Ten oz

I think their is a specific moral characteristic at play. One deeply ingrained in U.S. culture. A fan is supposed to support their team when their team is winning or losing. It's a weird principle where it is considered good to stick with ones team no matter what. Those who switch teams are labelled bandwagon jumpers or fair weather fans. People are expected to stay loyal. In sports fan will say include themselves as a part of the organization by saying "we" when discussing how or what a team is doing: "We made a trade", "We had a bad good", "We need a new coach", and etc. Of course it isn't only sports. It carries over to geography, race, religion, politics, and etc. People regularly proclaim pride at staying true to their roots. In many situations it isn't culturally acceptable to change. Worse than being a fair weather fan is being a sell out, turncoat, Uncle Tom, and so on. Within everyone own paradigm they consider their beliefs well considered. Humans are a group living species. We evolved in tribes and being loyal to those tribes was important to our evolution. The size of tribes and the breadth of things for one to be loyal to has increased exponentially in a relatively short period of time. Humans are still adapting.

I don't think Joe Manchin relevant to this conversation. Manchin is not a left wing equivalent to Steve Bannon nor is he a well regarded voice within the Democratic party .Democrats are attempting to take Joe Manchin to task for the matters you linked. Stating that Joe Manchin is bad too doesn't make Steve Bannon any less bad. We could both easily single out an endless number specific flawed politicians and link articles to their failings. I don't think pointing out former GOP Senator Larry Craig being arrested in a men's room for soliciting an uncover officer or Former Democratic Senator John Edwards affair matter to a conversation about Steve Bannon. It would just be whataboutism. Steve Bannon working as Trump Chief Strategist pushed for the U.S. to pull out of the Paris Climate Agreement. Steve Bannon is credited for having been the strongest voice in Trump's ear on the matter. In the Book Fire and Fury Michael Wolfe outlined how Steve Bannon fought with other in the White House to get Executive Order 13783 signed which gutted the National Environmental Policy Act.

Both parties don't actively work to disenfranchise voters though. You already acknowledged in a previous post that is a Republican thing. Another thing both parties don't do is deny climate science. Casually grouping both parties as being beholden to lobbyist is an insincere swing at pragmatism. To an extent everyone is beholden to something but that doesn't mean real differences don't exist.

What iNow qouted was part of the the following sentence "Bannon is reengaging with the poor / lower middle class segments of society who have seen their jobs shipped overseas and entire regions (such as the Rust belt) decimated.". It was Whites who overwhelming voted for Trump (88% of all his votes) and Bannon worked for Trump. Whites have the lowest rates of poverty in the country. So saying Bannon engaged poor people needs some sort of qualifier. Blacks and Hispanics were far more likely to be poor and unemployed than whites in the rust belt.

Clinton did receive the support of black voters. Hillary Clinton Received 89% of the black voted and it accounted for 19% of all the votes she received. Black voters made up less than 2% of Trump's support. As for Hispanics Trump won 28% of the Hispanic vote which is identical to Romney. Here is a link of percentages for 2016 and Here is one to look over previous elections. Considering what the number actually are I think it is fairly obvious that any rhetoric about converting Black and Hispanic voters was/is just rhetorical nonsense meant to create plausible deniability when accused of racism. Ultimately 88% of every vote Trump received was cast by a White voter compared to just 60% for Clinton. Lets not forget Clinton ultimately won 4 million more votes as well. The overwhelming majority of minorities voted against Trump. Steve Bannon was working diligently to help elect Trump and I find it very hard to believe he wasn't aware of the statistics. So we can debate Bannon's rhetoric forever but the statistics align with the testimony (under oath ) provided by Wylie and by what we see in Conservative districts across the cross. One can argue it is about winning and not about racism. That the rules are such that what Steve Bannon has done and continues to do is legal. However I think there is no arguing that Steve Bannon works against the best interest of minorities assuming one accepts that participation in democracy is in the best interest of minorities. National Rally in France is one of Bannon's The Movement collaborators. They seek to reduce the amount of immigrants allowed into France to 10,000. Currently France brings in 140,000 a year, link. Here is the U.S. Trump seeks to limit all immigration (Travel visas, Refugees, Asylum seekers, DACA, etc), link. Often immigration discussions are framed around legal vs illegal but ultimately the individuals and groups Steve Bannon supports seeks to reduce all forms of immigration. There is no honest differentiation between legal and illegal. The policies Bannon supports go after all immigrants regardless of legal status and more pointedly focused on those who are not White. Here is an example of Steve Bannon starting off insisting the illegal immigration is a serious problem and then attacking work visas (legal) and the companies that endorse them. A clear conflation between legal and illegal immigrants. The message is that all immigrants are bad and all immigration is a problem. The assertion that there is an influx of asylum seekers or mass immigration is simply inaccurate. Ever since Humans walked out of Africa migration has been the status quo. The U.S., Canada, Australia, Mexico, Brazil, Japan, and so on are countries made up almost entirely of immigrants. Pre and post both world wars migration levels throughout the world changed. During any number of conflicts over the years from Vietnam to Syria to numbers of refugees changed. Any suggestion that we are currently experiencing a peak or an overwhelming unprecedented increase is not true. What Steve Bannon does is argue that immigration must be legal. Which we all agree with. Then at the same time stokes the notion of out of control immigration and promotes new policies to restrict legal immigration. The result is convoluted sort of logic where immigrants are fine provided they are legal paired against policies designed to prevent immigrants from being legal. In practice we end up with situations like the caravan you mentioned. There is a legal process for seeking Asylum in the U.S. . The Trump admin is doing everything they can to prevent Asylum seekers from following that legal process while simultaneously claiming the caravan are illegal immigrants. It is both contradictory and cynical. People in the caravan are not being allowed to follow the legal process. Not just the men but the women and children as well. From the insistence that immigration is worsening to feigning about wanting immigrants to do it legally the whole discussion is tainted with dishonest rhetoric. Steve Bannon is not a truthful participant in this (immigration) discussion. Sure, assuming we ignore or excuse his work to disenfranchise black voters and ignore or excuse the even Bannon acknowledges the alt-right movement attracts bigots. Protesting a speaking engagement of Jordan Peterson is not equal to limiting ones ability to vote and participate in Democracy. Both sides protest each other and call each other names. That is not what I am talking about. I am talking about legitimate efforts to prohibit ones opposition from participating in the democratic process. From voter disenfranchisement, making it harder for legal permanent resident to become citizens, blocking felons from voting, and etc Conservatives work to keep their opposition from being able to participate. You can not name a single left wing group which seeks to change a single law which would prevent their opposition from voting or running for office. Complaining that someone was called a name by some liberal group is a false equivalency of comical proportions. And yet Steve Bannon exclusively supports Republicans. Can you name a Democrat Steve Bannon every campaigned for? Maybe. As I previously said nothing about Democracy ensures the best result. Maybe some of Bannon's policy idea are better than the ideas of his critics. To me it's sort of irrelevant. More over who in the U.S. isn't the son or grandson of an Immigrant? Bannon strongly supports Trump and Trump's grandfather Frederick Trump was an immigrant. Four of Trump's 5 children have immigrant mothers. In a country of immigrants what does re-prioritization away from immigration even mean? That I am aware of Steve Bannon does not advocate expanding the size of Native American reservations.

I didn't mean to imply you had implied anything. I was just adding my thoughts.

@CharonY and @iNow allowing speech and being willing to listen to views that challenge one's own beliefs is generally known to be a good thing. While good in theory I think in practice it can be exploited to monopolize a discussion. Lots of things compete for people's attention. Whether it's a soda ad on TV or an op-ed online there is a finite amount of time one's intended audience is paying attention for. Yielding that time not advantageous. As an Analogy lets say 2 people are debating an issue from different perspectives. One is Pro and the other is Con. They each get equal time. If Pro spends half of their time acknowledging Con's ideas where their may be common ground but Con doesn't reciprocate and takes all their time for their ideas exclusively Con's ideas winds up with 75% of all the available time. Pro probably loses that debate. More often than not the idea a person hears most becomes accepted. From a time restricted perspective both Pro and Con are better off focusing on what they have to say and avoiding each others points much as possible. Along the lines of finite amounts of time a University cannot host every speaker on every issue. They have a a dozen or so opportunities a year to provide their students. Many students will only attend one or two events in their whole time on campus. With so many things which can be discussed and so many new ideas which students can be exposed to I think it is a shame when Campuses host people like Milo Yiannopoulos. I understand wanting to appear tolerant but time is limited and people can always seek those voices out on social media, talk radio, cable news, and etc. Good voices shouldn't be yielding the little time they have just for the sake of optics. Granted a good voice vs bad voice is relative but the Pro vs Con analogy works both ways. Yielding the time one has with people's attention only results in less time.

In an interview with MotherJones Steve Bannon said the following: One can argue there is nothing racist in itself that Bannon admits some racists are drawn to his movement. Likewise one can argue that Bannon seeking to suppress black voters in 2016, Linked Here , can be viewed more as a shrewd move to win rather than a racist act. Then their is Bannon's The Movement which collaborates with Nationalists throughout Europe pushing anti-Immigrant and anti-Islamic policies among other things. Nothing about seeking to limit immigration is overtly racist. I don't think it matters whether or not Steve Bannon says individual words one can point to as racist. Actions speak louder than words. If Steve Bannon were to succeed with all his political goals white nationalists groups would be more powerful, Black voter disenfranchisement worse, Less immigrants would be legally able to migrate, and etc. Lets forget the language Steve Bannon does or does not use and let's look at the policies he promotes. I understand there are extremes on both the left and the right. Steve Bannon was correct when he said perhaps White Nationalists, ant- Semitics, and homophobes are drawn to the right but the left has extreme elements too. The difference to me is that no portion of the extreme on the left seeks to prevent their opposition from participating in Democratic processes. The most extreme portions of the left do not seek to limit Conservatives, Libertarians, and etc from participating (living in this country and/or voting). The extremes on the right absolutely want to limit participation. The extremes on the right want to end birthright citizenship, limit legal immigration (green cards, education visas, work visas, etc), restrict voting, and so on. One can argue it doesn't make Steve Bannon a racist but clearly his proposals seek to strip non-whites from participating in democracy. It's a serious danger in my opinion. Democracy seeks a level of fairness within a society by allowing people the right to cast a vote for what they want. Democracy is an attempt at promoting fairness. Democracy doesn't ensure the best outcome. Sometime the most popular ideas are the worst ideas. Democracy isn't about ensuring the best possible outcome. That is impossible. Perhaps Steve Bannon has some really good ideas. Perhaps some of his ideas are better than the ones his critics have. I don't think it matters those ideas pull society away from fairness. I am not willing to sacrifice the voices of others to some political end I prefer. Steve Bannon is.

Nothing in Zap's sentence you quoted said anything about housing people for any duration of time much-less a million people. What would you like to see your govt respond to the asylum seekers currently at the border?

Than you should have read and accepted Zap's response as a clarification and moved own. There is no reason to continue this. No one here is calling for permanently or even temporarily housing a million people.

Yes, I read that. Still bad timing. Yesterday it was video of the sailors and today it is this.

Russia is strengthening its military presence in Crimea.

You post this as if these are unknowns yet to be determined. We already have laws on the books outlining how one applies and whom is eligible. The Number of Asylum seekers who apply per month just within the last year range between 16,000 and 6,000 a month https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/asylum-applications. The number of people in the caravan does not pose any sort of new, unique, different, or etc challenge. If not for POTUS interjecting himself in the situation it would just be like any other week for our (U.S.) various immigration and border agencies. No one has suggested a "totally open" border which makes these 5 questions meaningless.

Your question is invalid. A "freer" border isn't determined by detention practices. You are not advocating for it but are clearly implying it is working and without it levels would increase. Simply attaching question marks doesn't absolve from what's claimed in your posts.

I don't disagree. At least whether or not punitive treatment would or wouldn't discourage asylum seekers has an angle one can pawn off as personal opinion. Of course I think it is disgusting that one would view asylum seekers as something to discharge. What we (western democracies) should discharge is the oppressive govts which create conditions their citizens are seeking asylum from. If we put a tenth to political energy into cultivating better relationships the rest of the Americas as we do combating immigrants for partisan gain everyone would be a lot better off.

You have pushed that the caravan poses a logistical problems and merely surrounded it with fairly petty questions which work as a sort of Gish Gallop. The Caravan is a few thousand people. Our border and immigration infrastructure handles that volume pf people regularly on an ongoing basis. There is no crisis here other than the political one being created by POTUS and his supporters.

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

For the sake of this thread are you expected poster to ignore Steve Bannon's other public statements and strictly focus on those made in the Oxford Union engagement?

WTF does that have to do with anything? Whether or not I'd like to see criminal justice reform or immigration reform in the future has no barrier on the events unfolding. You've been pushing a line of agrument that the caravan posed some sort of logistical challenge. They do not. Nothing additional to what has previously been in place over the last few years was required to manage the caravan. I don't think it is ever useful to placate trolls. In fairness I also don't think it is ever useful to respond to them at all so shame on me. ***I am not implying you are troll. Just re-read my post and realized it could be taken the wrong way.

Russia has released video of the Ukrainian sailors. I think it is insane Russia have not returned the sailors. I think it is a punitive and aggressive act to flaunt them on camera while they're prisoners.

This being just averages under ICE's purview. Through The Department of Homeland (DHS), which ICE reports to, more individuals can be processed as needed. In my opinion you really shouldn't have to waste your time digging up such numbers. Logistically the infrastructure required to handle the caravan already exists and laws are already on the books for handling all this. I think the onus is on those ignorantly implying otherwise to do more than pose stupid questions.

The intentions behind what someone says matters more than how well they say more. More lover how well ones words are perceived often a matter of cultural, social, or familural preference. Communication is complex and words alone only make up a portion it. @Alex_Krycek can you highlight some of the things Bannon said that impressed you? I am familiar with Steve Bannon and have heard him speak many times but not at the specific event you referenced.

CBP and ICE are federal law enforcement agencies. Law Enforcement in the U.S. detains and in prison millions of people long term. A few thousand people is NOT a lot. A few thousand won't even register against annual averages. This issue is totally fictious.

I don't know and doubt you really care. If you did your ability to research is probably just as good or better than mine. The U.S. has the highest prison population in the world with over 2 million people. The notion that we are not logistically equipped to hand them few thousand migrants which make up the caravan is absolutely ridiculous. We literally have millions housed long term in prisons. A few thousand is nothing.

I didn't mean to imply you did. I agree, it is sort of my point. Russia's election interference is paying dividends. The line in the sand was always clearly identifiable.