Who do you want to win?

[adwinistrator]

My liberal friends have sent me this doomsday piece about bannon THREE times now:

http://time.com/4575780/stephen-bannon-fourth-turning/

Any comments or critiques? I don't know enough to hold any opinion on this

Still reading but...

There's plenty of academic criticism you can find about Strauss and Howe online. They've basically turned they're generational paradigm worldview into a business strategy consulting team... While there may be some merits to the concepts of national and political cycles of crisis-order-establishment-decay, I would argue that it's a derivative view that ignores the drivers of events throughout history. It has it's uses, in comparing the different outcomes of similar developments in history, but some people look at their work as some predictive overarching theory.

Sure, I want to know if Bannon is really into this stuff.

Here is the breathless part:

. Bannon had clearly thought a long time both about the domestic potential and the foreign policy implications of Strauss and Howe. More than once during our interview, he pointed out that each of the three preceding crises had involved a great war, and those conflicts had increased in scope from the American Revolution through the Civil War to the Second World War. He expected a new and even bigger war as part of the current crisis, and he did not seem at all fazed by the prospect.
I did not agree, and said so. But, knowing that the history of international conflict was my own specialty, he repeatedly pressed me to say we could expect a conflict at least as big as the Second World War in the near or medium term. I refused.

How can you know someone's motivations in regards to something like this? For all I know, Bannon's thinking the generational crisis is already upon us, and that there's a way to avoid the massive wars of the past, while still establishing the new order. That's the thing with the Strauss and Howe analysis, what determines the great rift, is it every 80 years on the dot? What about the tumultuous civil rights era, Vietnam War, Kennedy assassination... Does that not count for a generational crisis point with a new order established?

[apeman]

I agree.

I want to know if Bannon is still into this stuff, thought maybe someone here would know more about him.

I mean, the meeting in the article took place in 2009, so I wondered if there is a more recent trail.

Might be no good answer.

[Alexander PhiAlipson]

Oh "the story" is just "liberal media generated bullshit"?

FROM THE SITE https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-of ... ouncil-and

The Principals Committee (PC) shall continue to serve as the Cabinet-level senior interagency forum for considering policy issues that affect the national security interests of the United States.

-

The PC shall have as its regular attendees the Secretary of State, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of Defense, the Attorney General, the Secretary of Homeland Security, the Assistant to the President and Chief of Staff, the Assistant to the President and Chief Strategist, the National Security Advisor, and the Homeland Security Advisor. The Director of National Intelligence and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff shall attend where issues pertaining to their responsibilities and expertise are to be discussed.

Now you tell me that isn't the from the Presidential Memorandum Organization of the National Security Council and the Homeland Security Council. That it's not from the whitehouse.gov site. That the thing didn't cause waves and people see it as a demotion, because the whole issue has been about the Cabinet level Principals Committee. You just continue on that bull that it's the liberal media, go all along with the delusions.

Just continue with the flippant ridicule and strawmen.

Fucking wasting my time here, if you start such bullshitting things and denying the facts.

The bullshit part is that this is something other than THE EXACT SAME LANGUAGE used by both Obama and Bush. Go ahead, look it up.

[kybkh]

http://www.mediaite.com/online/utter-no ... y-council/

[adwinistrator]

This whole Bannon-Flynn BS was easily predictable. Remember when Trump's campaign was falling apart?

The media is simply continuing their narrative about how "chaotic" everything about Trump is. I'd suggest these articles are aimed at creating conflict inside Trump's cabinet. Nobody likes to see themselves being rundown in the press as some sort of inept adviser.

Funny how one article Adwin posted was Pro-Flynn, talking about how he is methodically putting together his team and the second article was about how poor a job Flynn was doing in his role.

Consider that for a second. Consider what you know to be Flynn's opinion about the CIA/State Dept. Consider the fact that the guy was already rubbed out once by these folks for upsetting the apple cart. Consider that it's been two weeks and we already are having anonymously sourced reports from "inside the WH".

I agree with a lot of this.

Just a few more things to consider. Trump adds CIA director to NSC after having a meeting with cabinet and advisors. This is important, because Flynn was basically setting up an NSC where he could have the final say on Trump's view of the IC.

Mr. Flynn still communicates with Mr. Trump frequently, and his staff has been assembling a version of the Presidential Daily Briefing for Mr. Trump, truncated but comprehensive, to be the president’s main source of national security information.

Now that Bannon and Pompeo are in the NSC, it opens up multiple channels to Trump about the different views between competing agencies, advisors, and cabinet members. Whether either situation is better, or worse, depends on your own opinion on how you'd like to see foreign policy and national security decisions made.

But there is not a lot of infighting right now, because to have infighting, there needs to be a power struggle, and there is no struggle, the intelligence official said.

Flynn isn't pushing back, which is fine, but this is what Exum was saying: "What kind of National Security Advisor does Flynn want to be". If he wants to be the main advisor to Trump on national security and foreign policy, he'd have to push back on Bannon, who seems poised to be Trump's Kissinger.

[Montegriffo]

You're trying to insinuate because I'm on the phone posting at you during Europe hours a lot, that means I'm unqualified to do the job of the unemployed, uneducated, not educated faggot that gets free rent and food where you live.

I hate to intrude on your private love in Nuke but in my experience the Finns, Scandinavians,Latvians,Estonians and even the Eastern European like the Poles are far better educated than us Limeys and you Yanks. The ones I've met anyway. For example they wouldn't dream of using a tautological sentence like the one above.
Just saying.....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tautology

[kybkh]

All Flynn wants to do is save Western Civilization, in order to do that he has to take out the establishment CIA and Stare Dept.

Obviously the State Dept is feeling the heat already.

[adwinistrator]

The bullshit part is that this is something other than THE EXACT SAME LANGUAGE used by both Obama and Bush. Go ahead, look it up.

Have you gone and looked it up?

Bush's 2001 memo did use that language.

Bush's initial organizational order forming the NSC (above) designates that the CIA director and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff would attend on an as-needed basis. But that was before Sept. 11.

"In effect, after 9/11 the practice was they were in almost every meeting," David Rothkopf, CEO and editor of the FP group, which publishes Foreign Policy magazine.

Obama's 2009 memo designated the DNI and CJCS as "regular attendees". They were the only 2 non-statutory members with that designation, all others were "invitees".

So no, it is not the exact same language used by "both Obama and Bush". The reason it stopped being that way is because of the 9/11 attacks. You can argue why we don't need it set up that way anymore, but stop saying that nothing has changed.

[adwinistrator]

All Flynn wants to do is save Western Civilization, in order to do that he has to take out the establishment CIA and Stare Dept.

Obviously the State Dept is feeling the heat already.

How does Pompeo feel about this? Now that he was added to the NSC PC, after the fact, does that change anything?

I agree, State is DOA.

[adwinistrator]

Might be no good answer.

I think it's safe to say that Bannon would agree that we have been approaching a national, political, and social crisis point for the last 15 years.

Whether he intends to use his abilities to try and stop it, ease through it, or escalate it, is up to him.

I would say there's no doubt he understands the current global anti-establishment underpinnings of this "generational turning point", and utilized this as a unique base to champion Trump's campaign. That doesn't tell us anything about what he plans to do about it.