http://mjarts.com/samples/Newsroom%20excerpt2.mp4
I’ve seen a series of articles in the last four weeks which are profoundly disturbing to me:
Bannon vows a daily fight for ‘deconstruction of the administrative state’
The reclusive mastermind behind President Trump’s nationalist ideology and combative tactics made his public debut Thursday, delivering a fiery rebuke of the media and declaring that the new administration is in an unending battle for “deconstruction of the administrative state.”
Stephen K. Bannon, the White House chief strategist and intellectual force behind Trump’s agenda, used his first speaking appearance since Trump took office to vow that the president would honor all of the hard-line pledges of his campaign.
Appearing at a gathering of conservative activists alongside Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, Bannon dismissed the idea that Trump might moderate his positions or seek consensus with political opponents. Rather, he said, the White House is digging in for a long period of conflict to transform Washington and upend the world order…
Priebus celebrated Trump’s administration as “the best Cabinet in the history of Cabinets,” and Bannon said that many nominees “were selected for a reason, and that is deconstruction.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/top-wh-strategist-vows-a-daily-fight-for-deconstruction-of-the-administrative-state/2017/02/23/03f6b8da-f9ea-11e6-bf01-d47f8cf9b643_story.html?utm_term=.127792e35359
Prince Charles issues veiled warning over Donald Trump and return to ‘dark days of 1930s’
Prince Charles has issued a warning over the “rise of populism” in a veiled apparent reference to the election of Donald Trump and increasingly hostile attitudes towards refugees in Europe.
The Prince of Wales said there were “deeply disturbing echoes of the dark days of the 1930s”, adding that “evil” religious persecution was taking place across the globe.
“We are now seeing the rise of many populist groups across the world that are increasingly aggressive to those who adhere to a minority faith. All of this has deeply disturbing echoes of the dark days of the 1930s,” he said.
“My parents’ generation fought and died in a battle against intolerance, monstrous extremism and inhuman attempts to exterminate the Jewish population of Europe.”
Citing UN statistics, he added that a “staggering” 65.3 million people abandoned their homes in 2015 — 5.8 million more than the year before.
“The suffering doesn’t end when they arrive seeking refuge in a foreign land,” he said. “We are now seeing the rise of many populist groups across the world that are increasingly aggressive towards those who adhere to a minority faith.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/prince-charles-donald-trump-warning-right-populism-dark-days-thought-for-the-day-a7489876.html
Reuters orders reporters to cover Trump like an authoritarian regime: Expect ‘physical threats’
David Edwards
01 Feb 2017 at 10:10 ET
The Reuters news agency this week recognized the challenges of covering Donald Trump’s presidency by comparing it to authoritarian regimes like Egypt, Yemen and China.
“It’s not every day that a U.S. president calls journalists ‘among the most dishonest human beings on earth’ or that his chief strategist dubs the media ‘the opposition party’,” Reuters Editor-in-Chief Steve Adler wrote in a message to staff on Tuesday. “It’s hardly surprising that the air is thick with questions and theories about how to cover the new Administration.”
He cited the organization’s work in “Turkey, the Philippines, Egypt, Iraq, Yemen, Thailand, China, Zimbabwe, and Russia” as an example of how to report on the Trump administration.
Adler said that reporters could use experience learned in “nations in which we sometimes encounter some combination of censorship, legal prosecution, visa denials, and even physical threats to our journalists.”
http://www.rawstory.com/2017/02/reuters-orders-reporters-to-cover-trump-like-an-authoritarian-regime-expect-physical-threats/
Iran’s supreme leader ‘thanks’ Trump for revealing the ‘real face of the United States’
“We actually thank this new president! We thank him, because he made it easier for us to reveal the real face of the United States,” said Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, according to a transcript posted on his official website.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/02/07/irans-ayatollah-thanks-trump-for-revealing-the-real-face-of-the-united-states/?utm_term=.99ba9ff6825d
Steve Bannon: ‘We’re going to war in the South China Sea … no doubt’
Only months ago Donald Trump’s chief strategist predicted military involvement in east Asia and the Middle East in Breitbart radio shows.
The United States and China will fight a war within the next 10 years over islands in the South China Sea, and “there’s no doubt about that”. At the same time, the US will be in another “major” war in the Middle East.
Those are the views – nine months ago at least – of one of the most powerful men in Donald Trump’s administration, Steve Bannon, the former head of far-right news website Breitbart who is now chief strategist at the White House.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/02/steve-bannon-donald-trump-war-south-china-sea-no-doubt
Washington Post By Dana Milbank Opinion writer January 27, 2016
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/in-the-age-of-trump-grim-warnings-from-holocaust-survivors/2016/01/27/c65ea38c-c549-11e5-8965-0607e0e265ce_story.html?utm_term=.2bc13a13ec85
“International Holocaust Remembrance Day is always a somber time for Auschwitz survivor Irene Weiss. But this year’s observance had an additional layer of grief: For the first time, Weiss is worried about her adopted homeland.”
“I am exceptionally concerned about demagogues,” the 85-year-old Weiss told me at Wednesday’s commemoration at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. “They touch me in a place that I remember. I know their influence and, unfortunately, I know how receptive audiences are to demagogues and what it leads to.”
…
“At this time of open hostility to Muslims in America, museum staff arranged for Johanna Gerechter Neumann, who fled with her family to Albania after Kristallnacht, to talk about how Muslims protected them from Hitler. Her father, a patriotic German and World War I veteran, “certainly thought that it could never happen in Germany,” she said. “It did happen. Slowly, but it did happen.”
And now the aging survivors worry it is beginning, slowly, to happen again. “It is repeating itself, and it is again the inattention that people pay to real cues that one should understand,” said Margit Meissner, almost 94, who fled on foot through the Pyrenees from occupied France.
“It’s not Weimar,” she said, “but it could become Weimar Germany if you have Mr. Trump here and people keep believing what he says. . . . I think one has to speak up. And that’s the one lesson from the Holocaust: Do not be a bystander.”
When Holocaust survivors start getting alarmed, I start listening. If one reads the entire article the alarm becomes more chilling.
I see a lot of articles saying that I should simply “embrace our new President”. I can’t embrace a man who is stealing much of what I hold dear about this country.
For years I have listened to Conservative Christians tell me that the United States is a country ‘blessed by God.’ Having read a lot of US history in conjunction with my work as an illustrator, I have assumed that the people making such comments have somehow remained oblivious to American history, and our shameful treatment of people not of Northern European ancestry.
With the advent of Facebook and other Social Media, I’ve changed my ideas. The only explanation I can come up with is that our country has a large population of racist bigots who haven’t had the courage to admit it; until they saw the ‘Leader of the Free World’ spouting fear of ‘the other’. This country, ‘blessed by God,’ is filled with people who live in fear of people who are not like they are—people with brown skins; people who worship the Creator in a different manner than they; people who love other people in a manner they do not understand.
Based on Stephen Bannon’s comments above, P45’s Cabinet selections become more understandable. He wasn’t making the absolute worst selections possible—people who have been committed to the opposition of those agencies they were selected to head—they are individuals selected to destroy the agencies they rule over.
I worked in a governmental regulatory agency for 14 years; the City of Portland’s Bureau of Buildings [now, Bureau of Development Services] was tasked with the job of requiring compliance with the Building Code, and its companion Codes. Codes designed to promote building safety. Hard as it may be to believe, there really are contractors out there who don’t care about building safety; all they are concerned about is how much money they can charge to do work using the cheapest methods they can find. Developers who don’t mind lying about their buildings, if it’s profitable.
Raise this exponentially: companies that don’t want to comply with environmental regulations because those regulations raise the costs on their development. Companies that don’t care what kind of impact their construction may have on the environment. Coal companies that can dump their excavated waste into local streams, because it’s so much cheaper than hauling the waste by truck; and they don’t care that the watersheds are damaged.
A Secretary of Energy whose only energy interests are in fossil fuels—the most damaging and inefficient form of energy production there is.
A Secretary of Education who has no interest in improving the quality of the American school system; instead she wants to eliminate public schools altogether; without regard to inner city schools who won’t be able to afford to the private education model she desires.
“Draining the swamp” of Wall Street advocates in the Presidential Cabinet; now refilled by Managers of Goldman Sachs, the architects of the Economic Collapse of 2008.
We now have an Executive Branch that is so insensitive to security—National Security briefings in the middle of a crowded country club restaurant—that the Intelligence Community is withholding information from the President. They are concerned that top secret information will end up in a midnight ‘tweet’.
I was raised to believe that we were a country of laws to protect the downtrodden; a country that welcomed the refugee; a country that believed in justice for all; not merely justice for those with wealth.
Raised as an atheist, I decided to become a follower of Jesus; the teacher who said,
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that?
…
For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’ “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’ “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
I am ashamed of what my country has become.
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Chronicles in Ordinary Time 