894 U.S. Senate passes the "Anti-Semitism Awareness Act". MSM brands the Internet "Fake News"

U.S. Senate passes the "Anti-Semitism Awareness Act". MSM brands the
Internet "Fake News"

Newsletter published on 16 December 2016

(1) U.S. Senate passes the "Anti-Semitism Awareness Act"
(2) Fake News crusade to discredit Trump: MSM versus the Internet
(3) Manufacturing Normality: MSM brands the Internet "Fake News"
(4) Liberalism a dying faith - Pat Buchanan
(5) Paul Craig Roberts on Trump's appointees: allow time, don't jump to
conclusions

(1) U.S. Senate passes the "Anti-Semitism Awareness Act"
Date: Wed, 7 Dec 2016 17:12:33 +0000 (UTC) From: Archer Frey
<archerc@sbcglobal.net> Subject: Fw: "Anti-Semitism Awareness Act"
passes the Senate From: Michael Hoffman <hoffman@revisionisthistory.org>

December 7, 2016

http://revisionistreview.blogspot.com/2016/12/anti-semitism-awareness-act-passes-in.html

The gradual erosion of the First Amendment: The U.S. Senate has passed
the Orwellian "Anti-Semitism Awareness Act"

By Michael Hoffman

No, this is not a joke, or a newly discovered appendix to a dystopian
George Orwell novel.  The United States Senate on December 1 did indeed
pass the "Anti-Semitism Awareness Act." A companion bill has been sent
to the House Committee on the Judiciary.

We are unfortunately all too familiar with this type of abridgment of
freedom of speech and press. In Canada, Australia, Britain, France,
Germany, Austria, and everywhere that the "error has no rights" standard
of the Inquisition has been revived, dissident writers and activists
have been fined or imprisoned.
<http://revisionistreview.blogspot.com/2016/12/tis-season-to-remember.html>Ten
years ago yesterday historian David Irving was released from an Austrian
prison after serving more than a year for his alleged "anti-Semitic"
speech and writing.The American media are mostly not interested. In
their view this is the right kind of repression.

The official explanation for the thought police enabler in the Senate is
that the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act "seeks to adopt the U.S. State
Department’s definition of anti-Semitism so that the Education
Department may consider it in investigating reports of religiously
motivated campus crimes." Note that word: "crimes." We will return to it
in a moment.

The bill was proposed by Senators Bob Casey, a "family values"
Pennsylvania Democrat, and Tim Scott, a South Carolina Republican. It
was co-sponsored by "Conservative" Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, also
of South Carolina, to "ensure the Education Department has the necessary
statutory tools at their disposal to investigate anti-Jewish incidents,"
according to a news release.

The misnamed bill (it’s not about merely raising "awareness"), gives the
federal government the authority to investigate ideas, thoughts, and
political positions as violations of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It's
supported by the Israeli lobby in the U.S. and appears to be the work of
the Israeli government. Supporters include the American-Israel Public
Affairs Committee, the Anti-Defamation League, the Jewish Federations of
North America, and the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

Mainstream media such as the New York Times, which are obsessed with
detecting supposed ominous Russian "meddling" in American politics, have
reported barely a word about this legislation, which has the
fingerprints of a foreign power all over it.

Senator Casey listed the following examples of anti-Semitic crimes
covered by the bill:

oAccusing Israel as a state of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust

oJudging Israel by a double standard that one would not apply to any
other democratic nation

oDemonizing Israel by blaming it for inter-religious or political tensions

Are political thoughts and words a hate crime which should be
investigated by colleges and universities, or the Department of
Education? That’s what this Act will require if it passes in the House
of Representatives. Should criticizing the government of China be
treated as a hate crime against Asian students?

Passage of the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act will have a chilling effect
on freedom of speech at America’s institutes of higher learning, and
this is its intent. The Act is an extension of growing Israeli supremacy
over our Republic through the implementation of laws consonant with
Talmudic halacha, which consists of one law for the lower-souled goyim,
and another for the higher-souled Judaics (cf. BT Sanhedrin 57a;
Kiddushin 66c; Erubin 21b; Bava Metzia 114b; Kerithoth 6b and 58a;  and
the Chofetz Chaim’s Mishneh Berurah: O.H. 330, among many other
authoritative halachot).

Zionist students on American campuses are free to denigrate, insult and
mock every nationality, government and religion on earth. On the glass
toilet known as television, Zionist Larry David urinated on a portrait
of Jesus Christ in October of 2009, on the HBO TV show, "Curb Your
Enthusiasm." There’s no "Anti-Christian Awareness Act" on the
legislative agenda of our cowardly Congress.

Thus far the Los Angeles Times has been one of the few newspapers
willing to broach this topic. In a Times’ guest editorial Liz Jackson
writes: "This fall, Berkeley suspended an academic course called
'Palestine: a Settler Colonial Inquiry' after complaints from the same
Israeli advocacy organizations who had previously tried to get the
Education Department to stifle campus debate. This is how the chilling
effect plays out. Campus administrators understand the specter of
federal investigations —not just the threat of losing funding, but the
fallout from bad headlines — and they suppress legitimate speech to
avoid problems."

To add insult to injury, the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act contains the
following coda: "Nothing in this Act, or an amendment made by this Act,
shall be construed to diminish or infringe upon any right protected
under the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States."

Sure. And some are more equal than others.

(2) Fake News crusade to discredit Trump: MSM versus the Internet

http://www.unz.com/pgiraldi/fake-news-versus-no-news/

Fake News Versus No News How Russia is pilloried while real news about
Israel goes unreported

By Philip Giraldi

Friday, December 9, 2016, 13:28 Beijing

The drama surrounding allegations that the internet is awash with "fake
news" is being promoted by the so-called mainstream media which
certainly has a lot to answer for when it comes to producing material
that does not pass the smell test. Does the name Judith Miller ring any
bells?

The fake news saga is intended to discredit Donald Trump, whom the media
hates mostly because they failed to understand either him or the
Americans who voted for him in the recent election. You have to blame
somebody when you are wrong so you invent "fake news" as the game
changer that explains your failure to comprehend simple truths.

To accomplish that, the clearly observable evidence that the media was
piling on Donald Trump at every opportunity has somehow been
deliberately morphed into a narrative that it is Trump who was attacking
the media, suggesting that it was all self-defense on the part of the
Rachel Maddows of this world, but anyone who viewed even a small portion
of the farrago surely will have noted that it was the Republican
candidate who was continuously coming under attack from both the right
and left of the political-media spectrum.

At the present moment, it is practically obligatory to slam Russia and
Putin at every opportunity even though Moscow is too militarily weak and
poor to fancy itself a global adversary of the U.S. Instead of seeking a
new Cold War, Washington should instead focus on working with Russia to
make sure that disagreements over policies in relatively unimportant
parts of the world do not escalate into nuclear exchanges.

Russian actions on its own doorstep in Eastern Europe do not in fact
threaten the United States or any actual vital interest. Nor does Moscow
threaten the U.S. through its intervention on behalf of the Syrian
government in the Middle East. That Russia is described incessantly as a
threat in those areas is largely a contrivance arranged by the media,
the Democratic and Republican National Committees and by the White House.

Blaming Russia, which has good reasons to be suspicious of Washington’s
intentions, is particularly convenient for those many diverse inside the
Beltway interests that require a significant enemy to keep the cash
flowing out of the pockets of taxpayers and into the bank accounts of
the useless grifters who inhabit K-Street and Capitol Hill.

There is, however, another country that has interfered in U.S.
elections, has endangered Americans living or working overseas and has
corrupted America’s legislative and executive branches. It has exploited
that corruption to initiate legislation favorable to itself, has
promoted unnecessary and unwinnable wars and has stolen American
technology and military secrets. Its ready access to the mainstream
media to spread its own propaganda provides it with cover for its
actions and it accomplishes all that and more through the agency of a
powerful and well-funded domestic lobby that oddly is not subject to the
accountability afforded by the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) of
1938 even though it manifestly works on behalf of a foreign government.
That country is, of course, Israel.

On December 1 the Senate unanimously passed an Anti-Semitism Awarness
bill. The Anti-Semitism Awareness Act is intended to give the Department
of Education investigatory authority over "anti-Jewish incidents" on
America’s college campuses. Such "incidents" are not limited to
religious bigotry, with the examples cited in the bill’s text including
criticism of Israel and claiming that the holocaust was "exaggerated."
The Anti-Semitism bill makes Jews and Jewish interests a legally
protected class, immune from any criticism.

"Free speech" means in practice that you can burn an American flag, sell
pornography, attack Christianity in the vilest terms, but criticizing
Israel (on college campuses) is off limits if you want to avoid falling
into the clutches of the legal system. The Act is a major step forward
in effectively making any expressed opposition to Israeli actions a hate
crime and is similar to punitive legislation that has been enacted in
twenty-two states as well as in Canada. It is strongly supported by the
Israeli Lobby, which quite likely drafted it, and is seeking to use
legal challenges to delegitimize and eliminate any opposition to the
policies of the state of Israel. That the legislation is not being
condemned or even discussed in the generally liberal media tells you
everything you need to know about the amazing power of one particular
unelected and unaccountable lobby in the U.S.

(3) Manufacturing Normality: MSM brands the Internet "Fake News"

http://www.unz.com/article/manufacturing-normality/

Manufacturing Normality

C.J. Hopkins

December 6, 2016

Sometime circa mid-November, in the wake of Hillary Clinton’s defeat
(i.e., the beginning of the end of democracy), the self-appointed
Guardians of Reality, better known as the corporate media, launched a
worldwide marketing campaign against the evil and perfidious scourge of
"fake news." This campaign is now at a fever pitch. Media outlets
throughout the empire are pumping out daily dire warnings of the
imminent, existential threat to our freedom posed by the "fake news"
menace. This isn’t the just the dissemination of disinformation,
propaganda, and so on, that’s been going on for thousands of years …
Truth itself is under attack. The very foundations of Reality are shaking.

Who’s behind this "fake news" menace? Well, Putin, naturally, but not
just Putin. It appears to be the work of a vast conspiracy of virulent
anti-establishment types, ultra-alt-rightists, ultra-leftists,
libertarian retirees, armchair socialists, Sandernistas, Corbynistas,
ontological terrorists, fascism normalizers, poorly educated
anti-Globalism freaks, and just garden variety Clinton-haters.

Fortunately, for us, the corporate media is hot on the trail of this
motley of scoundrels. As you’re probably aware, The Washington
Postrecently published a breathtaking piece of Pulitzer-quality
investigative journalism shamelessly smearing hundreds of alternative
publications (like the one you’re reading) as "peddlers of Russian
propaganda." The piece, a classic McCarthyite smear job perpetrated by
the Post‘s Craig Timberg, was based on the groundless, paranoid claims
of what Timberg unironically describes as "two teams of independent
researchers," The Foreign Policy Research Institute, a third-rate,
former anti-Communist think tank, and an anonymous website,
propornot.com, that no one had ever heard of prior to its sudden
appearance on the Internet last August, and which, based on the tenor of
its tweets and emails, appears to be run by Beavis and Butthead.

The Washington Post has been catching some flak for taking this
courageous "pro-Truth" stand against the forces of Putinist falsehood
and fakery. A host of dangerously extremist publications, like
CounterPunch, The Intercept, Rolling Stone, The Nation, The New Yorker,
Fortune Magazine, Bloomberg, and US News & World Report, have lambasted
The Post for its "shoddy," "lazy," or otherwise sub-par journalism
practices. The Post, of course, is "backing its boy," and refusing to
apologize for defending democracy, as it has throughout its storied
history, like when it smeared Gary Webb as retribution for reporting the
CIA-Contra connection, more or less destroying his career as a
journalist, or when it blatantly shilled for Hillary Clinton throughout
her ugly, fear-mongering campaign, notably publishing sixteen negative
pieces on Sanders in sixteen hours, or when it ran this piece on how
Clinton might have been poisoned by secret Putinist agents … and these
are just a few of the highlights.

But I don’t want to single out The Washington Post, or its Executive
Editor, Marty Baron, who is clearly a paragon of journalistic ethics.
The rest of the corporate media have also been mercilessly flogging the
"fake news" hysteria, and the "Putinist propaganda" hysteria, and the
"normalizing of fascism" hysteria, and beating the "post-Truth" drum to
death. The Guardian, The New York Times, et al., NPR, the TV news
networks, the entire mainstream media chorus is barking out the message
in perfect synch. So what is really going on here?

As I suggested in these pages previously, what we are experiencing is
the pathologization (or the "abnormalization") of political dissent,
i.e., the systematic stigmatization of any and all forms of
non-compliance with neoliberal consensus reality. Political distinctions
like "left" and "right" are disappearing, and are being replaced by
imponderable distinctions like "normal" and "abnormal," "true" and
"false," and "real" and "fake." Such distinctions do not lend themselves
to argument. They are proffered to us as axiomatic truths, empirical
facts which no normal person would ever dream of contradicting.

In place of competing political philosophies, the neoliberal
intelligentsia is substituting a simpler choice, "normality" or
"abnormality." The nature of the "abnormality" varies according to what
is being stigmatized. Today it’s "Corbyn the anti-Semite," tomorrow it’s
"Sanders the racist crackpot," or "Trump the Manchurian candidate," or
whatever. That the smears themselves are indiscriminate (and, in many
instances, totally ridiculous) belies the effectiveness of the broader
strategy, which is simply to abnormalize the target and whatever he or
she represents. It makes no difference whether one is smeared as a
racist, as Sanders was during the primaries, or as an anti-Semite, as
Corbyn has been, or a fascist, as Trump has relentlessly been, or
peddlers of Russian propaganda, as Truthout, CounterPunch, Naked
Capitalism, and a number of other publications have been … the message
is, they are somehow "not normal."

Why is this any different from the shameless smear jobs the press has
been doing on people since the invention of the press and shameless
smear jobs? Well, hold on, because I’m about to tell you. Mostly it has
to do with words, especially binary oppositions like "real" and "fake,"
and "normal" and "abnormal," which are, of course, essentially
meaningless … their value being purely tactical. Which is to say they
denote nothing. They are weapons deployed by a dominant group to enforce
conformity to its consensus reality. This is how they’re being used at
the moment.

The meaningless binary oppositions that the neoliberal intelligentsia
and the corporate media are supplanting traditional opposing political
philosophies with (i.e., normal/abnormal, real/fake), in addition to
stigmatizing a diversity of sources of non-conforming information and
ideas, are also restructuring our consensus reality as a conceptual
territory in which anyone thinking, writing, or speaking outside the
mainstream is deemed some kind of "deviant," or "extremist," or some
other form of social pariah. Again, it doesn’t matter what kind, as
"deviance" in itself is the point.

Actually, the opposite of deviance is the point. Because this is how
"normality" is manufactured. And how consensus reality as a whole is
manufactured … and how the manufacturing process is concealed. Apologies
for getting all Baudrillardian, but this is actually how this stuff works.

The media’s current obsession with "fake news" conceals the fact that
there is no "real news," and simultaneously produces "real news," or,
rather, the simulation thereof. It does so by means of the binary
opposition (i.e., if such a thing as "fake news" exists … then, ipso
facto, "real news" exists). Likewise, the focus on "not normalizing
Trump" conceals the fact that there is no "normality," and
simultaneously manufactures "normality" … which is always only a simulation.

Similarly, the stigmatization of Trump as a modern-day Hitler, or
Mussolini, or some other type of fascist dictator, conceals the fact
that the United States is already virtually a one-party system, with
concentrated ownership and control of the media, an omnipresent
militarized police force, arbitrary enforcement of the rule of law, the
maintenance of a more or less permanent state of war, and many other
standard features of authoritarian systems of government. At the same
time, this projection of "fascism" conjures, or manufactures, its
opposite, "democracy" … or the simulation of democracy.

This neoliberal simulation of democracy, and normality, and reality, is
what the corporate media, and the entire neoliberal intelligentsia, is
desperately working to shore up at the moment, as they took quite a hit
with this election mess. Trump was not supposed to win. He was supposed
to be another Hitlerian bogeyman that the neoliberals could save us all
from, but then, well, look what happened. The problem for the neoliberal
ruling classes, and the mainstream media, and liberals generally, having
gone balls out on the Hitler schtick, is that they pretty much have to
keep it up now, which is going to get increasingly weird as Trump turns
out to not be Hitler, but, rather, just another Republican plutocrat,
albeit one with zero government experience and some certified bull goose
loonies on his staff. I’m sure Trump will want to help them out, though
(i.e., his neoliberal "enemies"), with the occasional racist or
misogynist tweet, as he will need to maintain his "white working class"
creds, at least until the "War on Islam" gets going.

In any event, we can all look forward to some serious pathologization of
dissent throughout the coming four (and perhaps eight) years. And I’m
not referring to Trump and his boys, though I’m certain they’ll be in
there slinging it too. I’m referring to our friends in the corporate
media, like Marty Baron and his smear machine, and the Guardians of
Reality at The New York Times, The Guardian, and other "papers of
record." WNYC is already airing a daily "descent into fascism" segment.
And of course the neoliberal left, Mother Jones, The Nation, et al., and
The New York Review of Books, apparently (they just can’t get enough of
this Hitler stuff), will be monitoring liberals’ every thought to ensure
that fascism does not get normalized … which God have mercy should that
ever happen. Who knows how America might end up? Torturing people?
Attacking other countries that pose no threat to it whatsoever?
Indefinitely imprisoning people in camps? Assassinating anyone the
president deems a "terrorist" or an "enemy combatant" with the tacit
approval of the majority of Americans? Surveilling everyone’s phone
calls, emails, tweets, and reading and web-browsing habits?

Imagine the dystopia we would all be living in … if things like that
were considered "normal."

C. J. Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright and satirist based
in Berlin. His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) and
Broadway Play Publishing (US). He can reached at his website,
cjhopkins.com, or at consentfactory.org.

(4) Liberalism a dying faith - Pat Buchanan

http://www.unz.com/pbuchanan/has-the-trumpian-revolution-begun/

Has the Trumpian Revolution Begun?

Pat Buchanan

December 9, 2016

The wailing and keening over the choice of Oklahoma Attorney General
Scott Pruitt to head the EPA appears to be a lead indicator of a coming
revolution far beyond Reagan’s.

"Trump Taps Climate Skeptic For Top Environmental Post," said The Wall
Street Journal. "Climate Change Denial," bawled a disbelieving New York
Times, which urged the Senate to put Pruitt in a "dust bin."

Clearly, though his victory was narrow, Donald Trump remains
contemptuous of political correctness and defiant of liberal ideology.

For environmentalism, as conservative scholar Robert Nisbet wrote in
1982, is more than the "most important social movement" of the 20th
century. It is a militant and dogmatic faith that burns heretics.

"Environmentalism is well on its way to becoming the third great wave of
redemptive struggle in Western history," wrote Nisbet, "the first being
Christianity, the second modern socialism." In picking a "climate
denier" to head EPA, Trump is rejecting revealed truth.

Yet, as with his choices of Steve Bannon as White House strategist and
Sen. Jeff Sessions as attorney general, he has shown himself to be an
unapologetic apostate to liberal orthodoxy.

Indeed, with his presidency, we may be entering a post-liberal era.

In 1950, literary critic Lionel Trilling wrote, "In the United States at
this time liberalism is not only the dominant but even the sole
intellectual tradition. For it is the plain fact that nowadays there are
no conservative or reactionary ideas in general circulation."

The rise of the conservative movement of Barry Goldwater and Ronald
Reagan revealed liberalism’s hour to be but a passing moment. Yet,
today, something far beyond conservatism seems to be afoot.

As Hegel taught, in the dialectic of history the thesis calls into
existence the antithesis. What we seem to be seeing is a rejection, and
a counterreformation against the views and values that came out of the
social and political revolutions of the 1960s.

Consider the settled doctrine Trump disrespected with Pruitt.

We have long been instructed that climate change is real, that its cause
is man-made, that it imperils the planet with rising seas, hurricanes
and storms, that all nations have a duty to curb the release of carbon
dioxide to save the world for future generations.

This is said to be "scientific truth," and "climate deniers" are like
people who believe the earth is flat and the sun revolves around it.
Some hold the matter to be so grave that climate deniers should be
censored for promoting socially destructive falsehoods.

Yet, the people remain skeptical.

Their worry is not that the rising waters of the Med will swamp the
Riviera, but that tens of millions of Arabs, Muslims and Africans may be
coming across to swamp Europe, and that millions of Mexicans may cross
the Rio Grande to swamp the USA.

Call them climate deniers or climate skeptics, but they see the
establishment as running the Big Con to effect a transfer of wealth and
power away from the people — and to themselves.

Across the West, establishments have lost credibility.

The proliferation of minority parties, tearing off pieces of the
traditional ruling parties, points to a growing distrust in ruling
regimes and a return to identifying with the nation and tribe whence one
came.

A concomitant of this is a growing disbelief in egalitarianism and in
the equality of all races, creeds, nations, cultures and peoples.

The Supreme Court may say all religions are equal and all must be
treated equally. But do Americans believe Christianity and Islam are
equal? How could they, when Christians claim their faith has as its
founder the Son of God and God himself?

After calling for a ban on Muslim immigration, Trump was elected
president. After inviting a million refugees from Syria’s civil war into
Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel admits having made a mistake and is
now in favor of letting German cities and towns decide if women should
be allowed to wear burqas.

A sea change in thought is taking place in the West.

Liberalism appears to be a dying faith. America’s elites may still
preach their trinity of values: diversity, democracy, equality. But the
majorities in America and Europe are demanding that the borders be
secured and Third World immigrants kept out.

The next president disbelieves in free trade. He wants a border wall. He
questions the wisdom of our Mideast wars and the need for NATO. He is
contemptuous of democratist dogma that how other nations rule themselves
is our business. He rejects transnationalism and globalism.

"There is no global anthem, no global currency, no certificate of global
citizenship," said Trump in Cincinnati, "We pledge allegiance to one
flag, and that flag is the American flag. From now on, it’s going to be
America first. … We’re going to put ourselves first."

That’s not Adlai Stevenson or Jimmy Carter or Barack Obama.

Nothing seems settled or certain. All is in flux. But change is coming.
"Things are in the saddle, and ride mankind."

Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of the new book "The Greatest
Comeback: How Richard Nixon Rose From Defeat to Create the New Majority."

(5) Paul Craig Roberts on Trump's appointees: allow time, don't jump to
conclusions
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article45962.htm

Trump’s Appointments

By Paul Craig Roberts

December 03, 2016 "Information Clearing House" - What do they mean?

Before I give an explanation, let’s be sure we all know what an
explanation is. An explanation is not a justification. The collapse of
education in the US is so severe that many Americans, especially younger
ones, cannot tell the difference between an explanation and a defense,
justification, or apology for what they regard as a guilty person or
party. If an explanation is not damning or sufficiently damning of what
they want damned, the explanation is interpreted as an excuse for the
object of their scorn. In America, reason and objective analysis have
taken a backseat to emotion.

We do not know what the appointments mean except, as Trump discovered
once he confronted the task of forming a government, that there is no
one but insiders to appoint. For the most part that is correct.
Outsiders are a poor match for insiders who tend to eat them alive.
Ronald Reagan’s California crew were a poor match for George H.W. Bush’s
insiders. The Reagan part of the government had a hell of a time
delivering results that Reagan wanted.

Another limit on a president’s ability to form a government is Senate
confirmation of presidential appointees. Whereas Congress is in
Republican hands, Congress remains in the hands of special interests who
will protect their agendas from hostile potential appointees. Therefore,
although Trump does not face partisan opposition from Congress, he faces
the power of special interests that fund congressional political campaigns.

When the White House announced my appointment as Assistant Secretary of
the Treasury, Republican Senator Bob Dole put a hold on my appointment.
Why? Dole had presidential ambitions, and he saw the rising star of
Republican Representative Jack Kemp as a potential obstacle. As I had
written the Kemp-Roth bill that had become Reagan’s economic policy,
Dole regarded me in the Treasury as a one-up for Kemp. So, you see, all
sorts of motives can plague a president’s ability to form a government.

With Trump under heavy attack prior to his inauguration, he cannot
afford drawn out confirmation fights and defeats.

Does Trump’s choice of Steve Mnuchin as Treasury Secretary mean that
Goldman Sachs will again be in charge of US economic policy? Possibly,
but we do not know. We will have to wait and see. Mnuchin left Goldman
Sachs 14 years ago. He has been making movies in Hollywood and started
his own investment firm. Many people have worked for Goldman Sachs and
the New York Banks who have become devastating critics of the banks.
Read Nomi Prins’ books and visit Pam Martens website, Wall Street on
Parade ( http://wallstreetonparade.com ). My sometimes coauthor Dave
Kranzler is a former Wall Streeter.

Commentators are jumping to conclusions based on appointees past
associations. Mnuchin was an early Trump supporter and chairman of
Trump’s finance campaign. He has Wall Street and investment experience.
He should be an easy confirmation. For a president-elect under attack
this is important.

Will Mnuchin suppport Trump’s goal of bringing middle class jobs back to
America? Is Trump himself sincere? We do not know.

What we do know is that Trump attacked the fake "free trade" agreements
that have stripped America of middle class jobs just as did Pat Buchanan
and Ross Perot. We know that the Clintons made their fortune as agents
of the One Percent, the only ones who have profited from the offshoring
of American jobs. Trump’s fortune is not based on jobs offshoring.

Not every billionaire is an oligarch. Trump’s relation to the financial
sector is one as a debtor. No doubt Trump and the banks have had
unsatisfactory relationships. And Trump says he is a person who enjoys
revenge.

What about the hot-headed generals announced as National Security
Advisor and Secretary of Defense? Both seem to be death on Iran, which
is stupid and unfortunate. However, keep in mind that Gen. Flynn is the
one who blew the whistle on the Obama regime for rejecting the advice of
the DIA and sending ISIS to overthrow Assad. Flynn said that ISIS was a
"willful decision" of the Obama administration, not some unexpected event.

And keep in mind that Gen. Mattis is the one who told Trump that torture
does not work, which caused Trump to back off his endorsement of torture.

So both of these generals, as bad as they may be, are an improvement on
what came before. Both have shown independence from the neoconservative
line that supports ISIS and torture.

Keep in mind also that there are two kinds of insiders. Some represent
the agendas of special interests; others go with the flow because they
enjoy participating in the affairs of the nation. Those who don’t go
with the flow are eliminated from participating.

Goldman Sachs is a good place to get rich. That Mnuchin left 14 years
ago could mean that he was not a good match for Goldman Sachs, that they
did not like him or he did not like them. That Flynn and Mattis have
taken independent positions on ISIS and torture suggests that they are
mavericks. All three of these appointees seem to be strong and confident
individuals who know the terrain, which is the kind of people a
president needs if he is to accomplish anything.

The problem with beating up on an administration before it exists and
has a record is that the result can be that the administration becomes
deaf to all criticism. It is much better to give the new president a
chance and to hold his feet to the fire on the main issues.

Trump alone among all the presidential candidates said that he saw no
point in fomenting conflict with Russia. Trump alone questioned NATO’s
continued existence 25 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Trump alone said that he would work to bring middle class jobs back to
America.

And Trump said that he would enforce immigration laws. Is this racism or
is this a defense of citizenship? How is the US a country if there is no
difference between illegal aliens and citizens?

Commentators of all stripes are making a mistake to damn in advance the
only government that campaigned on peace with Russia, restoring middle
class jobs, and respect for the country’s borders. We should seize on
these promises and hold the Trump administration to them. We should also
work to make Trump aware of the serious adverse consequences of
environmental degradation.

Who is blowing these opportunities? Trump? Mnuchin? Flynn? Mattis?

Or us?

The more Trump is criticized, the easier it is for the neoconservatives
to offer their support and enter the administration. To date he has not
appointed one, but you can bet your life that Israel is lobbying hard
for the neocons. The neocons still reign in the media, the think tanks,
university departments of foreign affairs, and the foreign policy
community. They are an ever present danger.

Trump’s personality means that he is likely to see more reward in being
the president who reverses American decline than in using the presidency
to augment his personal fortune. Therefore, there is some hope for
change occuring from the top rather than originating in the streets of
bloody revolution. By the time Americans reach the revolutionary stage
of awareness the police state is likely to be too strong for them.

So let’s give the Trump administration a chance. We can turn on him
after he sells us out.

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for
Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was
columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators
Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns
have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts' latest books are The
Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the
West, How America Was Lost, and The Neoconservative Threat to World Order.