By Marcus Alethia, Ph.D. | 15 November 2016
THE OCCIDENTAL OBSERVER — The corporate media would have us believe that President-Elect Trump’s newly appointed Chief Strategist and Senior Counselor Stephen K Bannon is a raging anti-Semite, and “white supremacist.” Though best known now for his role in the Trump campaign, Bannon is a former US Naval officer, Goldman Sachs banker, director of Earth-science research at Biosphere 2, film producer, and chairman of Breitbart News. Over the last 24 hours he has been subjected to a well-orchestrated crescendo of op-eds and tweets attacking his character and political views.
For instance, Esquire’s resident hysteric Charles Pierce would have us believe that “The hiring of Steve Bannon as a WH policy advisor is exactly the same as hiring David Duke.”
Meanwhile, the Daily News’ chief fabulist-in-training Shaun King purports to explain how “Donald Trump is using Steve Bannon to turn the GOP into the new KKK.”
And deservedly obscure presidential candidate Evan McMullin asks “Will any national level GOP leaders condemn @realDonaldTrump’s appointment of anti-Semite Steve Bannon to senior White House role?”
Others using the anti-Semitism slur include Newsweek’s Kurt Eichenwald, Huffington Post’s Sam Stein, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, the ADL’s Jonathan Greenblatt, US Senator Ron Wyden, Slate, Salon, Forward, and a cast of thousands more piling on. Many are Jewish, though not all.
As an American Jew, I am completely horrified at this reprehensible smear campaign. It is shameful. Sadly, it is the norm. The media know that the charge of anti-Semitism is tremendously damaging. If they get away with using this on Bannon, I fear they will continue using it towards many others associated with the Trump administration. They go low. Period.
The fact that this is a smear without foundation seem obvious from statements made by Jewish friends and associates of Bannon. Former Breitbart reporter Ben Shapiro left the news site after a falling out with Bannon, and there is no love lost between the two. Yet he writes, “I have no evidence that Bannon’s a racist or that he’s an anti-Semite.” David Horowitz states that the accusation is completely without foundation. Milo Yiannopoulos, one of Breitbart’s main writers, wrote many of the headlines Bannon is currently under fire for, and he’s half Jewish. Orthodox Jew Joel Pollack, Breitbart staff writer, states “Steve is a friend of the Jewish people and a defender of Israel, as well as being a passionate American patriot and a great leader,” and he goes on to say that not only is Bannon not anti-Semitic, “if anything, he is overly sensitive about it, and often takes offense on Jews’ behalf.” […]
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