S4 E24 — Another Spooky Role to Play on the Outside

Who are these people? Milley summarized and scribbled. Big Threat: domestic terrorism. Steve Bannon’s vision coming to life. Bring it all down, blow it up, burn it, and emerge with power.

“The Tau of Steves: What You Don’t Know Could Fill a Book”

“5” Steve Zahn, 51: “You don’t set out on an adventure; you just set out. The harrowing fun starts when expectations are not met, tools fail and plans disintegrate. This is the kind of gift that money can’t buy.” Scorpio

Hi and welcome to Sunday’s 24th Episode in Season 4 of “Our Disruptively Resilient Year” on this 10th day of April in the spring of 2022.

“The Tau of Steves: What You Don’t Know Could Fill a Book”

Table of Contents

We concluded the three-year examination of how bits of wisdom changed — during the “normal” pre-pandemic year compared to the pandemic year, and more recently to the paradoxically normal year.

Season Four continues now within domestic and global chaos.

Previously in Season Four, The Disruptively Resilient Year

S4 E23 — When In Doubt, Follow the Money; S4 E22 — Now, Who Could Argue With That? S4 E21 — Not Since the War of 1812

Related from Season Three, the Paradoxically Normal Year

S3 E24 — Reunion on the Edge of the Pacific Ocean near Legoland? Hell Yeah!; S3 E23 — Free from the Pile of Rubble in Your Brain; S3 E22 — What’s the Experiment Got To Do with the Exodus from Barb’s Bunny Ranch?; S3 E21 — Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and My Curiosity Whisperer Walking a Yip-Yippy Dog

Related from Season Two, the Pandemic Year

S2 E24 — Working Remote from KnowWhere Atoll; S2 E23 — Gaping Loss No Amount of Mourning Will Heal; S2 E22 —Paranoid Rose Review and Traffic-Copped Check Out Lines; S2 E21 — Cycles of History Rhyming with Endlessly Disruptive Rhythms?

Related from Season One, the Normal Year

S1 E24 — Day 24 of My 1-Year Experiment; S1 E23 — Day 23 of My 1-Year Experiment; S1 E22 — Day 22 of My 1-Year Experiment; S1 E21 — Day 21 of My 1-Year Experiment;

Context

Bob Woodward and Robert Costa reported in their book “Peril,” that Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Milley, jotted some thoughts, “Who are these people?”

He jotted rapidly:

- “6MWE”
- “Extreme Tea Party”
- “QAnon,” he added, taking note of the fully discredited conspiracy theory.
- “Patriot Movement,” a far-right militia.
- “We the People Movement”
- “Nazis”
- “Proud Boys”
- “The Oath Keepers”
- “Newsmax,” the conservative news website, which had been friendly toward Trump for a long time.
- “Epoch,” referring to the The Epoch Times, a far-right publication that was critical of the Chinese Communist Party.

Milley summarized and scribbled. “Big Threat: domestic terrorism. Steve Bannon’s vision coming to life.”

Bring it all down, blow it up, burn it, and emerge with power.

From the Devil’s Bargain

2016 Bannon’s Vision playing out as a Nationalism Movement

Bannon saw evidence of Western collapse in the influx of Muslim refugees and migrants across Europe and the United States—what he pungently termed “civilizational jihad personified by this migrant crisis.”

Bannon’s response to the rise of modernity was to set populist, right-wing nationalism against it.

He aligned himself with:

- Archconservative Catholics such as Raymond Leo Burke,
- Nigel Farage and UKIP,
- Marine Le Pen’s National Front,
- Geert Wilders and the Party for Freedom, and
- Sarah Palin and the Tea Party.

For all his paranoid alarm, Bannon believes that the rise of nationalist movements across the world, from Europe to Japan to the United States, heralds a return to tradition.

“You have to control three things,” he explained, “Borders, currency, and military and national identity.

The clearest example of Traditionalist political influence today is in Russia.

Vladimir Putin’s chief ideologist, Alexander Dugin—whom Bannon has cited—translated (Julius) Evola’s work into Russian and later developed a Russian-nationalist variant of Traditionalism known as Eurasianism.

By installing Bannon, Conway, and later David Bossie to run his 2016 election campaign, Trump was handing the reins of a half-billion-dollar political enterprise to a seasoned team of professional anti-Clinton operatives.

These three figures from the Republican fringe, and the menagerie of characters they brought with them, were suddenly in charge of running major-party presidential campaign—against an opponent, Hillary Clinton, whom they’d been plotting to tear apart for the better part of twenty-five years.

Campaign to winning the 2016 election transition

Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig wrote that Bannon had previously run the conservative website Breitbart conduit to his indispensable base,

“The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic ‘you name it.’”

Given what transpired since the early days of the Trump administration, it’s bizarre to consider who was being considered for key positions.

Initially, Kushner, Bannon, and others in Trump’s inner circle favored Rudy Giuliani for attorney general.

Trump allowed Bannon, son-in-law Jared Kushner, and daughter Ivanka to operate as independent forces.

During one version of musical chairs, General John Kelly left his position at Homeland Security to reign in the cats and establish an adult in the administration based on his years of service in the Marines.

As White House Chief of Staff, “I’m here to defend the Constitution and to defend the rule of law,” General John Kelly told the other officials in attendance. “The oath doesn’t say anything in there about being loyal to the president. It doesn’t say anything in there about the GOP being more important than your integrity.”

Don McGahn, Chief Council and Bannon both asked for lawyer Ty Cobb’s help in removing Kushner and Ivanka. Cobb’s view was also partly shaped by a careful reading of the palace intrigue. Bannon might be the next to go instead.

Trump dismissed Bannon, embody the White House’s dysfunction and self-destructive tendencies. The discarding of Bannon underscored the fact that the president wanted all the glory for himself.

Yet, before the final curtain fell, over 140 people were granted clemency with a stroke of Trump’s pen near midnight on January 19, including:

- Rapper Lil Wayne,
- former Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, and
- countless other allies in politics and business, and
- Bannon

It wasn’t the case of gone, but not forgotten, but more like Bannon had another role to play on the outside.

Evidence

Today’s Holiday Theme:

In short, do not underestimate the danger of disrespectful words. They are like dryer lint — seemingly harmless garbage that is, in fact, highly flammable.

“5” Steve Zahn, 51: “You don’t set out on an adventure; you just set out. The harrowing fun starts when expectations are not met, tools fail and plans disintegrate. This is the kind of gift that money can’t buy.” Scorpio

So this is the 4th Season of my adventure — what was intended to last one year living like an artist in a natural experiment. Then came the pandemic. And followed by a four-year administration seemingly immune to accountability, and then a different new normal post-pandemic and now one within a global crisis a potential WWIII. Where is the fun? Which tools haven’t we used?

Random ones that make me want change my sign.

“4” Steve McQueen (1930 – 1980): “Whether you choose to hang back and observe or jump in and participate, do it because you want to, not because someone is pressuring you. If you need support in standing up for yourself, here it is.” Aries

Savvy advice for any introvert like me. Like Raskin, I never envisioned an insurrection. I naively hoped removal by a fair and square election would put the Putin-like propaganda from the Oval Office out to sea. Alas …

“4” Steve Smith, 30, Stevie Nicks, 72: “Emotions warp the space-time continuum. Fear, waiting and discomfort make the seconds go by agonizingly slow. Joy, fascination and fun speed things up.” Gemini

What a brilliant opening line — warping space-time continuum with emotions. But, the observation that wallowing in FUD stretches the sense to passing time is golden. As is all those joyful moments that slip by in an instant.

“4” Steve Aoki, 41; Steven Spielberg, 74: “As playwrights know, people have a very short attention span for exposition. You’ll quickly get to the heart of the story and have the complete attention of your audience.” Sagittarius

What is it that parents always say? Do as I say, not as I do. My only hope today is to have the format for today’s episode help me help you get to the heart of the story. Does it work?

Steve Harvey, 62; Stephan Patis, 53; Stephen Hawking (1943 – 2018): “New people juice your curiosity. You’ll learn more through friendly playfulness and observation than you could possibly find out by asking direct questions.” Capricorn

What’s Going On …

Literally Bottled and Set Adrift from KnowWhere Atoll

- @KnowLabs suite of 36 digital magazines, according to my analytics, grew from 12559 this week to 12654 organically grown followers.
- Orange County Beach Towns 172 viewers stopped by the week before.

Foresight

Quality-of-Life

Long-Form

- “Here, Right Matters: An American Story” by Alexander Vindman. “We’d long been confused by the president’s policy of accommodation and appeasement of Russia, the United States’ most pressing major adversary. Russia’s president Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, seizing the Crimean Peninsula, attacking its industrial heartland, the Donbass, from the capital, Kyiv. By 2019, little had changed, Russian military and security forces and their proxy separatists continued to occupy the Donbass. The biggest change was to Ukraine’s importance as a bulwark against Russian aggression weeks earlier, the White House had abruptly put a hold on nearly four hundred million dollars.”
- David Enrich begins his book with a suicide in “Deutsche Bank Dark Towers: Deutsche Bank, Donald Trump, and an Epic Trail of Destruction” and then meticulously details the bank’s Russian money laundering operations. Deutsche’s Russian business surged after revenues had fallen 50% due to the 2008 financial crisis. Putin’s Russia, poured in to Deutsche from deals it did with VTB Bank, linked to the Kremlin’s intelligence apparatus. Deutsche positioned itself as a crucial cog in “The Laundromat” by doing what couldn’t be done — processing cross-border transactions for banks that were too small and didn’t have offices outside their home countries.
- “Unthinkable: Trauma, Truth, and the Trials of American Democracy” by Jamie Raskin recalls one tragedy no parent should endure — the suicide of his son — and then a second tragedy at almost the same time — the insurrection on January 6th 2021, that terrified he and his congressional peers who were tasked by the Constitution to routinely oversee the orderly transfer of power from one former president to the duly elected new President.
- “A Warning” by Anonymous (Miles Taylor) written prior to the January 6th Insurrection as an insider’s account documenting how frequently the former President’s behavior and rage without any “guard rails” showed just how far he would go to win the next election at any cost while spinning lies and misinformation on top of each other.
- “Peril” by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa provides anecdotes, stories and inside reporting documenting the controversial last days of Donald Trump’s presidency, as well as the presidential transition and early presidency of Joe Biden.
- “Devil’s Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Nationalist Uprising,” by Joshua Green tracks the money behind the scenes leading up to the 2016 presidential election and the growing influence of Steve Bannon’s network of extreme nationalists.

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Inspired by Holiday Mathis – Creators Syndicate

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