Friday, August 18, 2017
Sorcerer and Sorcerer's Apprentice, the TWO Sides of a Leaden Coin
JOSHUA GREEN – DEVIL’S BARGAIN –
2017
The book is a guide through the complicated career of Steve
Bannon and the controversial contradictory erratic career of Donald Trump. And
what’s more how the two came across each other and bonded together and are now
like the hen and the egg in the shape of the puppet and the puppeteer, the
sorcerer and the sorcerer’s apprentice, and we could think – as a perfect
antagonistic image – of Jachin and Boaz (from right to left) the two pillars of
Solomon’s Temple: “According to Josephus in Antiquities of the Jews, Boaz (Hebrew bōʿaz "In
him/it [is] strength") stood on the left when entering Solomon's
Temple, while Jachin (Tiberian Hebrew yāḵîn "He/it will
establish") stood on the right, and the two were made by Hiram.” And the
Old Testament is just as clear as the Roman-time historian: “2 Chronicles 3:17 New
International Version (NIV) 17 He erected the pillars in the
front of the temple, one to the south and one to the north. The one to the
south he named Jakin and the one to the north Boaz.” And two notes tell
us: Footnotes: a- Jakin probably means he establishes. b- Boaz probably
means in him is strength. But Thomas Troward (1921) refers Boaz to Ruth
and comes to a different interpretation: “Thus the two pillars typify Unity and
the redeeming power of Love, with the significant suggestion that the
redemption results from the Unity. They correspond with the two
"bonds," or uniting principles spoken of by St. Paul, "the Unity
of the Spirit which is the Bond of Peace," and "Love, which is the
Bond of Perfectness.” And this interpretation is like the Christianization of
the pillars by using a reference to the Old Testament itself, viz. Ruth and
Boaz.
Why start with this reference which is not present in the
book? Because this couple Bannon-Trump is so strongly bringing up images from
Walt Disney’s Fantasia as well from the Old Testament, from what is seen as the
basic reference in these two characters’ ideology, “Traditionalism” borrowed
from the French occultist and metaphysician René Guénon (1886-1951) who brought
together in himself Roman Catholicism, Freemasonry and Sufism, thus uniting the
three Semitic traditions that are Christianity, Judaism (in the underground but
acceptable form of Freemasonry that actually historically brought together
Christianity and Judaism) and Islam (this last reference connected to Guénon
will be in contradiction with the strongly anti-Islam position of Bannon and
Trump as we will see later). The author does not insist enough on this point,
and Bannon even goes further and injects into this united Semitic vision that
developed in the Middle East from old Semitic traditions and Sumerian or even
Zoroastrian traditions of Mesopotamia and Iran, the other religious descendant
from this Iranian religious and philosophical hatchery, viz. the Four Yugas of
Hinduism developed from old Sanskrit Vedas. The four Yugas are (with their
timespans): 1- Satya Yuga equals 1,728,000 years; 2- Treta Yuga equals
1,296,000 years; 3- Dvapara Yuga equals 864,000 years; 4- Kali Yuga equals
432,000 years. We are supposed to be right in the middle of the first phase of
this Kali Yuga. “We live in the Kali Yuga — in a world infested with
impurities and vices. People possessing genial virtues are diminishing day by
day. Floods and famine, war and crime, deceit and duplicity characterize this
age. But, say the scriptures, final emancipation is possible only in this age.”
And we are entitled to wonder what is coming next: “WHAT HAPPENS NEXT? It is
predicted that at the end of the Kali Yuga, Lord Shiva shall destroy the
universe and all the physical body would undergo a great transformation. After
such dissolution, Lord Brahma would recreate the universe and mankind
will become the 'Beings of Truth' once again.” (https://www.thoughtco.com/the-four-yugas-or-epochs-1770051)
This cyclical apocalyptic vision of the universe is by the way
very similar to the Nordic mythology of the Ragnarok, or even the New Testament’s
vision of the Apocalypse, the Revelation. Steve Bannon and Donald Trump are
seeing the world, meaning here the American-centered world, on the verge of
collapse. Robert Kuttner in his coverage of a telephone call he had from Bannon
on Tuesday August 15, 2017, published in American
Prospect on Wednesday August 16, reports Bannon saying: “To me,” Bannon said, “the economic war with China is
everything. And we have to be maniacally focused on that. If we continue to
lose it, we're five years away, I think, ten years at the most, of hitting an
inflection point from which we'll never be able to recover.” (http://prospect.org/article/steve-bannon-unrepentant)
The apocalypse may come in five or ten years, which means, China may become the
dominant force in the world and the USA may become a non-entity, since it will
no longer be the first power in this world. Trump is no philosopher or
spiritualist thinker, so he sets this apocalypse in more political words:
America will end, if it is not already the case, imminently if he, Trump, with the
support of true Americans, does not make America great again by his
protectionist policy of America first.
The book is for most of it a
journalistic story about events with dates, places and participants of the
surge and emergence of Donald Trump, his meeting with Steve Bannon and
subsequent alliance, and the first six months or so of his presidency. It’s
only in the tenth chapter that he tries to bring together a synthetic and
compact summary of this “ideology-political-‘science’” vision enacted by the two
protagonists. The historical vision is naïve since for them (Bannon for sure,
Trump maybe) the world changed with the destruction of the Knights Templar in
1314 on the order of Philip IV, called the Fair (Philippe le Bel), King of
France, and later on the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 historically known as the
Treaty of Westphalia that ended the thirty years’ war between the Catholic and
the Protestant entities in the German Empire. It also gave independence to
Switzerland from Austria and the Netherlands from Spain (whose king was the
Emperor of the German Empire). In this same historical line Bannon brings
together René Guénon, as already mentioned, Julius Evola (1898-1974) who
inspired Benito Mussolini, and an eclectic religious palette from his very
traditional Tridentine Catholicism (Council of Trent, Italy, 1545-1563) to the Hindu
concept of cyclical time, as I have already mentioned, and a little bit of Zen
Buddhism, that particular spiritual meditative form of Buddhism developed in
Japan that may have a strong nationalist coloration. If you add the nationalist
trend of their thinking you have the skeleton of their Traditionalism that makes
them consider the world is changing in their direction. They consider they are
part of a vast (global?) movement that brings them together with English Nigel
Farage of UKIP, French Marine Le Pen of National Front, Dutch Geert Wilders of
the Party of Freedom, and American Sarah Palin and the Tea Party. Apparently
Joshua Green seems to have overlooked Austrian Norbert Hofer of the Freedom
Party of Austria, and he could have added the Polish brand or the Hungarian breed
of such extreme right nationalistic anti-(im)migrant and traditionalist Catholics
to the basket, though he adds Vladimir Putin and his ideologist Alexander
Dugin. This addition is in fact opportunistic because there is not one single
common point between Vladimir Putin’s reassertion of Russian national pride and
power and Eurasianism on one hand, and the American nationalist protectionist
hegemony of Trump on the other hand.
As a matter of fact, it is in
the last chapters that this book becomes interesting. Bannon-Trump ideology is
defined as based on
1- traditional Christian faith strongly inspired by
Tridentine Catholicism to which they nostalgically want to refer (note that
implies a clear rejection of Judaism and Islam);
2- the rejection of the rise of secular modernity in the
West (with two contradictions since Trump would not have become and would not
be the President he is without that secular modern world and its communication
tools like Twitter on one hand, and the fact that they meet here with extreme
Islam and Sufism that reject this very secular modernity);
3- a strong reference to Catholic social subsidiarity (Pope
Pius XI and his 1931 Encyclical, Quadragesimo
anno, that is in phase with small-government conservatism, though there is
then a contradiction since Trump is using the federal machine to bring up the
societal transformation he is dreaming of like the famous Mexican wall, the
infrastructure plan, the repealing and replacing of Obamacare, the tax reform,
etc., though pushing down onto the states all federal expenses he wants to get
rid of);
4- the condemnation of and attempt to bring down the encroaching
globalism that has been developing in the world over the last fifty or seventy
years (with a contradiction again since he wants to bring the USA back into the
dominant seat in the world and impose an American-oriented globalism);
5- an absolute opposition to the civilizational jihad
personified by the migrant crisis brought around by the will of Islam to reject
and destroy the Western world and civilization (with another contradiction here
in the desire to have an alliance with Sunni Arabs – not Muslims – against essentially
Shia Muslims – who count hardly any Arabs – and what’s more his apparent
decision to widen and increase the military intervention in Sunni Afghanistan,
mostly Shia Iraq against Sunni Isis in alliance with Sunni Kurds and Sunni
Syrians against the Shia Syrian government and in contradictory relation with
Sunni Turkey: nothing is simple in that area);
6- the strong triple reference to borders that have to be
revalued and strengthened, currency that has to be nationally defined, and
military and national identity (which defines when implemented in the American
context a strong protectionist, nationalistic and interventionist vision, conception
and imposition of the USA as the master of the world);
7- a direct call and incitation to act directed to all the traditional
right movements covered by the term alt-right that counts all conservative
movements from the Tea Party to white nationalists, white supremacists, KKK,
various movements defending male domination at all levels of society and other
racial-minded movements that defend a return to the values of the past (and
here the contradiction has just exploded in Charlottesville because this
incitation is the ferment of some civil problems that some have called riots,
upheavals, civil terrorism, and many other horrors like these people chanting “Jews
will not replace us” on the Friday night torch march).
8- The last element that the author seems to underestimate
is the reference to the blue collar working class, those workers who only have
a high school degree for most of them and who see the transformation of our
modern world as purely evil for them since it pushes them aside.
Sure enough the book in its
conclusion sees the themes it has developed coming to a dead end, an impasse, a
blind alley, but not yet Charlottesville that happened after the publication of
the book, and Charlottesville is a complete and dangerous stalemate in which
social upheaval is possible, in which the President stubbornly refuses to
remain within the presidential tradition of the USA represented for example by
the two ex-Presidents George Bush and George W. Bush’s joint statement. This
situation brings down the attempt to have some kind of coordination between the
White House and the CEOs of most Silicon Valley firms and industrial corporations
in order to rethink the problem of outsourcing various productions and bringing
them back to the USA. The numerous CEOs that resigned from these commissions or
committees brought up their dissolution by the President that registered his
inability to go on with this plan and in a way his obstinacy at refusing what
some demand him to do: apologize and condemn without any fuzziness the extreme
right movements that started the confrontation in Charlottesville with the Friday
night torch march that was both not announced beforehand and directly referring
to the same kind of marches in the USA in the various lynching operations of
the KKK or other racist movements, or even the pogroms against black ghettos
for decades after the Civil War and up to very recently. To defend the statue
of Robert E. Lee was contextual enough to bring back the memory of slavery and
then segregation and then all kinds of extreme racial discrimination. And those
are facts now, since the pictures and the recordings of these sorry events have
been brought up to us thanks to modern technology. Luckily we will in no way
move towards some kind of regressive reactionary retroactive going back to the world
when we only had smoke signals and tam-tams to communicate “long distance.”
The book is full of information
and thus extremely useful, but it is maybe too much journalistic and it has by
far been overtaken by events we can only regret and condemn, events in which Steve
Bannon or Donald Trump have not taken the proper stand.
Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU
# posted by Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU @ 4:37 AM 
