basquebromance
Diamond Member
- Nov 26, 2015
- 109,396
- 27,042
"we were Kennedy freaks" says Chris Bannon, Steve's younger brother. "My dad knocked on doors for Kennedy. Every Irish kid thinks he wants to be Jack Kennedy, right?!"
Steve mowed lawns and delivered newspapers before graduating to a job at local junkyard. "he would come home looking like a coal miner. mom would make him strip down to his boxers and spray him off with a hose before he could come in"
Bannon attented Bendictine High School. "we were a right wing military Catholic high school" John Pudner, a childhood friend of Bannon recalls. "we were all taught that Western civilization was saved 500 years ago in Spain when Ferdinand defeated the Moors. the lesson was, here's where Muslims could have taken over the world. and here was the great stand where they were stopped. we were taught a worldview: "this is how catholicism survived." i think that shaped all of us. but what Steve took away, was a belief that you've got to be willing to identify the threat. when we were growing up, the threat was the atheist, communist Soviet Union. Now Muslims are trying to blow us up. Western civilization has to be constantly and vigilantly defended against shadowy, shape-shifting enemies. Bannon was prone to viewing contemporary struggles, even minor ones as critical events of historical significance. this fed a grandiose image of himself as someone galloping to defend not just class but the West itself"
Benedictine cadets thought of themselves as working class and cultivated rivarlies with a pair of rich prep schools in the Richmond, VA suburbs. "we'd fight them at parties. we were the blue-collar guys. they were the rich snobs. they'd tell us: when you grow up, you'll work for us. and we'd punch them in the balls.
(this is all chronicled in Joshua Green's book about Bannon, 'The Devil's Bargain')
Steve mowed lawns and delivered newspapers before graduating to a job at local junkyard. "he would come home looking like a coal miner. mom would make him strip down to his boxers and spray him off with a hose before he could come in"
Bannon attented Bendictine High School. "we were a right wing military Catholic high school" John Pudner, a childhood friend of Bannon recalls. "we were all taught that Western civilization was saved 500 years ago in Spain when Ferdinand defeated the Moors. the lesson was, here's where Muslims could have taken over the world. and here was the great stand where they were stopped. we were taught a worldview: "this is how catholicism survived." i think that shaped all of us. but what Steve took away, was a belief that you've got to be willing to identify the threat. when we were growing up, the threat was the atheist, communist Soviet Union. Now Muslims are trying to blow us up. Western civilization has to be constantly and vigilantly defended against shadowy, shape-shifting enemies. Bannon was prone to viewing contemporary struggles, even minor ones as critical events of historical significance. this fed a grandiose image of himself as someone galloping to defend not just class but the West itself"
Benedictine cadets thought of themselves as working class and cultivated rivarlies with a pair of rich prep schools in the Richmond, VA suburbs. "we'd fight them at parties. we were the blue-collar guys. they were the rich snobs. they'd tell us: when you grow up, you'll work for us. and we'd punch them in the balls.
(this is all chronicled in Joshua Green's book about Bannon, 'The Devil's Bargain')
