. Who knows, maybe some American Jews will finally realize
they should support Israeli Jews who share their worldview rather than a
government that doesn’t.

And if worse comes to worst, to paraphrase Casablanca, liberal American
Jews will always have Israel itself. Moderate, liberal Israelis,
beleaguered and on the point of despair, will flock to the airport to
welcome them with open arms. Mashiach-zeit, they will tell themselves,
in awe.

(9) Liberal Jews (75%) reject Trump-voting Jews (25%) - Forward
http://forward.com/opinion/354374/spare-me-the-terrified-jewish-sermons-about-steve-bannon/

Spare Me the Terrified Jewish Sermons About Steve Bannon

Bethany Mandel

November 14, 2016

American Jews have a new reason to be concerned about a Donald Trump
presidency. There was already a major outcry over the anti-Semitism
coming out of Trump’s campaign and his supporter base, and that concern
has skyrocketed with the selection of Steve Bannon, a hero of the
"alt-right" and former CEO of Breitbart, as a chief strategist in the
White House.

But despite many headlines to the contrary, it’s unclear whether Bannon
is an actual white supremacist or white nationalist himself — even
though, under his watch, the Breitbart brand became deeply intertwined
with the "alt-right." Writing about Bannon’s appointment, his former
colleague Ben Shapiro of the Daily Wire wrote today, "I have no evidence
that Bannon’s a racist or that he’s an anti-Semite… [however] Bannon has
openly embraced the racist and anti-Semitic alt-right — he called his
Breitbart ‘the platform of the alt-right.’" Already, the Religious
Action Center of Reform Judaism and the Anti-Defamation League have
released statements regarding his appointment.

While I’m not exactly over the moon about Bannon’s appointment, I do not
believe that his new title means that a white supremacist White House is
ascendant. All reports from the people I know who are personally
familiar with him suggest that he’s cold, calculating and power-hungry.
Such figures aren’t exactly rare within the halls of any White House;
they are par for the course in Washington circles. Instead, it’s the
fact that Bannon seems willing to do anything — even associating himself
with the "alt-right" if it means he can profit off it — that gives me
most cause for concern.

And yet, despite this concern about Bannon, I do not want to hear a
single terrified synagogue sermon about him. Here’s why.

When I still identified as a Reform Jew, I sat through countless
rabbinic sermons about blatantly political subjects. Climate change was
mentioned in the same breath as the weekly Torah portion, and once I
even heard Barack Obama compared to Jesus! I felt increasingly unwelcome
and uncomfortable as a political conservative, and eventually I stopped
attending. It was impossible to ignore the fact that any negative
attention toward a political topic was always oriented in one direction:
rightward. The politicized, liberal bend on religious topics in the
Reform movement became too much and I gradually shifted right
religiously, as I already had politically. I found myself gravitating
toward the Modern Orthodox camp, where not only did most of my fellow
Jews believe what I believed politically, but even more importantly,
politics rarely came up in communal settings.

This past week, as I saw many synagogues’ responses to Trump’s win, I
was reminded of why I left the Reform movement. To be clear, I was no
fan of the President-elect nor did I vote for him, despite having been a
registered Republican for most of my adult life. But in liberal
synagogues across the country, a state of mourning set in; some rabbis
compared the response to sitting shiva. Tears were shed and support
groups sprang up — not because there had been a national tragedy, but
because we’d experienced a democratically decided election.

According to preliminary research conducted by Pew, roughly a quarter of
American Jews supported Trump’s candidacy, performing nearly on par with
previous Republican nominees. In the pages of the Forward, three Jewish
supporters of Trump explained why they backed his campaign despite some
Jews’ concerns about anti-Semitism. Their consensus: accusations of
anti-Semitism are "absolute nonsense" (in the words of one, Joshua
Seidel). Is Trump responsible for the actions of his supporters? That is
a matter of opinion; those who voted for Trump hold one, and those who
voted against hold another.

My question now is: How will Trump-voting Jews like Seidel feel about
walking into these synagogues in the coming weeks and months? Will they
feel welcome among religious leaders and congregations who treated the
victory of their preferred candidate as a national tragedy, and who are
now poised to rend their garments over Bannon from the bimah?

A synagogue’s entire purpose is to provide a religious sanctuary for its
members, not to provide a platform to political beliefs, movements or
causes (we have enough of those). Many liberal synagogues go out of
their way to make it clear to individuals who may feel marginalized in
more right-wing religious settings that they have a home; this emphasis
on tolerance is a priority of paramount importance. Tolerance, however,
cannot only extend to those with whom the majority of the community is
already comfortable; it should also extend to those Jews whom they do
not understand.

Yes, even the Republicans have to feel welcome — and even the
Republicans who feel just fine about Trump and Bannon. They’re Jews, too.

A synagogue’s capacity to feel like a true sanctuary should not depend
on one’s political beliefs or choices at the ballot box. For many
American Jews, the reaction of their religious leaders to this election
may have stripped a sacred space from their lives. In order for our
nation to heal from the division caused by this election, we’re going to
need to feel comfortable in our religious communities and know that an
honest, open dialogue can occur. If we continue to react to Trump’s win,
and now to Bannon’s appointment, by mourning instead of understanding,
that will never happen for many American Jews.

(10) Globalists blame Populist revolt on Internet 'fake news'; Media
Assassination of Stephen Bannon
From: chris lancenet <chrislancenet@gmail.com> Date: Thu, 24 Nov 2016
04:32:35 +0900 Subject: Merkel Declares War On "Fake News" As Europe
Brands Russia's RT, Sputnik "Dangerous Propaganda"

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-11-23/merkel-declares-war-fake-news-europe-brands-russias-rt-sputnik-dangerous-propaganda

icking up the torch on the most hotly debated topic by the humiliated US
mainstream media, namely the spread of so-called "fake news" (not to be
confused with Brian Williams lying for years on prime time TV, and which
until recently was branded far simply as "conspiracy theory"), German
Chancellor Angela Merkel warned on Wednesday against the power of fake
news on social media to roil the establishment and to spur the rise of
populists, after launching her campaign for a fourth term.

Speaking in parliament for the first time since her announcement Sunday
that she would seek re-election next year, Merkel cautioned that public
opinion was being "manipulated" on the internet.

"Something has changed -- as globalisation has marched on, (political)
debate is taking place in a completely new media environment. Opinions
aren't formed the way they were 25 years ago," she said.

Quoted by France 24, she said that "Today we have fake sites, bots,
trolls -- things that regenerate themselves, reinforcing opinions with
certain algorithms and we have to learn to deal with them." The
chancellor said the challenge for democrats was to "reach and inspire
people. However, should that fail, Merkel essentially suggested the time
for censorship has come: "we must confront this phenomenon and if
necessary, regulate it."

She said she supported initiatives by her right-left coalition
government to crack down on "hate speech" on social media in the face of
what she said were "concerns about the stability of our familiar order".

She warned that "Populism and political extremes are growing in Western
democracies."

Merkel's warning comes a week after Google and Facebook (which overnight
was revealed to have a "tool" ready to implement regional censorship)
moved to cut off ad revenue to bogus news sites after a US election
campaign in which the global misinformation industry may have influenced
the outcome of the vote.

Perhaps a reason for Merkel's concern is that while her conservative
Christian Democrats are largely favourites to win the German national
election, expected in September or October 2017, she is facing a strong
challenge from a resurgent rightwing populist party, Alternative for
Germany (AfD), which has her liberal refugee and migration policy in its
crosshairs. * * *

Meanwhile, just as Merkel was launching Europe's war on "fake news",
Europe's bureaucrats were one step ahead, and in a shocking move, on
Wednesday the EU Parliament voted on a non-legislative resolution which
calls for the EU to "respond to information warfare by Russia." Russian
news websites RT and Sputnik news agency were alleged to be among the
most dangerous "tools of Russian propaganda."

A total of 691 lawmakers participated in the vote: 304 voted in favor of
the resolution dubbed ‘EU strategic communication to counteract
propaganda against it by third parties’, 179 voted against and 208
abstained from voting. Authors of the document equate counteracting
Russia with the resistance to Daesh terrorist group and call on EU
member states to boost financing counter-propaganda projects.

Written by a Polish member of the European Conservatives and Reformists
(ECR) group, Anna Fotyga, the report alleged that Moscow aims to "incite
fear and divide Europe," and called for the establishment of measures to
tackle the perceived Russian propaganda threat. The report suggests that
Moscow provides financial support to opposition parties and
organizations in EU member states, causing disintegration within the bloc.

In other words: to counter alleged Russian propaganda, Europe is
unleashing it own, very much formal counter-propaganda.

As a result of the vote, Russia is now accused of "information warfare,"
with such entities as RT TV channel, Sputnik news agency,
Rossotrudnichestvo federal agency and the Russkiy Mir (Russian World)
fund alleged to be among its most threatening propaganda "tools."

The document also places Russian media organizations alongside terrorist
groups such as Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL).

Sputnik has already appealed to the UN, the Organization for Security
and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and a number of international
journalists' organizations and NGOs, including Reporters Without
Borders, to take measures to stop what it considers to be interference
into freedom of speech in the EU. "The resolution hits straight at a
number of respected media, including Sputnik agency, and has an aim to
stop their activity in the EU. Moreover, the resolution bluntly
contradicts the  EU's own human rights and freedom of press norms,"
reads the letter signed by Sputnik Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan. * * *

Shortly after the vote Vladimir Putin slammed the EU parliament
resolution against Russian media. He said that Europe is trying to
"teach" Russia democracy. Putin added that the EU Parliament's
resolution demonstrates "political degradation" in regard to the "idea
of democracy" in the West. He also pointed out that while "everyone
tries to lecture" Russia on democracy, European lawmakers themselves
resort to a policy of restrictions, "which is not the best way" to deal
with any issues.

"More recently — and these attempts are still ongoing — they [European
officials] tried to 'teach us' democracy, and we have always heard from
these 'teachers' that the most vicious way to do business with opponents
is to ban something and that it is not consistent with the principles
and norms of democracy. Open discussion is always the best way," Putin said.

Adding that he hopes the Western move to "counter Russian propaganda"
won't lead to serious restrictions, the president congratulated RT and
Sputnik journalists on their work.

He concluded that the EU parliament resolution is an "evident sign of
degradation of the Western society's vision of democracy," Putin said.
It is curious how many "western society" citizens agree with him.

(11) Media Assassination of Stephen Bannon

From: chris lancenet <chrislancenet@gmail.com> Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2016
14:47:58 +0900

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-11-19/fear-and-loathing-inside-deep-state

Fear And Loathing Inside The Deep State

The Deep State is in deep trouble. General Flynn will probably be NSC
head and I think he will have real power over fifteen other Intelligence
agencies

Submitted by Larchmonter445 via The Saker,

Everyone in the Deep State is threatened by the Trump Presidency. The
Deep State understands that power, funding, ideological stratagems and
domination of government, media, academia, think tanks and NGOs are in
the ‘field of fight’, to use the book title by a prime target the Deep
State intends to destroy in order to save itself from Trump.

Lt. General (ret.) Michael T. Flynn, three-star expert in Military
Intelligence, former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA),
counselor to Trump for the last fifteen months, is a vital Trump ally
the Deep State is attempting to discredit.

We have seen the one-week ferocious political and media attack on
Stephen Bannon, begun the instant that Bannon was named Trump’s number
one strategist-advisor. Bannon is the theologian of Drain the Swamp, the
Trump policy to rid the system of corruption and catastrophically
disastrous policies and bureaucrat enablers.

To understand Steve Bannon, take the time to read this transcription or
listen to the audio Q&A from a 2014 event in the Vatican. He lays out
his philosophical agenda, and used the 2016 campaign to advance his war
on the Elites.

Drain the Swamp pertains to more than getting the corruption out of the
system.

Bannon now has Trump’s full backing to destroy the UniParty, defeat the
Globalists, banish the warmongers of the MIC and help the legal
prosecution of the corrupt. This is the Revolution to end the domestic
Tyranny and the global Hegemon.

The usual weapons of personal destruction have been launched at Bannon
to destroy him and to deprive Trump of his most effective counselor and
field marshall. Bannon has been branded a racist, an anti-semite, a
white supremacist, an Islamophobe and a misogynist. In every forum and
media outlet, the meme of Bannon being the worst human on the planet
played as intensively as how the Dems attacked Trump during the campaign.

Relentless lies, chorused by every host, talking head, and hater of
every value Trump and Bannon had campaigned for were spewed on Bannon’s
name. All fabricated, most based on a few headlines written by Milo
Yiannopoulos in Breitbart.com, alt right agitprop pieces constructed to
collect reader clicks, revenues for Breitbart and fame for Milo. Bannon
as chief of Breitbart was then scourged for those headlines. Mockery by
Milo used against Steve Bannon.

It was all the Media needed. But the Deep State directed it for good
reason. Bannon is the Pale Rider coming to destroy them.

Steve Bannon is dedicated to cleansing government and the financial
system controlled by all those who have reigned over the foreign regime
changes, the transfer of middle class wealth and income to Wall Street,
paper wealth from derivatives to hedge fund and corporate global
leaders, trillions to the 0.01% elites, all of whom populate the Ultra
Wealthy Class, a new feudalism of billionaires and millionaires.

Bannon’s life long credentials and work with Jews, Blacks, females and
Muslims eventually helped stifle the Media excesses. But the vicious
branding may stick long after the inauguration.

The fear and loathing of the Deep State is focused on another nemesis
and threat in the person of General Flynn. Flynn challenges the Deep
State’s incompetence, particularly its lack of results in the fight
against terrorism. Flynn dealt with this in the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan. He wrote a white paper on the state of US military
Intelligence and the need to fix it.

Flynn also is sickened with the 2012 Benghazi event and coverup, the
lies of Clinton and the abandonment by the command structure of CIA,
Pentagon, State and NSC. The Syrian war, the attempted coup of Erdogan,
and the carnage wrought by bad policies, sheepish leadership and
less-than-best methods of Intelligence gathering and usage motivated the
General to join Trump.

Flynn is now Trump’s guide into the Presidential raw data Intel reports
and briefings. General Flynn is Trump’s personal analyst for
interpretation of the data. Flynn has attended every briefing Trump has
received. He is in place and the Deep State is out. So, they have
mounted their counter-attack as soon as it was clear he would head the
reform of the Intelligence community, and serve the newly elected President.

Flynn has recruited over two hundred generals and admirals and
twenty-two Medal of Honor recipients to the successful Trump campaign.
Now some of the generals are possible cabinet or undersecretary
department nominees or agency appointees.

The Deep State is in deep trouble. General Flynn will probably be NSC
head and I think he will have real power over fifteen other Intelligence
agencies. Flynn may have great power over huge swaths of the MIC. He
certainly will assist in the cleaning out of neocons and feckless
employees, managers, supervisors and directors.

Against Flynn, the Deep State is using a more traditional model of
career attack and personal destruction than it did with Bannon. Multiple
articles written to show that Flynn and Putin, Flynn and Russia, Flynn
and RT media are part of the Trump gang of pro-Russian contacts
connected to the Kremlin.

Below is General Flynn at dinner with President Putin in Moscow. He
explains in an interview.

Other Trump-Putin supposed contacts are Carter Page and Paul Manafort,
both of whom were attacked by the Media for the Deep State months ago.
They resigned under political pressure applied through the media.

In a payback, the Deep State lost some of their own sent to the Trump
campaign who were unable to survive first inspection. They were dropped
from the Trump campaign transition team.

But, once Trump is sworn in, Carter Page will be back, most likely. He
has connections to Gazprom, is well-liked in Moscow, and will be a link
for American energy companies and perhaps some joint ventures in the gas
field development and pipeline industry. Several friends of Trump are
from the gas and oil industry, and the world is a small world when
energy is the issue. The Arctic, the eastern Mediterranean, the South
China Sea and other large development zones have enormous new fields to
be tapped and exploited. Even the Black Sea zone around Crimea has
yet-to-be-tapped energy stores.

The primary interest of the Trump foreign policy will be to make America
wealthy again. The Eurasian development has already attracted Trump to
the OBOR of China and the AIIB infrastructure bank. Probably the entire
New Silk Road of China and EAEU of Russia is not going to be without
major US participation. The difference now is facilitation,
participation, investment and benefits instead of obstruction,
destabilization and terrorism used to thwart it all.

To destroy Flynn and weaken Trump with the Intelligence and Military
communities, the classic Washington technique of long articles with many
negative anonymous sourced comments was used, carefully crafted
headlines and paragraph headers, all designed for very negative Google
Search feeds.

The latest is about Flynn and Turkish "operatives". Sounds like they met
in dark alleys or underground passageways. Maybe in some Ankara
safehouse, eh?

It turns out quite differently.

But Flynn is obviously being watched closely by CIA/State Dept. They
know he is doing the bidding of Trump. And for good reason, Trump needs
to know which way Turkey is leaning post-coup? And how sensitive is the
Kurd issue in Syria? What are the ramifications of the US and Russia
working in tandem against ISIS in Syria? Will Turkey help with safe
zones for refugees? Will Turkey leave Syria after the war or does it
plan to resist Russia and Assad? What about NATO? What about the Uyghurs
Turkey protects, and is China being forced to come with military to put
down the Uyghurs inside ISIS? Will the issue of demanding Fethullah
Gulen’s extradition continue? Will there be mass death penalties for the
imprisoned coup participants and Gulen’s followers?

Flynn had a panoply of possible questions to be answered by the
operatives from Erdogan. And the Turks would have questions they wanted
answered with some hint of Trump’s positions.

The Deep State are tracking Flynn and the Turks and are now exposing his
links as a professional consultant. Nothing illegal. Nothing suspicious.
Nothing out of the ordinary. But it was General Flynn, Trump’s guy.
Smear him.

How else would this information surface in the Washington Post except
from the Deep State? And if you know the history of the Deep State, the
WaPo is their first choice for all leaks, briefings in depth, exposes
used to undermine officials who cross them or who point to the Deep
States’ misdeeds or failures. You won’t find Sy Hersh’s articles in WaPo.

The point of the articles about General Flynn was to shame him, to put
down his personality, his lack of obedience to the Obama regime. He was
investigated for giving Intel to foreign nations, we are told. He shared
Intelligence with the Pakistanis, we are told. Read how his fellow
generals talk about him.

Imagine if the Deep State decided that Intelligence should never be
shared. Well, the U.S. would have no allies. No nation joins a war
effort without Intelligence for their military. Flynn, whose entire
thirty-plus year career has been in Intelligence understands that. And
he did it. Proudly, he related to the investigators, and it all was
dropped except the record and the reporting of it now.

The investigation was actually to cast a black mark on Flynn to be found
later, by the uninformed, at the most sensitive of times. In this case,
it is to weaken Flynn, to weaken Trump.

"Mike Flynn shares Intel. Mike Flynn acts without checking with what the
Deep State wants." It turns out that Flynn did get approval for all he
did. But he simply did the professional thing. He acted in behalf of his
specialty, his profession, his oath of duty and the American people who
paid him to protect America.

There is something to be gained by studying this meeting with Turkey’s
operatives. Flynn’s meeting signals that Trump will not likely arm the
Kurds with heavy weapons. That would drive Turkey into the
Russian-Iranian embrace fully. A practical solution to defeating ISIS
and AQ and ending the Syrian war has to avoid losing Turkey. Trump is
not going to be trying to coup anyone. His policy is no regime changes.
He also does not like these secret wars of the CIA. If there is to be
war, he wants it fought by the military, with a plan for victory.
Principally, Trump’s wars will be like President Eisenhower’s. There
were none for eight years.

The warmongers and neocons of the Deep State and surface government will
try to work over all the Trump nominees in the security and policy
arena. Trump has refused to listen to any of them, though a few have
been invited in to the goings on. However, we don’t know who is talking
to Trump and who is talking to the various panels of experts that will
advise who they think he should select. So a few neocons and warmongers
like John Bolton and General Keane have made it into Trump Tower. But he
eschewed them all these years and throughout the campaign. I doubt they
will have any role in policy. He considers them failures.

Expect very deep shakeouts at CIA and State. I think Flynn will use
fellow military he knows and trusts as deputies and undersecretaries.
General Keith Kellogg and General Ronald Burgess are likely for
important positions.

There has to be this cleaning out of the subterranean world of the Deep
State.  If President Carter got rid of 800 officers when Stansfield
Turner tried cleaning out the CIA, I’m betting there are 1500 officers
in the CIA who need retirement now.

As for the State Department and the Clinton corruption of pay for play,
that is only half the problem. The eighty years of Khazarian dominance
of the State Department has created the need that whole thing ought to
be shut down except for visas at embassies and consulates. (I’d use the
Commerce Department in the interim. Send everyone else from State home.
Board up Foggy Bottom for ten years.)

Addendum: General Flynn early in the primary campaign consulted as
advisor to five candidates. Carly Fiorina, Scott Walker, Ben Carson, Ted
Cruz, and Donald Trump. He chose Trump as the one who wanted to be
President in order to fix the country and make America great again. Now,
Trump, Bannon and Flynn are going to drain the swamp, if they can survive.

(Flynn has been named NSC Advisor and will command a staff of 400 from
all the other Intel agencies, it has been reported by Fox and AP.)