Understanding US thread-III

[naruto]

I see increasing number of articles linking Steve Bannon and the concept of Dharma. In their hatred for everything Trump, I am sure the Leftist-Islamofascist intellectual cabal will portray the Gita negatively.

[Melwyn]

^ Thats a very interesting finding. Quick Google search indeed reveals a slew of articles on this subject.

I now understand why people like Rush Limbaugh are so scared of Bannon and call him a Leninist. A person who wants to burn down everything to make a fresh start.

Steve Bannon, Dharma Warrior: Hindu Scriptures and the Worldview of Trump's Chief Ideologue

The Hindu scriptures, especially the Bhagavad Gita, have fascinated many public figures in the West for the last two centuries. Aldous Huxley had the Gita in mind when he wrote Brave New World. Heinrich Himmler saw himself as a disciple of its teachings. And Robert Oppenheimer famously quoted the scripture when the first nuclear device was tested at Los Alamos: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” (Bhagavad Gita 11.32).

The Bhagavad Gita is a dialogue from the mouth of god incarnate in human form as Krishna to the warrior Arjuna on a battlefield, exhorting him to remember the higher duty of establishing dharma in the world over all else. The concept of dharma and the teachings of the Gita continue to influence prominent figures in the West, including Stephen Kevin “Steve” Bannon, the chief strategist for U.S. President Donald Trump. This is despite the fact that Bannon has spoken of the power of Judeo-Christian norms in underpinning the capitalism that led to the greatness of the West.

According to a former friend of Bannon’s, he “used to talk a lot about dharma — he felt very strongly about dharma … one of the strongest principles throughout the Bhagavad Gita.” Dharma, a difficult term to translate from Sanskrit, can mean righteousness, but also duty. Every human must follow his or her own dharma (duty, calling) in accordance with his or her nature and social duties in order for society as a whole to be following the path of dharma (righteousness, order) and be in line with the cosmic order of things:

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It is better to engage in one’s own occupation, even though one may perform it imperfectly, than to accept another’s occupation and perform it perfectly. (Bhagavad Gita 18:47)

Throughout Hindu scriptures and epics, individuals are portrayed as either fighting for and upholding dharma, both through self-actualization and actual sociopolitical or military action, or going against it. Nonetheless, as a character from the Hindu epic the Mahabharata points out, “Dharma is subtle.” It is situational, and difficult for any one individual to say what exactly their or anyone else’s dharma is exactly.

Given Bannon’s worldview, which sees the world, and especially the West as being in a state of moral and economic crisis resulting from the lack of mooring in traditional values (in other words, adharma, or lack of dharma or alignment with a sacred worldview), his interest in dharma is not surprising.

In the Mahabharata, the Hindu epic that the Bhagavad Gita is situated in, the great Kurukshetra War that occurs at its climax is not merely a dynastic dispute between cousins for a kingdom, but an epic battle for the ages with metaphysical connotations. In other words, it is a dharma yuddha or war for dharma. This is why the divine gets involved:

Whenever and wherever there is a decline in dharma….and a predominant rise of irreligion — at that time I descend Myself, to deliver the pious and to annihilate the miscreants, as well as to reestablish the principles of religion, I Myself appear, millennium after millennium. (Bhagavad Gita 4.7-4..

This apocalyptic worldview is frequently found in Bannon’s thought. Ordinary conflicts are thus parts of and transcended by issues far greater than the mundane. Who is banned or who is appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court is irrelevant, or not all that important, in the larger scheme of things, which is to push the world toward the war for dharma. In the Mahabharata, the Pandavas, the group of cousins who were wronged, sought to avoid war for years in order to spare the lives of millions, but were eventually convinced that they must go to war, not for themselves or their stolen kingdom, but for the stake of dharma itself.

Compare this with Bannon’s thoughts. Bannon said: “We’re at the very beginning stages of a very brutal and bloody conflict…fight for our beliefs against this new barbarity that’s starting, that will completely eradicate everything that we’ve been bequeathed over the last 2,000, 2,500 years.” When one sees oneself as part of a cosmic moment, thoughts of popularity, approval, or right and wrong vanish, and one becomes an instrument of a higher metaphysical drama, a key theme of the Bhagavad Gita. A man of dharma goes forward, trusting in fate, and not worrying about the fruits (karmaphala) of his actions:

These warriors arrayed in lines, opposing your men, even without you, will have perished! Arise, therefore, and seize upon your glory! With your foe conquered, enjoy thriving kingship! I have destroyed your enemy already: serve as my tool, O ambidextrous archer! (11.32-11.33).

Bannon seems to have a worldview in accordance with some of the teachings of the Gita that see the world as a cosmic battlefield, possibly imaging himself as warrior of dharma, adapted around his idea that the defense of capitalism and Christianity should be militarized and seen in the context of a great clash of civilizations and ideas. But like dharma, the Bhagavad Gita is also more complex and subtle than merely being the blueprint for warfare waged for the establishment of dharma. It also preaches wisdom, restraint, nonviolence in many cases, and the thoughtfulness that comes from deep meditation. And it says that the wise do not see any difference between different types of beings, whether the high or the low (5.18).

[Singha]

foxnews - rogue congi elements walk the dark hallways of the WH, whispering and plotting...

President Trump on Saturday denounced the leaks of transcripts of his telephone conversations with leaders of Australia and Mexico as “disgraceful” and said his administration was searching “very, very hard” for the leakers.

Trump, speaking exclusively to Fox News, accused “Obama people” of giving news organizations embarrassing details of his recent tense phone conversations with his Australian and Mexican counterparts, and said that the holdovers from the Obama administration still serving on his White House and National Security Council staff were being replaced.

“It’s a disgrace that they leaked because it’s very much against our country,” Trump said, without stating why he believed that career civil servants who work in Democratic and Republican administrations were the source of the leaks. “It’s a very dangerous thing for this country,” he said.

Trump said that media reports of what appeared to be angry exchanges between him and the two foreign leaders had been mischaracterized, and insisted that he had “positive” relations with both countries and their leaders.

Meanwhile, hours before a federal judge in San Francisco turned down the Trump administration’s request to reinstate travel restrictions on refugees and foreign travelers, President Trump defended his administration’s travel ban, saying the temporary halt was needed while the administration reviewed vetting procedures to prevent “people with bad intentions” from entering the country.

“I just want a safe country, and you can’t have a safe country with open and weak borders…you can’t,” he said.

Trump said that the FBI had informed him that the bureau had “1,000 investigations” ongoing into potential terrorist threats and lacked sufficient manpower to pursue them all.

Finally, he disputed press reports which characterized the sanctions he imposed last week on Iran as weak and ineffective. He said that punishing Tehran for violating United Nations Security Council restrictions on ballistic missile testing was “the right thing to do,” and argued that the sanctions were already beginning to constrain Iranian aggression. Iran, he said, was trying to undermine and destabilize U.S. allies by exporting sensitive technology to countries “around the world” and that such aggressive conduct had to be countered. The sanctions were already working, he asserted. “Have you noticed they’ve been very quiet in the last two days?”

Trump made these and other comments in a conversation with three journalists whom he had invited to join him after the 60th annual International Red Cross ball, a fundraiser for the charity that was held this year at his club, Mar-a-Lago.

In his first trip back to his home in Palm Beach since becoming president, Trump answered several questions on wide-ranging topics from this reporter, Christopher Ruddy, founder and chief of Newsmax Media, and Melanie Dickinson, president and publisher of the South Florida Business Journal, an online and print business publication. Trump and his wife Melania lingered on after the ball to mix with admirers and some of the estimated 800 Red Cross supporters attending the black-tie event at Mar-a-lago, which has become known as “The Winter White House.”

While wealthy supporters of the charity rubbed shoulders with one another and clustered around the table occupied by Trump and his wife, eager to congratulate him and take photos with First Couple, some 4,000 people turned out for an anti-Trump march in West Palm Beach. Hundreds of protesters made their way from Trump Tower in West Palm Beach to a staging area near Palm Beach on Bingham Island, and then to the entrance of the exclusive club, where they shouted anti-Trump slogans and yelled chants against the new administration’s policies. Many of the protesters, most of whom were peaceful, carried placards criticizing Trump, his immigration and other policies, and several of his wealthy Cabinet nominees. The protest was among the largest, if not the largest, in recent Palm Beach county history.

Inside the huge ornate ballroom, Trump seemed particularly insistent on disputing the notion that his travel restrictions now being challenged by several courts were unpopular. “They’re very popular,” he insisted. But, he added, he would have imposed them whether or not Americans approved of them. “I’m not doing it for popularity. I’m doing it because our country is like a sieve for people coming in,” he said.

He said that he had learned in his meetings with FBI officials that the bureau was having a difficult time staffing the more than 1,000 investigations it was conducting into potential threats to the country. “There’s no manpower to do them.”

Calls to FBI headquarters regarding the number of ongoing terror investigations were not returned on this Super Bowl Sunday. But last summer, James Comey, the FBI director, testified that the bureau had about 1,000 open terror-related investigations in 2016 and at least one in all of the 50 states. Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., who follows counter-terrorism efforts closely, confirmed that senior FBI officials have spoken of nearly 1,000 ongoing investigations. John Pistole, the former FBI deputy director, told Fox News last summer that the FBI lacked the resources and legal authority to maintain investigations “on everybody they talk to,” he said. The FBI had perpetrators of the terror attacks carried out in Orlando, San Bernardino, and Boston under surveillance for a time, but closed out their inquiries before the attacks.

Trump said Saturday night that many Americans did not realize the danger posed by America’s “open” borders and insufficient vetting. “You don’t realize it,” he said.

However, groups helping asylum seekers, refugees, and other civil and human rights groups point out that no Americans have been killed in domestic terror attacks by asylum seekers and refugees from the seven Middle Eastern countries with majority Muslim populations who would be barred from entering the U.S. for 120 days while the administration reviews its immigration and vetting policies.

Under Trump’s executive order, refugees from Syria would be permanently barred, exclusions whose legality several civil rights and civil liberties experts and groups have challenged. They also argue that political refugees are already among the most heavily vetted of all immigrants.

“I’m doing this because our country is like a sieve for people coming in,” Trump said.

One former CIA official said that while the administration’s implementation of its executive order was “clumsy, the concerns behind it are real.” But the constitutionality of the executive order seems headed for a Supreme Court challenge.

The FBI also did not return calls for comment Sunday on whether it was conducting an investigation into the leaking of transcripts of the president's telephone calls with foreign leaders. While White House press spokesman Sean Spicer recently said that the president had asked his team to “to look into this because those are very serious implications," Trump had not previously discussed his own view of the embarrassing leaks. His comments Saturday underscored his concern about what has become widespread early on in his administration — the unauthorized distribution of material highlighting numerous exaggerations and false statements by him and senior members of his White House and other incidents that seem to reflect incompetence or inexperience.

Trump seemed particularly anxious to reinforce his spokesman’s descriptions of his conversations with the leaders of Australia and Mexico as “candid," but respectful. Spicer noted that both leaders have disputed some of the details as reported.

Based on the transcripts, the Washington Post and several media outlets, for instance, reported that Trump hung up on Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull after an angry discussion of a refugee swap negotiated by former President Obama. In a recent interview, Turnbull called his discussion with Trump “frank” but said that Trump had agreed to abide by the refugee swap negotiated by former President Barack Obama. In one interview, he said it had been a "good week" for Australia.

In an earlier call with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, Trump apparently threatened to send the U.S. military to Mexico to stop drug cartels -- according to a transcript published by a Mexican news organization and the Associated Press. The White House later said the comments were intended to be “lighthearted.”


Judith Miller, a Fox News contributor, is an award-winning writer and author, and an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute. The author of several books, her latest is "The Story: A Reporter's Journey" (Simon & Schuster, April 7, 2015) now available in paperback. Follow her on Twitter @JMFreeSpeech.

[Lalmohan]

Donald J. Trump ‏@realDonaldTrump
Just cannot believe a judge would put our country in such peril. If something happens blame him and court system. People pouring in. Bad!

this is such a disingenuous statement to make... it is aimed directly at his fan-base who neither seem to understand the role of the judiciary in a democracy, neither the principles of democracy never mind the nature of terrorism, refugee flows and immigration flows. by undermining first the media and then the judiciary (and I would guess thirdly the congress) it is not hard to see where the trump/'bannon/miller triumvirate is taking the American republic...

[Lilo]

And the defiance continues:

Coca Cola super bowl commercial with political overtone.

Hope Beople have noticed the shameless effort to attribute Hindi to muslim ummah(assorted pakis) in the vedio led by CocaCola.
Guess CocaCola suddenly wants the otherwise dutty stinking yindoos in massaland to sacrifice their Yindoo identity at the altar of the Leftliberal-islamiofascist God with the aim to defeat the God Kek's crusadering tadpoles led by Trump.

Same game the Leftliberal-Islamofascist brishit establishment played when they conflated indics & Indians with the Pakis under the umbrella term "Asian" - to fight against the working class origin english rightwing .

[Lalmohan]

more background reading to add to your knowledge base
Fake news for liberals: misinformation starts to lean left under Trump

Research has suggested that there was a huge volume of fake news across the political spectrum during the election, but that pro-Trump false stories were much more widespread than pro-Clinton ones. Some of the most high-profile examples, such as the conspiracy theory that Clinton was tied to a child sex ring, fed rightwing narratives.

Media and communications experts suspect those dynamics could shift under Trump. In an interview with the Atlantic, Brooke Binkowski, managing editor of fact-checking site Snopes, said she has seen a spike in the amount and popularity of fake news directed toward liberal audiences.

A recent countercurrentnews.com article falsely declared: “State Gives Cops the Green Light To Shoot DAPL Protesters On Sight.”

In the case of the fake tipi-burning story, Linda Black Elk, who was present during last week’s confrontation with law enforcement, told the Guardian that police did force them out of their camps, but that no tipis were torched or destroyed.

In an email, a writer with Alternative Media Syndicate defended the post, saying the photo was a “stock image” meant to “draw a connection” to the HBO film and that the site removed it once there was confusion.

Goldtooth said it’s been a constant struggle to stop the spread of false news about Standing Rock. “Folks feel like they need to sensationalize something to get attention and get awareness. You don’t need to do that. Tell the story as it is.”

Other recent fake or misleading stories catered to progressive audiences include a LearnProgress.org piece that falsely said Melania Trump was selling jewelry on the White House website; a viral story about a boy handcuffed at an airport due to Trump’s immigration ban, which used a photo from 2015 ; and a Politicot.com story with a fabricated Mike Pence quote about abortion and rape.

On the left, however, readers tend to be better at debunking fake news and more responsive to fact-checking, she added. “On the right, there’s less concern of whether it’s real or fake as much as whether it fits into the narrative.”

...But outrage at Trump ultimately makes users vulnerable to false stories, said Fil Menczer, a professor of informatics and computer science at Indiana University. And if progressive do start reading higher quantities of fake news, he said the country would likely become even more divided. “It means more polarization, more segregation and stronger echo chambers.”

[Singha]

The usual morning salvo.

Donald J. Trump ‏@realDonaldTrump
I call my own shots, largely based on an accumulation of data, and everyone knows it. Some FAKE NEWS media, in order to marginalize, lies!


Donald J. Trump
3h
Donald J. Trump ‏@realDonaldTrump
Any negative polls are fake news, just like the CNN, ABC, NBC polls in the election. Sorry, people want border security and extreme vetting

[Dipanker]

Need To Get Rid Of Indians: Letter At South Asian Family's Door

[A_Gupta]

You're right, @naruto, Steve Bannon joins Wendy Doniger, Sheldon Pollock, Jeffrey Kripal as a great interpreter of the Gita and teacher of Dharma!

[Singha]

America's biggest tech firms have stepped into the legal fight against President Donald Trump's travel ban.
A total of 97 companies -- including Apple (AAPL, Tech30), Facebook (FB, Tech30), Google (GOOGL, Tech30), Intel (INTC, Tech30), Microsoft (MSFT, Tech30), Netflix (NFLX, Tech30) and Twitter (TWTR, Tech30) -- filed a court motion Sunday night declaring that Trump's executive order on immigration "violates the immigration laws and the Constitution."
Almost all the companies that signed on in support are tech companies. The few exceptions include yogurt producer Chobani, snack maker Kind and fashion brand Levi Strauss. All three companies were founded by immigrants.

The ban represents "a sudden shift in the rules governing entry into the United States, and is inflicting substantial harm on U.S. companies," says the court document.
It's the latest move by the tech industry to oppose Trump's controversial order, which has run into hurdles in the U.S. court system.

[Singha]

Uber lyft amazon and expedia have also supported this.

[Singha]

LIST OF AMICI CURIAE
1. AdRoll, Inc.

2. Aeris Communications, Inc.

3. Airbnb, Inc.

4. AltSchool, PBC

5. Ancestry.com, LLC

6. Appboy, Inc.

7. Apple Inc.

8. AppNexus Inc.

9. Asana, Inc.

10. Atlassian Corp Plc

11. Autodesk, Inc.

12. Automattic Inc.

13. Box, Inc.

14. Brightcove Inc.

15. Brit + Co

16. CareZone Inc.

17. Castlight Health

18. Checkr, Inc.

19. Chobani, LLC

20. Citrix Systems, Inc.

21. Cloudera, Inc.

22. Cloudflare, Inc.

23. Copia Institute

24. DocuSign, Inc.

25. DoorDash, Inc.

26. Dropbox, Inc.

27. Dynatrace LLC

28. eBay Inc.

29. Engine Advocacy

30. Etsy Inc.

31. Facebook, Inc.

32. Fastly, Inc.

33. Flipboard, Inc.

34. Foursquare Labs, Inc.

35. Fuze, Inc.

36. General Assembly

37. GitHub

38. Glassdoor, Inc.

39. Google Inc.

40. GoPro, Inc.

41. Harmonic Inc.

42. Hipmunk, Inc.

43. Indiegogo, Inc.

44. Intel Corporation

45. JAND, Inc. d/b/a Warby Parker

46. Kargo Global, Inc.

47. Kickstarter, PBC

48. KIND, LLC

49. Knotel

50. Levi Strauss & Co.

51. LinkedIn Corporation

52. Lithium Technologies, Inc.

53. Lyft, Inc.

54. Mapbox, Inc.

55. Maplebear Inc. d/b/a Instacart

56. Marin Software Incorporated

57. Medallia, Inc.

58. A Medium Corporation

59. Meetup, Inc.

60. Microsoft Corporation

61. Motivate International Inc.

62. Mozilla Corporation

63. Netflix, Inc.

64. NETGEAR, Inc.

65. NewsCred, Inc.

66. Patreon, Inc.

67. PayPal Holdings, Inc.

68. Pinterest, Inc.

69. Quora, Inc.

70. Reddit, Inc.

71. Rocket Fuel Inc.

72. SaaStr Inc.

73. Salesforce.com, Inc.

74. Scopely, Inc.

75. Shutterstock, Inc.

76. Snap Inc.

77. Spokeo, Inc.

78. Spotify USA Inc.

79. Square, Inc.

80. Squarespace, Inc.

81. Strava, Inc.

82. Stripe, Inc.

83. SurveyMonkey Inc.

84. TaskRabbit, Inc

85. Tech:NYC

86. Thumbtack, Inc.

87. Turn Inc.

88. Twilio Inc.

89. Twitter Inc.

90. Turn Inc.

91. Uber Technologies, Inc.

92. Via

93. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.

94. Workday

95. Y Combinator Management, LLC

96. Yelp Inc.

97. Zynga Inc.

[Singha]

I wonder why netz and ibm hp did not join. Must be weaseling out due to large volume govt business lol

[Singha]

Arista vmware emc dell palantir ...

[Singha]

But fbook google apple msft intel are 5 very large and influential foes...hmm interesting deep state dynamics at pkay here ...coastal elites vs heartlanders?

[LokeshC]

You're right, @naruto, Steve Bannon joins Wendy Doniger, Sheldon Pollock, Jeffrey Kripal as a great interpreter of the Gita and teacher of Dharma!

White supremacists are "bigly" into Yoga and Gita, being the original descendants of white skinned Aryans and all.

[Lilo]

Need To Get Rid Of Indians: Letter At South Asian Family's Door

https://twitter.com/NBCDFW/status/801623251378196480

Okie so this "news" is from November 2016, wonder why rrNDTV has produced a farticle on this after 3 months ?
Wonder what it tells about those spreading FUD here based on this "news" tweet w/o background verification?

[Gus]

That notice is true. It was put at a community where I have friends.

[Gus]

http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/McKinn ... 88526.html

Same letter doing the rounds...Possibly picked from Infowars or stormfront to scare people..

[LokeshC]

But fbook google apple msft intel are 5 very large and influential foes...hmm interesting deep state dynamics at pkay here ...coastal elites vs heartlanders?

I believe its two things
1) A lot of employees in middle/upper management belong to one of these countries and hence they are very sensitive (someone from chacha got detained in the airport causing quite a fuss as told to me by someone who sells chai there).

2) A fear of escalation and retaliatory action by countries they do business with (especially large ones).

What interests me is the hypocricy in all this.

For example, some of the H1s in my company were campaigning for country cap removal in gc quota and tried to get the biggies involved saying that they should not be discriminated against by place of birth. None of them batted an eyelid, many just paid lip service. Infact, they were rumored to have lobbied AGAINST removing that as it gives them a large pool of (desi) captive employees who find the process of job switch difficult and thus they can keep attrition LOW, hurting both the American folks (via depressed wages) and the immigrant ones (via 'bonded labor'). Make no mistake that these guys (even those headed by soooth assians) are hardcore businessmen.

However, in this case when Trump saar just put a hold for 90 days on a few countries, everyone seems to have gotten their undies in a twist. The only reason I can think of is that it hurts their bottomline, either due to internal dynamics of finding their workforce with low morale or due to fear of escalation.

[Singha]

They dont want that huge jump in h1b salary for sure.
Using immi ban as a issue to fire back at trump and derail his other plans

Donald J. Trump ‏@realDonaldTrump
The failing @nytimes writes total fiction concerning me. They have gotten it wrong for two years, and now are making up stories & sources

Donald J. Trump
44m
Donald J. Trump ‏@realDonaldTrump
Will be interviewed on @oreillyfactor tonight at 8:00 P.M.

[Lalmohan]

what is he tweeting on the potus twitter handle?

[Gus]

well..established businesses hate disruptions..even if the status quo is not optimal from some pov.

[svinayak]

First on the White House agenda – the collapse of the global order. Next, war?
Jonathan Freedland

Close to the top of the pile, according to this week’s Time magazine, is a book called The Fourth Turning, which argues that human history moves in 80- to 100-year cycles, each one climaxing in a violent cataclysm that destroys the old order and replaces it with something new. For the US, there have been three such upheavals: the founding revolutionary war that ended in 1783, the civil war of the 1860s and the second world war of the 1940s. According to the book, America is on the brink of another.
Steve Bannon: the strategist behind Trump’s travel ban
You’ll notice what all those previous transformations have in common: war on an epic scale. For Bannon, previously impresario of the far-right Breitbart website, that is not a prospect to fear but to relish. Time, which has Bannon on the cover, quotes him all but yearning for large-scale and bloody conflict. “We’re at war” is a favourite Bannon slogan, whether it’s the struggle against jihadism, which Bannon describes as “a global existential war” that may turn into “a major shooting war in the Middle East”, or the looming clash with China.

Read more
All this lust for bloodshed may explain why Bannon was unperturbed by the chaos and loathing unleashed by last weekend’s refugee ban, which he drove through with next to no consultation with the rest of the US government. For Bannon is an advocate of the “shock event”. He’s described himself as a “Leninist”, telling one writer in 2013: “Lenin wanted to destroy the state, and that’s my goal too. I want to bring everything crashing down.” It seems war is his chosen method.

People are beginning to take notice – and get alarmed. Twice recently I’ve been told of hyper-rational individuals, who made their fortunes reading the runes correctly now converting their wealth into gold – better to withstand the coming conflagration and collapse of the civilised order. The current edition of the New Yorker includes a report on escalating demands among the super-rich for apocalypse-proof boltholes, with particular interest in airstrips and farms in New Zealand as a “back-up”.

All this can seem hyperbolic, if not hysterical. But if such thinking is taking root, it’s because a delicate set of international arrangements, painstakingly assembled in the years after 1945, and which have prevented a world war for nearly 80 years, are now getting a kicking from three different directions.

Trump ‘unbelievably disappointed’ by refugee deal with Australia
First and most obvious, is Trump himself. Not content with declaring Nato “obsolete”, he has begun hacking away at key pillars of the western alliance. His phone call with Australia’s prime minister has been written up in part as jaw-dropping comedy, but recall that Australians and Americans fought side by side as allies for a century. The two countries have long shared intelligence without restriction. Australia’s loyalty is so great, it sent troops to fight in America’s doomed Vietnam war (when Britain stayed away). Yet Trump treated the country as if it were dirt on his shoe. It shows the extent to which this US president is ready to implement Bannon’s fevered dream – and “bring everything crashing down”.

But Trump is not the sole villain here. This week’s Brexit vote in the House of Commons was a reminder that Britain too is among those taking a mallet to our fragile international system. By leaving the European Union, Britain has made it a live question whether the EU can survive. Theresa May insists she hopes it does, but the fact of Brexit will speak louder than any words.

This was an argument the remain camp failed to put with sufficient force in last year’s referendum, but it is central. Europe has a history of bloody conflict stretching back many centuries. The only period of continental peace came when the nations of Europe combined in a community and then a union. Even to risk the future of that union is to risk the return of war in Europe.

Both these shifts would be damaging enough, but the combination is a true menace. It’s not just that Trump’s proposed EU envoy actively looks forward to the unravelling of the EU, hoping it goes the way of the Soviet Union. It’s that Trump sees multilateral cooperation as a limp-wristed strategy for losers, preferring to make bilateral deals that work for him. That triggers a Darwinian scramble, in which every nation looks out only for itself – and damn the arrangements that previously held the world together.

And of course all this has an effect on those actors outside the west, as they respond to these shifts. With a swooning admirer in the White House, Vladimir Putin now feels free to flex his muscles: witness this week’s offensive in eastern Ukraine. China is girding itself for a trade war, or worse, with Trump’s America. Meanwhile global jihadism rubs its hands as Trump, with his refugee ban, all but vindicates their warped vision – signalling to the world’s Muslims that, yes, Islamic State is right and there is no place for you in the west.

[svinayak]

And the defiance continues:

Coca Cola super bowl commercial with political overtone.


Hope Beople have noticed the shameless effort to attribute Hindi to muslim ummah(assorted pakis) in the vedio led by CocaCola.
Guess CocaCola suddenly wants the otherwise dutty stinking yindoos in massaland to sacrifice their Yindoo identity at the altar of the Leftliberal-islamiofascist God with the aim to defeat the God Kek's crusadering tadpoles led by Trump.

Same game the Leftliberal-Islamofascist brishit establishment played when they conflated indics & Indians with the Pakis under the umbrella term "Asian" - to fight against the working class origin english rightwing .

This is the image creation. All the brown people are put together. This shows what is seen within the eyes of the majority of the people in US
In the eyes and mind of the American people they see this mass of brown people. There is no difference between Hindu and Indians and rest of the west asia and asia.

The TV people keep talking about 1.9 billion Muslim people and they may put every asian nation into this bucket except China

So brace yourself to western created world view (by western media and AD) which does not know the rest of world.

[Melwyn]

BTW that Coca Cola ad is an old one. I think it was played even last year or maybe before that.

[Zynda]

What interests me is the hypocricy in all this.

For example, some of the H1s in my company were campaigning for country cap removal in gc quota and tried to get the biggies involved saying that they should not be discriminated against by place of birth. None of them batted an eyelid, many just paid lip service. Infact, they were rumored to have lobbied AGAINST removing that as it gives them a large pool of (desi) captive employees who find the process of job switch difficult and thus they can keep attrition LOW, hurting both the American folks (via depressed wages) and the immigrant ones (via 'bonded labor'). Make no mistake that these guys (even those headed by soooth assians) are hardcore businessmen.

However, in this case when Trump saar just put a hold for 90 days on a few countries, everyone seems to have gotten their undies in a twist.

^100+. I was gonna post this a few days back. I want to see how many USC folks along with corps will take to the street in protest of all the poor law abiding legal immigrants who may be affected by the H1 issue. Probably none. Except for in desh, it may very well receive scant media attention in YooEss.

In the end, Indians may force NaMo/GoI to act on their behalf and negotiate some kind of a compromise, just like how MMS did when Tri-Valley Univ kinda scam got busted a few years ago.

The only reason I can think of is that it hurts their bottomline, either due to internal dynamics of finding their workforce with low morale or due to fear of escalation.

This a positive PR opportunity...unlike H1. Note almost all of the big Auto, defense and core industries are missing. Majority of them are IT/Software industries. Even major banks and financial institutions are not listed, even though they hire foreign nationals in huge numbers.

[KJo]

If you think about it, all we are doing is begging the West for jobs. I wish there comes a time when India won't need the US or its visas for Indian professionals to find meaningful livelihood. Currently, we have our balls in the hands of whoever is running Amreeka. All this "we don't need them, they need us!" bravado notwithstanding.

[kiranA]

^100+. I was gonna post this a few days back. I want to see how many USC folks along with corps will take to the street in protest of all the poor law abiding legal immigrants who may be affected by the H1 issue. Probably none. Except for in desh, it may very well receive scant media attention in YooEss.

.

Well even in this supposedly nationalistic forum we had many posters, nay stalwarts, who curled up their noses on h1b. According to them h1b are disgusting frauds who risk the precious approval they believe they secured from their white neighbours/colleagues. How can we expect other nationals to take seriously ?

[Arjun]

If you think about it, all we are doing is begging the West for jobs.

On the contrary, its Silicon Valley that has been begging GOTUS for many decades now for access to global talent. And this access to global talent is what has enabled Silicon Valley to maintain its lead over the rest of the world.

[Vayutuvan]

Airbnb super bowl commercial with political overtone:

This was aired three years back. So what is your point?

[Vayutuvan]

And the defiance continues:

Coca Cola super bowl commercial with political overtone.

Coca Cola is a great drink which keeps all of us Amrus healthy. Not too dissimilar too Pepsi ruled by Ms. I. Nooyi. Hats of to great companies doing good work furthering the health of each and every american.

[Vayutuvan]

You're right, @naruto, Steve Bannon joins Wendy Doniger, Sheldon Pollock, Jeffrey Kripal as a great interpreter of the Gita and teacher of Dharma!

Saar, you do like NYT though, don't you?

[Vayutuvan]

well..established businesses hate disruptions..even if the status quo is not optimal from some pov.

Those who disrupt push the envelope out.

[Vayutuvan]

what is he tweeting on the potus twitter handle?

@realDonaldTrump is @POTUS, right? Right?

[Vayutuvan]

If you think about it, all we are doing is begging the West for jobs.

On the contrary, its Silicon Valley that has been begging GOTUS for many decades now for access to global talent. And this access to global talent is what has enabled Silicon Valley to maintain its lead over the rest of the world.

35% are foreign born. The real question is how many of those have advanced degrees from the land of the Great Satan? How many from the great Ivy Leagues (which you claim to be from) of India?

[ShyamSP]

well..established businesses hate disruptions..even if the status quo is not optimal from some pov.

Those who disrupt push the envelope out.

Disruptors pushing envelope may attract smaller blobs that acquire them but hardly make impact on the bigger blob in the Wall street.

[Arjun]

35% are foreign born.

58% as per the Silicon Valley Leadership Group. The 58% seems to be only for actual FTEs working with SV firms. Presumably if you include contractors and outsourced work - foreign born % will be much higher.

The real question is how many of those have advanced degrees from the land of the Great Satan? How many from the great Ivy Leagues (which you claim to be from) of India?

Not aware of any stats that track this...my estimate is FTEs will tilt slightly more towards having US Univ degrees ?

IITs - again, looks like percentage leaving for foreign shores off the bat has decreased but estimate of those who still leave ultimately (after working) ranges between 20 - 40%.

Don't know how the questions are relevant though. Btw, How come the anti-IIT brigade of yore on this forum has morphed today into champions of IITs and immigrant quality ?

[Atmavik]

This a positive PR opportunity...unlike H1. Note almost all of the big Auto, defense and core industries are missing. Majority of them are IT/Software industries. Even major banks and financial institutions are not listed, even though they hire foreign nationals in huge numbers.

i work for a Large Financial on the Mashraki Coast which is not listed here but we got an email protesting against this EO saying this is goes against our Diversity efforts and will hit our Global ops. unofically i can see a broad smile on a few racists who have thrown political correctness out of the window.

one SDRE colleague was shivering while smoking outside and a red neck co worker told him " why dont u go back if it is too cold for you". but over all these folks are in a minority as the rest of the goras are either supportive or ambivalent.

[darshan]

http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/McKinn ... 88526.html

Same letter doing the rounds...Possibly picked from Infowars or stormfront to scare people..

Not the usual wording I see from Texas and Oklahoma border. Any further opinion on style of writing and the word usage here? I find the words MUSLIMS, INDIANS, BLACKS, and JEWS interesting and the obvious target seems to be a community area that is pretty well populated by desi people. Especially the Frisco in the south side.