August 04, 2022

Stupid People-->Incompetent Leaders-->Foolish Decisions-->National Collapse

Wafers-

OK, here is how it actually is. This is finally the only narrative worth entertaining.

1.The American people are basically out of it. They are clueless and stupid. If you don’t believe me, just go up to one—any one—in the street, and try to engage them on any issue of substance. They will just stare at you, uncomprehendingly. Most of you have already had this experience. The truth is that there is nothing of consequence in their heads. (The World Series, how to make more money, sex, etc.) Ask them what the initials FDR stand for, for example, or what is the capital of New York State (they’ll say, “New York”). 2.As George Carlin told us, stupid people elect stupid leaders. How in the world do we have the likes of Greene, Boebert, Schmamala, Tulsi, Trump, Pelosi—it’s a long list—in office? These people are little more than jokes, and millions adore them. They have no self-transparency, and no real understanding of American history—why the US does what it does. The best they can do is repeat slogans, and think that that’s thinking. 3.Not rocket science: stupid leaders make stupid decisions, ones that are programmed from centuries ago, and that are ultimately self-destructive. (I discuss some of this programming in QOV. For example, the age-old need to have an enemy, and thus to constantly live in a war mentality, and to make war when there is no genuine cause for it.) 4.Bad decisions involve living reactively, from moment to moment, whereas our “enemies” are smart; they play the long game, and they will, as a result, eclipse us. Meanwhile, most nations no longer take us seriously. We look like fools because we are fools. These nations have to tiptoe around us, because we are like a baby waving a bazooka. But they know we have force, not strength. (We don't even know what strength is.) Meanwhile, even our force is draining away, on a daily basis. We have no spiritual purpose; we are just drifting, without any meaning at all. 5.What country decides to take on 2 great powers simultaneously? Ukraine is a proxy for our totally unnecessary war w/Russia, and Taiwan a semi-proxy for an unnecessary confrontation w/China. Who does this, except governments run by people who are effectively brain dead? And who believes this “democracy” crap except the American people, who will believe anything? Anyone w/half a brain knows that Schmiden doesn’t give a shit abt the Ukrainians, and that Schmelosi cdn’t care less abt the Taiwanese. It’s all posturing for the sake of posturing—the refuge of the impotent. 6. Arnold Toynbee demonstrated that civilizations don’t collapse by being invaded from the outside. No, he said; instead, they commit suicide by making all the wrong moves. There is simply no other way to (accurately) interpret what is happening to us. Meanwhile, intelligent civilizations, such as Russia and China, are biding their time. Why attack America when it is doing a bang-up job of attacking itself? 7. Just a ps: Exactly what *is* American civilization? It is a culture only in an anthropological sense; in our case, a gun culture; which is, really, a death culture. In terms of culture in the sense of creativity: Where is the American Dostoevsky? The American Verdi? The American Picasso? 0. What, exactly, will be lost to the world as America slides down the chute to oblivion? Democracy? Ha! Basically, a cover for capitalism, which Americans, like Milton Friedman (a high-IQ moron), equate with freedom, even as it crushes the life out of them.

-mb

190 Comments:

Blogger Joe McIlnen said...

Doctor,
In addition to stupid people, we also can throw in “angry violent” people. And since this creep had on a U.S. Army shirt, we can be rest assured the many “patriotic” conservatives will “thank him for his service” if they pass him on the street.
https://abc7news.com/starbread-bakery-pittsburg-east-bay-attacked-covid-guidelines/12067950/

And in the heat of summer, there’s not only road rage but also BOAT rage! Tempers flare on the water too. It’s all part and parcel of the slow continuing inexorable collapse of this putrid shithole.
https://www.tiktok.com/@wavyboats/video/7119874307571911979
https://www.tiktok.com/@coastalboating/video/7119484910674693422

U.S.A.!, U.S.A.!, U.S.A.!

10:58 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Resisting the psychological damage of capitalism:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/aug/04/summer-holiday-work-children-productive-do-nothing

11:33 PM  
Anonymous Megan said...

Nice post, Dr. Berman. In regards to your last entry, "What am I living for?", I don't have a precise answer, but I'm glad you are still here. I hope you still have a long stretch of happy fulfilling life ahead of you. But since you are a partial hermit, I guess we wouldn't know if the worst happened, and you were cut down prematurely. Your blog would just go down, presumably, and at some point Wikepedia would have your death date, after a nice summary about how you "got it", but no one cared, beyond the 173 misfits who check into your blog every day, and theoretical Chinese historians fifty years from now. (Yet, one of us will add, you pressed on anyhow, shaking your fist at the gods and continued rolling your boulder back up the hill until the end.) That said, I seriously hope that that sad day is still very far off.

On another subject, I mentioned in another post that I watched that ridiculous space documentary (Space X) on Elon Musk on Netflix. I figured that since people like him, Zuckerschmuck and Bezos are among the three most powerful men on earth, I should force myself to learn a bit about them. Along the same lines, here is a mildly critical look at Bezos and his grotesque Amazon empire (Don't even get me started on his monstrous idea of rotating space colonies, for up to a million happy people. This is literally his greatest passion. Grotesque.):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVVfJVj5z8s&t=4374s

My conclusion? Our culture and society are literally formed and controlled by grasping douchebags, without a trace of nobility, and utterly adolescent mindsets. I will need at least a year before I am recovered enough to watch a documentary on Zuckerschmuck. Or perhaps this is just evidence that I am some kind of masochist?

4:09 AM  
Anonymous Fowler said...

"This looks like Theranos level fraud. The last 16 years of Alzheimer’s research looks to have been built on deliberately falsified data. It’s why Alzheimer’s drugs have a 99% failure rate in trials. The thing they’re trying to fix isn’t the problem."

https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2022/7/22/2111914/-Two-decades-of-Alzheimer-s-research-may-be-based-on-deliberate-fraud-that-has-cost-millions-of-lives

People would love if there were some simple reason we haven't cured Alzheimer's by now, like data fabrication, but really it's because neuroscience is a pre-paradigmatic discipline

See Exhibit A, SSRIs are bullshit:

Scientists Find No Evidence That Depression Is Caused by “Chemical Imbalance” or Low Serotonin Levels
https://www.google.com/amp/s/scitechdaily.com/scientists-find-no-evidence-that-depression-is-caused-by-chemical-imbalance-or-low-serotonin-levels/amp/

9:35 AM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Fowler-

Ascribing everything to chemistry is surely b.s. A better guide to depression, and how to deal w/it, is Alexander Lowen, "Depression and the Body."

Megan-

"Boy emperors," someone has called them.

mb

10:23 AM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Wafers-

After all the threats and bluster, what China is now doing to Taiwan is lame. It's theater, it doesn't amount to shit. China sits there w/egg on face. Not that Pelosi's visit was anything other than theater as well; it accomplished 0 and probably made things worse. The real thing to consider is, What exactly is Pelosism? (Yes, I know, we are still struggling w/Tulsism, but for now the focus has shifted.) And assuming that Pelosism is not a gd thing, what can be done to counter it? Shd she be made the target of projectile vomiting? Or an inundation of Wafer Urine (on shoes)? Wafers are invited to weigh in on this crucial subject, as opposed to crap like sanctions on Taiwan, wh/are pure poop.

mb

10:43 AM  
Anonymous Glans Butterworth, III said...

I love a parade, the tramping of feet, I love every beat I hear of a drum in a failed country chock filled with dumb dumbs!


https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/multiple-injured-two-police-officers-vehicle-plows-new-mexico-parade-rcna41709

11:58 AM  
Anonymous cults said...

I'm fascinated by how so many people have turned to various cult leaders and religions over the decades. Rather than looking at reality, people seem to be ripe for the picking for whatever dominant personality comes around. The so-called "anti-cult movement" of the 1970s and 1980s seems like an interesting topic (the Rajneesh people are something wild), though I understand it's kind of old news at this point.

I'd love to see a Hollywood movie on this one, it has all kinds of goodies: religious cult, drug addiction, closeted gays, weapons deals with the Aryan nation, child abuse, and even a prepper bunker in Canada for when the Freemasons take over the government.

Congregation of Mary Immaculate Queen

4:51 PM  
Anonymous Satchmo said...

Here's something you've probably noticed w/ most Amerikkkans: They seem to dread Mondays & only look forward to Fridays. After finishing the daily crossword on the Dictionary.com site, I browsed around & noticed this rather sad article below. They post a list of "alternatives" to saying Happy Monday to co-workers.

https://www.dictionary.com/e/happy-monday-alternatives/

Why do you reckon most folks in the US hate Mondays so much? That seems to me like an awful way to live.

6:08 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Satch-

O, it's worse than that. They not only hate Mondays; they hate themselves, and they hate their lives. But hey, they love America! (the source of their self-hatred)

cults-

I can't be bothered w/such buffoonery, really. Such people need to be slapped, and have their shoes peed on. I had it out w/the Rajneeshies in Germany in the 80s; what a collection of clowns. I'm happy to say I defeated them soundly, and made them look like the shitpile that they are (or were). Shortly after that, his trusty assistant, Ma Anand Sheela, a great douche baguette, came out saying "To hell with Rajneesh." It was in all the papers, esp. in Germany. It wd be dishonest of me to say, I can't figure out why people fall for this type of crap, because I *do* know why. Check out CTOS ch. 1 for a basic intro.

mb

6:32 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Clem-

We strive to be a discussion forum rather than a bulletin board. In future, perhaps you could provide a paragraph or two of commentary with your links. Thank you.

mb

11:46 PM  
Blogger Joe McIlnen said...

And away we go with another violent weekend here in the world’s biggest embarrassing excuse for a country. An added bonus is the latest creative surprise to take out violent anger: throw a dumbbell against a windshield.
https://www.khou.com/article/news/local/houston-road-rage-dumbbell-through-window/285-fdd9896c-7bbe-4a50-abaf-0a8408ce901f
Of course if you have a gun, shoot a 3 year old if you argue with another driver.
https://kvia.com/top-stories/2022/08/05/3-year-old-girl-injured-in-las-cruces-after-shooting-in-possible-road-rage-incident/
Or if involved with another driver in a heated road rage exchange, take it out instead on a bicyclist that happens to be pedaling past you. And rob him while you’re at it.
https://road.cc/content/news/road-rage-motorist-assaults-cyclist-and-steals-his-camera-294975

U.S.A.!, U.S.A.!, U.S.A.!

12:55 AM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Joe-

The dumbbell is a nice touch. I still think the best plan of action is to issue weapons to every American, and tell them to just "go to it!".

mb

1:22 AM  
Anonymous cubeangel said...

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/aew8m9/comment/edtsyat/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

Dr. B is so right on everything he says. Pay attention to what the user SmilingSarcastic says and how everyone agrees with him and they all get into a discussion of how important it is to fake looking busy at work. When did "Honesty is the best policy" get thrown out the window? And, no one on reddit sees anything wrong with this picture at all?

The American workplace is completely dysfunctional and they treat the dysfunction as something normal and a life skill the young must learn? How crack rock are they doing?

6:13 AM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

cube-

Sounds like George Costanza, but on Seinfeld this behavior was an object of satire. The show also ridiculed mailmen with their "3-hr lunch breaks." Many yrs ago, in DC, some gov't agency hired me to give their employees a workshop in writing and editing. They openly said things like, "Just 5 more years of pretending to do any work, and I can retire on full pension." It hardly bothered them that I could overhear this; plus, it never occurred to them that they were throwing away 5 yrs of their lives. A sad country w/sad people in it.

mb

7:05 AM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

mango-

Pls post more carefully in the future. Yr post came across like a scrambled egg. At the halfway mark, it repeated iself. It was also a bit too long. Pls reread and rethink. Thank you.

mb

5:42 PM  
Anonymous Orca said...

Wafers, I'm currently reading a book called 'L'homme aggressif' by the late french neuroscientist Pierre Karli in which he tried to use what was up to date at the time of the writing (80s) to paint a complete picture on what is agression and what are its biological and social causes. On the social causes the author argued that the other is a source of fear and can be a cause of agressive behaviour. As he says "unfamiliarity and uncertainty can be easily translated into a rather hostile attitude." He, however, contextualises it as he argues that there can be other social phenomena that help reduce agression, especially closeness, knowledge and oppenness to the other.
Now to the american individual. We know that americans have a me vs the world attitude, are generally very closed on themselves and ignorant. The other might be a source of geniun fear wich sparks the wide varieties of agressive behaviours. And when the other retaliates with violence in self defence it further pushes the american into a paranoid and isolationist state which sparks further agression and so on in a vicious circle. This may be one of the many interconnected reasons why america loves violence. But sure as hell, America loves the smell of napalm in the morning.

The book:
https://www.leslibraires.ca/livres/l-homme-agressif-pierre-karli-9782020095532.html

7:06 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Orca-

He left out psychological factors, wh/I discuss in QOV. Also check out the work of another French scholar, Denis Duclos:

https://www.amazon.com/-/es/Denis-Duclos/dp/1859731465/ref=sr_1_1?__mk_es_US=%C3%85M%C3%85%C5%BD%C3%95%C3%91&crid=J6K01NAXGOKR&keywords=denis+duclos&qid=1659827762&s=books&sprefix=denis+duclos%2Cstripbooks%2C399&sr=1-1

Opposition hardens ego-boundaries, makes you feel whole and alive. But it's actually a house of cards.

mb

7:19 PM  
Anonymous LouHarrison said...

A thought I had while reading the news the last couple days:

The vileness of Alex Jones is like this. The vileness is that tens of millions of Americans admire and support him and his behavior, and made him disgustingly rich for how he chooses to exist.

A nice anecdote for the topic of this blog!

8:01 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Lou-

Always gd to include a link in yr posts. Meanwhile, I have a homework assignment 4u. Tomorrow morning, get up, make yrself tea or coffee, and sit on yr couch, facing the wall or the rm. Now spend 20 minutes contemplating how many Americans need to get slapped. If it's less than 100 million, you need to recalculate.

Jones is the extreme end of the spectrum, because in one way or another, the entire population is engaged in some form of hustling. It is, after all, the American Dream.

You will be surprised to hear that there is a cure. Wafers will go from house to house, carrying sticks, and beat every American senseless while shouting, 'You are a pathetic piece of garbage and you will stop your competitive, selfish, consumerist, war-supporting, narcissistic way of life, IMMEDIATELY!' Then we will drop upon them T-shirts that say 'I APOLOGIZE FOR BEING A DOUCHE BAG'.

mb

9:03 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Wafers-

So I was rdg letters to the editor in the June 20 issue of the New Yorker, and 2 exceptional Americans wrote in to comment on how China is treated in US gov't and public discourse. These letters reminded me of Rachel DeWoskin's memoir, "Foreign Girls in Beijing." Rachel worked there as an actress for 5 yrs ca. 20 yrs ago, and during that time she wd check the NYT online on a daily basis for their China coverage. What she discovered was that the Times reports on China had literally 0 to do w/what she was actually seeing on the streets of Beijing. The paper was completely out of touch w/Chinese reality, while gullible Americans were taking it in as 'truth'. All it was was pro-Western distortion.

As for the two American letter-writers, they go even further than this. One is a professor of writing at a university in Kunshan, China, who ends his short note: "If we are gong to de-escalate tensions between the US and China [fat fucking chance], we will have to have thoughtful conversations with one another [yeah, that's gonna happen], not repeat ham-fisted talking pts."

The other writer (living in Pennsylvania) says that we need an "antidote to the dehumanization of China in US political discourse."

Now everyone here knows that beyond a doubt, from the man in the street to Schmiden, and from the woman in the street to Schmelosi, we are going to repeat ham-fisted talking points, and we will continue to dehumanize China in American political discourse. Very few Americans engage in thoughtful conversations about anything, let alone China; very few even know what that wd look like. The question is, Why?

But the answer is obvious: as a people, including the gov't and the MSM, we don't know how to do anything else. Plainly put, we're stupid, and we have no way of getting beyond the B&W, Manichaean categories thru wh/we have viewed the outside world for centuries now. What, we're going to take some magic potion and stop being ham-fisted and dehumanizing? We are suddenly going to relate to others in an enlightened, empathic manner? Perhaps when pigs fly over the W.H. in V-geese formation, but not b4 then.

mb

11:01 PM  
Anonymous Cherith Cutestory said...

-- "Poor Mexico, so far from God and so close to the United States." - Porfirio Díaz

-- Top 16 Euphemisms US Headline Writers Used for Police Beating the Shit Out of People. Interesting choices include "strong response" and "turn aggressive". (The above are from Belen Fernandez's Checkpoint Zipolite.

-- Pelosi with a Kamala-esque remark: "When I was a little girl, I was told at the beach if I dug a hole deep enough, we would reach China, so we've always felt a connection there,". US leadership, folks. This is the same person who was ok with igniting a war with China in what mentally challenged leftists called a bold and calculated move.

-- John Pilger in recent article sounds the alarm over the dangerous anti-China war rhetoric, cautioning that the US may be actually planning a "blinding attack" on China using nuclear weapons. I hope it's not true, but then again this is the US we're talking about, a curse let loose upon mankind, from which we can expect the greatest of evils.

4:14 AM  
Anonymous Himanshu Tiwari said...

Dear Dr. Berman,

Re: Western(or more precisely the coverage by the Anglo-sphere of China and India): This sort of cover up/extremely biased (and many times criminally false) coverage has been going on for at least 150 years.Please see the short clip(2 mins): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IAYDWs3Wpc
Its a video of photos taken by photographer Willoughby Hooper.These are pictures clicked by the infamous 'Photographer of Death' and shows the dark ages of colonial India, capturing the misery of the Great Famine of Madras in 1877. The Anglosphere (US and UK in particular) like to jump up and down in self-righteous pomp about Hitler but have very skillfully hidden the holocaust of Indians/Hindus (eg:the British orchestrated Bengal famine of 1943 in which about 3 million Indians starved to death in under 4 months: https://www.indiafacts.org.in/suhrawardy-and-the-bengal-famine-of-1943/
I will not comment on US genocide/holocaust of First Nations people (evreyone here knows about it). Nuremberg laws did not exist before 1945 so the Anglosphere gets a pass. Sri Aurobindo in a letter (who lived through WW2 period) called WW2 a "Fight Between two kinds of Ignorance": https://incarnateword.in/compilations/world-wars
Himanshu

7:24 AM  
Anonymous The Flabster said...

This is literally one of the only honest and therefore worthwhile blogs around. It provides the theory (true science definition) that explains the horrific observations.

The read below is literally the future of American life outside of a few areas. I’m plotting an exit. Nothing good will happen when 85% of the country is this way.


https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/08/15/state-legislatures-are-torching-democracy

7:56 AM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Flab-

This blog is indeed unique, wh/is why 99+% of Americans have never heard of it, and wd reject it if they had. And yes, you wd to well to leave the US. All that lies ahead, as Kurt Vonnegut famously said, is a shitstorm.

Himan-

Impt info, thank you.

Cherith-

Sarah Palin said something similar yrs ago, brilliantly satirized by Tina Fey on SNL. Our leaders have shit for brains, but then, so do most of our citizens, for whom such a remark wd make sense. As for Pilger: America is more interested in posturing/theater than actual war, I think. Pelosi's visit was brinksmanship, part of a chess game.

mb

10:59 AM  
Anonymous Megan said...

Dr Berman,

Have you happened to see "Woodstock 99" on Netflix? If not, definitely don't miss this one. I can't make a link since it is netflix, but I felt this was such a "must see" for everyone here, that I wanted to make sure no one misses it. Let me know your thoughts after you watch it, if you are able.

Anyhow, what abject depravity and degradion! 200,000 raging douchebags, and this was 23 years ago, 8 years before cellphones and social media. Rage, vulgarity, rape, arson, outsize, grasping selfishness--this exquisitely sickening orgy of pointlessly destructive nihilism is the best distillation of the American soul I've ever seen. And even the music sucked! Can you imagine The Beatles going onstage naked, in a pathetic attempt to be edgy and shocking? God, this documentary almost made me ashamed to be a human being!

11:08 AM  
Anonymous Flyingspaghettimonstr said...

It seems Stevie Wonder skedaddled to Ghana, a nation he expressed a fondness for in the past. Even he can see the writing on the wall (pun intended 😏)

https://news.yahoo.com/stevie-wonder-moving-ghana-want-170053618.html

12:52 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Fly-

No dummy, he.

Megan-

The # of American raging douchebags hardly stops at 200,000.

mb

1:06 PM  
Blogger Joe McIlnen said...

Yeah, Baby! Let the tempers flare! Blow each other away! Good neighbors USAins certainly are! LOL!
https://www.cleveland19.com/video/2022/08/07/police-release-bodycam-footage-shootout-that-injured-akron-video/

And of course the daily mass shootings are in full swing!
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/mass-shooting-leaves-least-9-injured-downtown-cincinnati-rcna41895
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/detroit-city/2022/08/07/detroit-mass-shooting-state-fair-second-two-days/10260399002/

U.S.A.!, U.S.A.!, U.S.A.!

2:14 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Joe-

I'm still not clear on why Americans shd not be fully armed and encouraged to gun each other down in the street, like dogs. We're almost at that pt anyway, so WTF?

mb

3:47 PM  
Anonymous Modest Mike said...

DHS officials worked to keep parents and children apart for extended periods of time, lamenting when reunifications happened too quickly. “We can’t have this,” a deputy at ICE wrote, as reunification “obviously undermines the entire effort.”

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/09/trump-administration-family-separation-policy-immigration/670604/

"Within days of the start of Zero Tolerance, Matt Albence, one of Tom Homan’s deputies at ICE, expressed concern that if the parents’ prosecutions happened too swiftly, their children would still be waiting to be picked up by HHS in Border Patrol stations, making family reunification possible. He saw this as a bad thing. When Albence received reports that reunifications had occurred in several Border Patrol sectors, he immediately sought to block the practice from continuing, contacting at least one sector directly while also asking his superiors—Tom Homan, Ron Vitiello, and Kevin McAleenan—for help. “We can’t have this,” he wrote to colleagues, underscoring in a second note that reunification “obviously undermines the entire effort” behind Zero Tolerance and would make DHS “look completely ridiculous.” Albence and others proposed “solutions” such as placing parents whose prosecutions were especially speedy into ICE custody or in “an alternate temporary holding facility” other than the Border Patrol station where their children were being held. This appears to have happened in some cases."


Pure evil.. It sounds like the least charitable interpretation of the Trump administration's motives was the correct one. Call me shocked!

3:55 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Mike-

"Damaged people damage people." What brutality must these people have suffered in childhood, to treat these children w/such cruelty? Is there a sicker society than America?

mb

5:54 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Wafers-

Roger Waters attempts to get thru to an MSM, US gov't-propaganda puppet (talk abt a hi-IQ moron):

https://edition.cnn.com/videos/politics/2022/08/06/smr-roger-waters.cnn

There's just no breaking thru the American narrative. There never is. When Waters says, the US wdn't tolerate hostile nuclear missiles on the Canadian or Mexican borders, the clown changes the subject. Don't engage the actual argument; no, run away from it. (And laugh a lot, as tho your opponent is a joke)

mb

8:26 AM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

ps: truth is, of course Schmiden is a war criminal. Who, except the American public, can't see this?

8:28 AM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Riley-

A couple of problems here. 1st, the NYT has a paywall, so I cdn't read the article. Perhaps you can find the essay located in a different place. 2nd, we are more of a discussion forum than a bulletin board, so when you do send a link, pls provide at least a few sentences of your own commentary w/it. Thank you.

mb

11:55 AM  
Anonymous Krakhed said...

https://usefulidiots.substack.com/p/reporting-from-ukraine-lindsey-snell

Here’s an interesting discussion on the situation of the Ukrainian military by a journalist that was allowed to visit Ukraine.

Our government is so stupid to just give expensive weapons and not really follow it up and now some of the weapons paid for by American tax dollars to aid Ukraine’s war effort are ending up for sale on the darkweb.

3:11 PM  
Anonymous Dr. Shithouse said...

11 yo has lemonade stand. USian pays for it with a 100$ bill, gets exact change.

The bill is fake; boy out his allowance money. Donations rush in. What a 'great' country, the 'good' citizens step up, and the hero police need your help to catch the 'bad guy.'

Predictably, no mention regarding what type of society would produce such a person who would rip-off a child. What was it about the US empire that produced such trash and vile "people?"


https://www.kiro7.com/news/north-sound-news/police-man-uses-counterfeit-100-everett-childs-lemonade-stand/JPUILHI43NE35CLEZG2IXFWSZU/

https://www.abc12.com/news/national/donations-pour-in-after-boy-was-ripped-off-with-counterfeit-bill-at-his-lemonade-stand/image_2ae08c09-94f0-5ab6-8084-6a85ebfbac3a.html

5:13 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Dr. Shit-

At every level of American society, we see debased douche bags. And from a declinist pt of view, this is a gd thing.

Shifting venues now: scroll back to that interview w/Roger Waters. What we see in that CNN douche bag interviewer are the following:

1. Unwillingness to take Waters seriously, as tho he were little more than a joke; laughing at him.
2. Inability to listen to what the other person has to say; talking over him.
3. Rigid assumption, on the part of the CNN douche bag, that he is absolutely correct; in wh/case, real dialogue ain't gonna happen.
4. And as a corollary, blocking out of any alternative narrative, i.e. one that doesn't adhere to the "party line" of the usual American propaganda.

If we were a healthy country, just the opposite of these 4 things wd be happening. Hence, again, from a declinist pt of view, all of this is gd, because it is profoundly self-destructive.

This was Toynbee's conclusion: in the final phase of an empire, the empire commits suicide. Since our demise is inevitable, we can only applaud the CNN douche bag.

mb

6:46 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Crick-

Gd link, but small problem: you provided almost 0 of yr own commentary. We try to be more of a discussion forum than a bulletin board here. So perhaps you cd re-send the link, and add a few sentences or a paragraph of your own ideas on the subject, to it. Thank you.

mb

11:38 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

https://www.tamilbloggers.xyz/biden-administration-launches-africa-strategy-but-the-real-targets-seem-to-be-china-russia/

This is not abt our rel. w/Africa; it's abt Schmiden's foolish war w/China and Russia, being continued in a different venue. Chances are, the African countries won't be fooled.

Schmiden! Yr such a dummy! History will continue to punish you, and America! Yr a turkey, Schmiden, and a self-destructive one. You might as well send Schmamala to Africa!

mb

12:05 AM  
Blogger Politically Incorrect Russian Spy said...

In an age where woke busybodies feel compelled to re-write Mark Twain, it's nice to read a peace about a great poet and "filthy" man, Philip Larkin, and how his work endures despite attempts to erase him for the crime of being a messy human:

https://unherd.com/2022/08/philip-larkin-was-a-filthy-genius/

4:03 AM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Pol-

One of the greatest poets in British history. I've loved his work for nearly 50 yrs, and really don't care if his personal life was sordid. I quoted 'High Windows' in a couple of my short stories. I also adore T.S. Eliot, who (like Shakespeare) was an anti-Semite.

mb

5:39 AM  
Anonymous Orca said...

The FBI raided Trump's Florida estate

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-says-fbi-is-raiding-his-florida-estate-what-legal-woes-does-he-face-2022-08-08/

Maybe this is the beginning of the end of Trump. He seems to be facing a lot of troubles lately. If he gets to survive this however and somehow restart his political carrer it will be for sure the point future historians will mention as a clear indicator of the decline. The way I see it is that this willll make the american divide even worse, the belief of those who believe in Trump and conspiracies and the deep state will only get stronger after these events.

6:19 AM  
Anonymous Seda said...

Watching the shied core
Striking the basket, skidding across the floor,
Shows less and less of luck, and more and more

Of failure spreading back up the arm
Earlier and earlier, the unraised hand calm,
The apple unbitten in the palm.

Happy 100th birthday, Philip Larkin.

7:47 AM  
Blogger Joe McIlnen said...

USAin ingenuity when it comes to stealing and hustling knows absolutely no bounds. The latest: a group of Georgia “women” stealing high end “mens” underwear. LOL!
https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/newnan-kohls-women-stealing-underwear
Also: A monkeypox scare empties a Ga. train! Move over, Covid paranoia. Here comes monkeypox!
https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/marta-monkeypox-train-evacuated
And our Peach State is just temper/violent “peachy” when it comes to baseball games.
https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/atlanta-rosa-burney-park-deadly-shooting-ball-game-investigation
We love Georgia!
U.S.A.!, U.S.A.!, U.S.A.!

8:38 AM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Seda-

Thank you.

mb

11:02 AM  
Anonymous Himanshu Tiwari said...

Dear Dr. Berman,

In your writings and commentary you have often stated: "when myth meets facts, myth wins". However there is a third category which is "Itihasa". Why Mythology and just facts are not Itihasa (this word is a Sanskrit non-translatable and should be added to english as is)? In this episode of Wisdom Sutra (8 min clip), Rajiv Malhotra provides a precise analysis of how Mythology differs from Dharmic Itihasa. Itihasa-s and Purana-s contain historical facts but are neither merely books of history, nor tales of fantasy (myth). Itihasa-s and Purana-s are a part of Vedic literature and are regarded as the fifth Veda.
The superimposition of derogatory definitions and distancing Itihasa from its strong Vedic foundation leads to distortions from those who wish to see Itihasa-s only from a western lens and downgrade it to a pagan ''Myth".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qojQZ5zcswk

Himanshu

8:00 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Himan-

Fine, but in typical political discourse, I believe what I said stands. Scroll back to that 'dialogue' between Roger Waters and the moron from CNN, for example. This is so typical. Waters was trying to give the moron facts, and simply cdn't get thru to him. The moron was encased in a glass bubble of American mythology; he had no interest in doing the rdg Waters suggested, or questioning the bubble.

ps: Seda: Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.

mb

11:50 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

More Larkin, amigos (I quote this at the end of my novel, "The Man Without Qualities"):

Rather than words comes the thought of high windows:
The sun-comprehending glass,
And beyond it, the deep blue air, that shows
Nothing, and is nowhere, and is endless.

6:41 AM  
Anonymous June said...

A New paper, “The Watts Connectedness Scale: a new scale for measuring a sense of connectedness to self, others, and world” https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00213-022-06187-5

Now I wonder what American/Americans will tend to score on such a scale... Surely, the most well-adjusted, friendliest, & communal of all subsets... Yaaaaaa...

11:06 AM  
Blogger Sanguillen39 said...

Dr. Berman,

In regards to your posts about Roger Waters, I highly recommend his solo album "Amused to Death" released in 1994 which pays homage to Neil Postman's work. I'm sure you'll enjoy it.

11:47 AM  
Anonymous Dio said...

The U.S. has conducted ~400 military interventions since 1776 -- 50% between 1950 and 2019, according to new research. More than 25% of them have occurred in the post-Cold War era!

More here:

Report: post-9/11 era one of the most militarily aggressive in US history - Responsible Statecraft
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2022/08/10/report-post-9-11-era-one-of-the-most-militarily-aggressive-in-us-history/

5:13 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Dio-

How many Americans know this? 100? How many care? 50?

Sang-

Thanks. Can u give us a link?

mb

7:49 PM  
Anonymous Cherith Cutestory said...

Caitlin Johnstone nails it yet again with a piece that really ruffled some feathers: China Is Better Than The USA.

American morons (redundancy) have come up with a profound response, tweeting to her to leave the USA and go live in China. A quick search would've let them know she's Australian. But American stupidity has no bounds.

5:04 AM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Cherith-

She certainly nailed it, tho I think her description of China might hafta be modified by their heavy human rts violations. Still, the picture of America, and Americans, is quite accurate, altho there is abs. no way to get Americans to see thru the narrative ("matrix") they are blindly living out, and supporting. The country is by now little more than a genocidal war machine run by a plutocracy and cheered on by millions of clueless buffoons. The facts are simply not allowed to penetrate the myth, and that will be the case until America's dying day. The CNN interviewer's response to Roger Waters (see above) is exemplary in that regard, affirming what I have said repeatedly: in the US, even the smart ones, even the brilliant ones, are, in an ontological sense (but maybe even intellectually as well), actually stupid.

I recall watching an interview, yrs ago, that Charlie Rose had w/Noam Chomsky. In that entire hour, Noam was allowed something like a total 12 mins. to present an alternative narrative, to reach the American people. Rose was so threatened abt what Noam was saying re: US foreign policy that he kept talking over him, often very loudly. At the end, the myth defeated the facts--quite easily, so that the American narrative cd be preserved, and so that Rose and his audience cd have their anxieties allayed.

Arnold Toynbee observed, in his massive study of civilizations, that in the last stages of a civ, it exacerbates those very tendencies that brought it down in the first place. Alternative ways of relating and behaving are completely off the table, as Caitlin shows is now true for the US. I discuss those patterns/narratives in QOV, and how they have been w/us for more than 400 yrs. War, opposition, brinksmanship, hegemony, throwing yr weight around--this is all America knows how to do, and at this late stage it is hardly interested in alternative paradigms. What this does, says Toynbee, is accelerate the rate of decline. A glimmer of hope can only come from the American people, and smart or stupid, they are all pretty dumb, and living in a fog.

I mean, how many times can I say, "It's over"?

mb

5:38 AM  
Blogger Sanguillen39 said...

Dr. Berman,

Here is the link in regards to the Roger Waters album: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21H2_fPvkgw

10:48 AM  
Anonymous Orca said...

A bit of an old video on a possible China-US war through what Graham Allison calles the Thucydides trap, every established power will go to war with a rising power, Thucydides saw that as the cause of war between Athenes and Sparta and Allison Sees it as a true historical dynamic. The issues I have with his talk are three: one, the US is not immovable at the top, it is declining fast. Two, he claims that these wars started usually through an action by a third party while in out case the US is trying to start a war by any means possible. Three, the NATO and the World Bank are not good. Finally, the story about the bridge that took years to finish in the US and only a couple of days in China speeks volumes about which nation works and which is a joke.

https://youtu.be/XewnyUJgyA4

4:29 PM  
Anonymous Satchmo said...

Abe Lincoln wasn't the hero he's been made out to be. This piece is about a book called "Lincoln Unmasked" by Thomas DiLorenzo. It's a fresh look @ the true character of one of Amerikkka's "heroes" w/o rose-colored glasses.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2006/10/thomas-dilorenzo/lincoln-unmasked/

5:35 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Satch-

We actually retired the Civil War as a topic on this blog a long time ago, but as far as I know, DiLorenzo is rejected by serious historians as heavily biased and unreliable; part of the "Lost Cause" school. That being said, I think it fair to say that time has indeed mythologized Honest Abe to some degree, and that he was a very pragmatic politician in his time. Check out the portrait in WAF ch. 4 for more on this.

Orca-

A couple of yrs ago, Bill Maher ridiculed the US as being stupid, while showing that the Chinese were quite smart. The bridge story was part of his comparison. Of course, the clip didn't go mainstream--that wd be asking for miracles--but millions do watch Bill, every week. Personally, I think the crucial pt of comparison is that the Chinese think in terms of long-term strategies, while the US is reactive, limping along from month to month. Or to put it another way, they are shrewd, while we are delusional buffoons. Our foreign policy moves in general are programmatic and self-destructive, and our hegemony is slipping away on a daily basis. Will we ever acknowledge our mistakes? Ha! We are caught in the death-grip of karma, being punished by History, and we haven't a clue.

mb

7:09 PM  
Anonymous Lenny said...

Nietzsche before the breakdown

In the 1880s, the ailing philosopher prophesied the West’s violent decline – but not even he could prevent it.

“The most prophetic of 19th-century thinkers, he discerned that the seemingly triumphal march of European progress was heading for a cataclysmic fall. He feared an era of great wars, which as he drifted into madness he imagined he could prevent. His breakdown may have come with the realisation that, like his illness, the malady he diagnosed was fated to run its course.”

https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2022/07/nietzsche-in-turin-review-lesley-chamberlain-guy-de-pourtales

By John Gray

Interesting Gray essay as always. And ya know, living in a Woke world, as we all do now, Nietzsche feels more and more relevant with each passing day...

7:59 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Lenny-

Check out the essay on W.H. Auden in "Eminent Post-Victorians."

mb

9:14 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Wafers-

An impt part of American mythology is "Camelot," the brief reign of JFK. If you read Kennedy's inaugural address, you will discover that he is, beyond any doubt, a Cold Warrior; and it was no accident that the Bay of Pigs fiasco occurred 3 months after that address. In addition, if you check out the poem Robert Frost read at that inauguration--"The Gift Outright"--you discover something rather disturbing. The poem can be interpreted in a # of ways, but as I read it, Frost is saying that first we possessed the land, and later on, it possessed us; that we, as a people, "found salvation in surrender." What surrender is he talking about? We ruined a beautiful country. We covered it with ribbons of concrete shortly before JFK's inauguration (from sea to shining sea), and then covered it again w/strip malls in the decades that followed. To this day, we never gave ourselves to the land, and certainly never found any salvation in our relationship to it. What we gave ourselves to, if we are going to be honest abt it, was hustling--exploitation of the land. But the legend of Camelot lives on.

mb

4:06 AM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

ps: This calls to mind a very different poem by Frost, "The Road Not Taken," about coming to a fork in the road, and looking down at the 2 divergent paths. Here are the last 2 lines:

"I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."

What road did we take, certainly long before JFK? War. Even as late as 1961, we could have chosen detente, non-belligerent relationship, but no; we chose war (the road *more* traveled by). And surely, that has made all the difference for us. We continue to do that to this day, and as in the case of Roman "overstretch," it is taking us to our demise. As Frost writes in the same poem,

"knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back."

Indeed.

mb

4:19 AM  
Anonymous Glans Butterworth, III said...

From 2013, a metaphor of the US empire.

USian thinks he can win a carnival game and get a video game prize. Looses his entire life savings (2600$) trying to "win back" the lost money--doubling down on stupid.
Gets a giant Rastafarian banana as a consolation prize.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuklQw4vu3A

https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/nh-man-loses-life-savings-on-carnival-game/

10:01 AM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Unknown-

Sorry, I don't post Unknowns.

mb

10:10 AM  
Blogger Miles Deli said...

Greetings MB and Wafers,

Jesus, how horrible. Salman Rushdie attacked on a lecture stage in New York (possibly stabbed):

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/aug/12/salman-rushdie-attacked-onstage-new-york

Mlies

12:12 PM  
Anonymous Cel-Ray Tonic said...

Oh man!

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/aug/12/salman-rushdie-attacked-onstage-new-york

another day in the USA. Hope he is all right.

12:19 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

What a horror show. The guy just can't catch a break. I've read a few of his works. "Midnight's Children" is abs. fabulous. Let's hope he has a full recovery.

mb

2:30 PM  
Anonymous Dr. Shithouse said...

US-ers were exceptional people. Courteous, pleasant, and empathetic. Always willing to help their fellow man.

https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/wm2kdp/wild_video_out_of_dfw_airport_between_a_spirit/

4:32 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Sav-

Sorry, cdn't run it. We have a half-pg-max rule on this blog. Pls edit, compress, and re-send. Thank you.

Dr. Shit-

Besides urine and slapping, I think we need to inaugurate Tire Iron Therapy (TIT), in wh/folks like these wd be beaten to a pulp. Wd keep Wafers working around the clock.

mb

7:14 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Dark Days-

I'm really sick over the attack on Salman Rushdie. He suffered a lot of damage, and it looks like he's going to lose an eye. He's had so much shit in his life, mostly from Muslim fundamentalists, and now this. And this was a man who spoke truth to power.

I also feel very bad abt the death of Anne Heche. She was a talented actress, and a kind person. Apparently, she had a lot of personal problems, and was on cocaine when she crashed her car into a house. It just sucks that she died.

mb

7:40 PM  
Anonymous Savantesimal said...

The mainstream keeps flirting with the truth, but can't face it for long. This is one of those 'occasional' stories in The Atlantic:

The Atlantic: What America’s Great Unwinding Would Mean for the World

[quote]

A peculiar cognitive dissonance seems to have taken hold in the world. The Western response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine—led and propped up by the United States—has reminded the world that the international order is, if anything, more dependent on American military, economic, and financial might now than only a few years ago. Yet everywhere you turn, there is a sense that the U.S. is in some form of terminal decline; too divided, incoherent, violent, and dysfunctional to sustain its Pax Americana. Moscow and Beijing seem to think that the great American unwinding has already begun, while in Europe, officials worry about a sudden American collapse.
...
[end quote]

8:44 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Sav-

Gd essay. Shows how we are drowning in paradoxes that we can't solve. I guess they will solve us.

mb

9:08 PM  
Anonymous Orca said...

Polio's back!

The US is not declining to a second rate power nor to a third world country, but straight back to a medieval feudal state. (The feudal part is explained by Thomas Piketty in his book Capital in the XXIst century)


https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/12/polio-detected-in-new-york-city-sewage-suggesting-local-circulation-of-virus-health-officials-say.html?utm_campaign=mb&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_source=morning_brew

7:49 AM  
Anonymous Roland Tarver said...

Re: the Salman Rushdie incident, I’m annoyed that the first stories out there were quoting
PEN America who called it “an unprecedented attack on a writer in the United States.”

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/author-salman-rushdie-attacked-stage-event-new-york-sky-news-2022-08-12/

Ok, of course it’s unprecedented. Writers in general —and by extension the life of the mind (as Richard Hofstadter, among others, has shown)—don’t matter in the United States. So *that’s* why it’s unprecedented. Not because we really value freedom of expression or protect it at all costs. Now PEN America or Chris Hedges (any day now when the revolution begins) suffer from the delusion that writers -or the life of the mind- pose a threat in America (much less are even on anyone’s radar screen). And yes, I know that there are plenty of examples of artists who’ve been vilified in American history. John Steinbeck received death threats from The Grapes of Wrath. But how many Americans even read, or know who Salman Rushdie is? That’s probably why Rushdie felt “safe” in America where he could hide in plain sight. So the attack is unprecedented not because of American exceptionalism (one of MB’s unconscious programs hard-wired into our DNA) but because we don’t read, so we don’t give a damn. Anyhow, just thinking out loud here. I’m sure Wafers could be more succinct.

8:42 AM  
Anonymous Jasinsky said...

Everything is vibes and nothing is real
The great theory of modern politics explainedhttps://edwest.substack.com/p/everything-is-vibes-and-nothing-is

A very stimulating essay from European intellectual Ed West, which does a lot to explain why people tend to take the positions they instinctively do on, say, wearing masks in public, or the intricacies of the single market, or immigration, or doctorates on child porn... As MB says frequently, everything is theater!

10:30 AM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Roland-

Yes, v. gd pt. When the USSR still existed, there was a saying that went around, wh/was true since the Russians do read, do see their poets and writers as heroes, and usta practice samizdat for obvious reasons: "In the Soviet Union, what a writer says can land him in Siberia; in America, what a writer says makes no difference because no one cares." Or something like that. The pt was that censorship was nec in Russia because a poem by Akhmatova could cause a political storm, whereas in America censorship was superfluous because writers were not respected and had no influence whatsoever. As a writer, I am certainly not on the American radar screen; but is Rushdie, or Slavoj Zizek, or even Robt Frost? Only among other writers, I'm guessing. Intellectuals tend to overvalue their importance; this is clear enuf. And frankly, even if Americans did read, they wdn't give a damn.

mb

11:02 AM  
Anonymous Cherith Cutestory said...

Regarding writers and American apathy, I think Wafers would enjoy The Sopranos.

It's the greatest series ever made in the US IMO, or hell maybe anywhere. The creator (David Chase) loads it with an unfathomable amount of meaning right under the surface, and so much of that philosophy is lost on most Americans who just think it's a great gangster show, and totally miss many of the messages Chase is discussing: consumerism, materialism, the Iraq war (almost never mentioned directly, but represented through subtle allusions), nihilism, apathy, the suffocating "regularness of life" that even mobsters have to deal with, the meaning of life, and many other concepts.

There is ingenious use of music, cinematography, dialog, mood, editing, framing, literary quotes, and even the paintings and sculptures add commentary to the scenes they are in and the whole series in general. It's unlike any other series I've seen, stunningly well thought-out, profound.

The best companion is the site Sopranos Autopsy which offers episode by episode analyses, after which you will never look at this series the same. (Watch out for spoilers though, better to watch the whole thing first, then again episodely along with the site)

1:46 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Cherith-

I did catch abt a dozen episodes when I lived in the US and had a TV. The Mafia struck me as American capitalism in compressed form. I quite enjoyed it. I agree that most Americans probably just saw it as cops and robbers.

mb

2:40 PM  
Blogger Miles Deli said...

Greetings MB and Wafers,

MB-

Yes, very sad news about Anne Heche. She was so talented and beautiful. If you haven't seen it, check out her film from 1996, "Walking and Talking" w/Catherine Kenner and Liev Schreiber. I'm still in shock and saddened about the vicious attack on Salman Rushdie. Also, did you read recently about the death of Paul Auster's son? Here's an article about it:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/27/style/daniel-auster-life-death.html

Hope u can access this.

Miles

8:54 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Jeff-

I did see "Walking and Talking" long ago. It was kinda eerie, as the male-female conundrum depicted in the film was the same one I was having with my then girlfriend. As in the film, it never got resolved (my fault as well as hers).

Horrible story, Daniel Auster. I've been a big fan of his father's work. But I tell you, Anne's death and the attack on Rushdie really did me in. I've had bad indigestion all day long, wh/I take to be psychosomatic. There was something v. sweet abt Anne. As for Rushdie: Jesus, this is a hard one, probably because I identify as a writer. Not that I'm in his league (at all), but both of us spent our lives pointing to the truth in a society, or societies, that are completely full of shit, and couldn't care less about the truth. And then, I've had my fair share of death threats (a lot of it anti-Semitic), tho it can't compare to being the target of a fatwa that sent him into hiding for a decade. I wonder if Hadi Matar was motivated by that; the fatwa was never rescinded. Religious fundamentalism is such an awful thing.

He is a great writer. "Midnight's Children" is one of the best novels ever written, imo.

Meanwhile, the Guardian reports that he's talking again, even joking around(!). But he may have lost an eye. As for Matar, he's pleading not guilty, the douche. America is filled w/so many violent, stupid, destructive people.

Not that it really matters, but the attack took place about 100 miles from where I was born.

It's 10 pm, and my stomach just won't let up.

mb

11:07 PM  
Blogger Politically Incorrect Russian Spy said...

Americans generally won't know that Salman Rushdie is not just a guy who once wrote a book that got him in trouble with Islamic fundamentalists, he's long been an elite-tier writing talent.

A considerably lesser writing talent, J.K. Rowling, has complained of receiving a "you are next" death threat (https://news.sky.com/story/jk-rowling-working-with-police-over-death-threat-after-voicing-support-for-salman-rushdie-12672229) in the wake of the Rushdie attack. Somehow all of this brings to mind that quote, "in the future no one will *want* to be famous."

This won't be a first for Rowling, as she ran afoul of the woke for bringing up the subject of biological realities in discussions of trans people.

It seems fairly obvious to me the answer to the question "what is a woman" is not "whoever says they are." At the same time, it's indisputable trans people are murdered at absolutely astonishing rates, and unless you're the kind to think "they deserve it", it doesn't sit comfortably to attack such a broadly despised minority.

ContraPoints had probably the best (and funniest) take on this: https://youtu.be/7gDKbT_l2us

7:06 AM  
Blogger Jack Lattemann said...

Greetings from Cascadia, Wafers everywhere,

You know we are living in scary times when even the Godfather of Peace (just turned 99) is frightened of Biden warmongering, as Caitlin Johnstone reports:

https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/modern-us-warmongering-is-scaring

Obviously, solace must be sought in the practice of Tulsism, involving more workout videos.

While Henry Kissinger is unrepentant, Most Americans are completely disengaged from Russia, Ukraine, China, and Iran, being that they are focused on much more important matters in their daily lives. For example, somebody getting too much chicken at an anniversary party. Why do these incidents seem almost always to involve chicken?

https://www.wkrn.com/video/anniversary-party-turns-violent-over-chicken-dispute/7797299/

10:57 AM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Jack-

2 schls of US foreign policy: Realists (e.g. Kissinger), and Messianists (e.g. the majority, who believe we are on a sacred mission, City on a Hill, etc. etc.). If you are that stupid a crusader, as Schmiden certainly is, you get suicidal: you engage, as opponents, 2 nuclear superpowers at the same time.

It's possible we cd pull back from the edge if Tulsi were to declare where she stands on the issue of chicken. Americans don' give a crap abt Russia, China, or Salman Rushdie. They are, however, concerned abt chicken.

mb

12:21 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Wafers-

Dept. of Lost Souls:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/12/books/review/ernest-hemingway-look-alike-competition-key-west.html

Why do Americans compete to be Elvis, or Hemingway? It seems so strange. But not if you know a bit of elementary psychology. Americans are empty people; they have no Self, as such. There's literally 0 inside them. So to compensate, they try to be Elvis or Hemingway. Guess what? It doesn't work.

mb

5:34 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

O Surely Not Dept.-

https://www.usnews.com/news/business/articles/2022-08-13/sinema-took-wall-street-money-while-killing-tax-on-investors

https://cbs6albany.com/news/nation-world/some-capitol-rioters-try-to-profit-from-their-jan-6-crimes-riot

mb

5:47 PM  
Blogger Miles Deli said...

MB-

You have my attention, MB! Which couple mirrored your relationship in the early 1990s? :-) Hope yr stomach is feeling better.

Miles

8:42 PM  
Blogger Krakhed said...

Doesn't it sorta feel like the average Joe getting the life squeezed out of him is sometimes prone to blowing their top and going on a rampage? I'm sure its been said here a million times but I feel like this is an acutely American problem. And recent headlines got me thinking about it

Here are two recent examples. A man crashes his car and blows his brains out near the Capitol Building. https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/14/politics/capitol-car-incident/index.html

And then some guy plows into a group of people fundraising for a family that suffered a burnt house, and then he goes and kills his mom with a hammer. https://abcnews.go.com/US/dead-17-injured-car-crashes-crowd-fundraiser-fire/story?id=88347794

We'll never get any answers for the first example, but the suspected murderer was apprehended. And we could very well learn that they were just annoyed or had an disagreement.

It seems likely that as this country unravels, people are just going to pop off and take someone and maybe themselves out for good. I just hope Wafers and everyone connected to this blog is able to stay safe. Its a crazy world today.

9:55 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Krak-

Yes, we've said it b4. I do believe that life in the US is so intense, so oppressive, that most Americans have developed v. short fuses, and at some pt, some of them just can't take it any more and go batshit crazy.

Jeff-

The one involving Christine Keener. He BF tries to explain to her that she has made him into her entire world, and that this is too much. She is unable to hear it, and gets angry instead.

mb

10:49 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Wafers-

Pls weigh in on this hypothesis. Wdn't the world be safer, and peace be more likely, if Trumpi were to win in 2024? I say this because unlike Schmiden, he's not a warmonger. True, it wd be an awful administration, a kleptocracy like it was 2017-20, but as Kissinger recently declared, what Schmiden is doing--making or provoking war w/2 nuclear superpowers simultaneously--is madness. I'm guessing that Trumpalumpi wd be friendly towards Putin, and more or less neutral w/Xi. Schmiden is following the old unconscious program (see QOV) of America needing to have enemies--the problem of negative identity. He's basically a doofus, not very bright, and operating in a kinda fog. With a Trump presidency, international relations might take a more intelligent turn, a turn for the better. Things wd suck on the home front, but isn't that a small price to pay for avoiding nuclear war?

mb

10:58 PM  
Anonymous Orca said...

I've never thought that I would encourage people to go for Trump, but the guy does not operate like a knight in Camelot. I believe we are facing two options that both will help in the decline through two different roads:
1 Trump and his likes through the road of internal destruction
2 The rest with the messianic delusions will help the decline by antagonising the world, maybe bringing the barbarians home, and maybe startingba world war.

For now it's the WW option, check this warmongering
https://thehill.com/homenews/ap/ap-top-headlines/us-lawmakers-visiting-taiwan-12-days-after-pelosi-visit/

2:59 AM  
Blogger Politically Incorrect Russian Spy said...

Re: things being better with a Trump win in 2024, I don't think it would be permitted, meaning he'd be "neutralized" one way or another because the Ukraine war is a bonanza for the MIC that is only getting started. Watch this 15-second clip from a Julian Assange interview circa 2012:

https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/1551715125996003328

Now, remember the complete freak-out that occurred when Trump wanted the US to leave Afghanistan? What Assange states explains why. Note how Biden was able to do it with minimal fuss? That's because the decision had already been made to move the grift elsewhere (Ukraine). I recall during the first week of the Ukraine war some defense company executive stating they expected this new war to last "twenty years".

The Trump administration really highlighted how little power a president has to change much of anything apart from fiddling with taxes, social policy, and generally to make life harder for the already immiserated, captive population of buffoons. As Caitlin Johnstone recently wrote, Americans are not even allowed to know who their REAL government is:

https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/when-will-foreign-leaders-start-asking

3:50 AM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Pol-

We need to see proof that prior to the w/drawal from Afghanistan, the decision had been made to move the war to the Ukraine. 1st time I've heard this. As for Trumpi and foreign policy: he is a loose cannon, and he goes his own way. So you cd be rt, but it's possible that he wd relate to Putin and Xi the way he wants to, not according to the usual American script. On verra...

Orca-

It's indeed a curious situation, and one I hadn't thought of until just now: the choice between domestic vs. international destruction, and the possibility that w/Trumpi, you get the 1st but not the 2nd. Given the nuclear threat that Schmiden seems to want to provoke, anyone w/half a brain wd choose Trumpi over him. Tulsi, amazingly enuf, recently said that the Ukraine caper was war w/Russia by proxy, and that Schmiden didn't give 2.5 shits abt the Ukraine, in reality. I tell ya, we gotta get that gal in the W.H., w/Schmamala as her personal valet (inasmuch as Schmamala has no idea what she's doing, and doesn't know her elbow from her anus).

Anyway, I'd love to hear more reactions to my speculation.

mb

5:35 AM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Himan-

Sorry, cdn't run it. 1st, you exceeded the half-pg limit. 2nd, large, solid blocks of text are very hard to read. Suggest you break it up into paragraphs, then edit down to no more than half a page. Or send it in in 2 posts, 24 hrs apart, if you prefer.

mb

10:36 AM  
Anonymous Himanshu Tiwari said...

Dear Dr. Berman,
It was 1/2 pg in my word doc(my margins might be too wide). I will post it in 2 prts. Prt 1: Today is India's political Independence day (decolonization of the Indian mind is not yet fully achieved). About a month ago Modi became the 1st PM of India to publicly say that the British education system (which I was educated in) was/is meant to create a servant class: https://www.deccanherald.com/national/national-politics/british-education-system-meant-to-create-servant-class-in-india-pm-modi-1124619.html In the following column, journalist S Gurumurthy details (with facts) the difference between Modi's India and the one that preceded it: https://www.newindianexpress.com/opinions/columns/s-gurumurthy/2021/nov/30/india-1989-2014-and-after-a-paradigm-shift-2389826.html None of this will ever be published in Western media (MSM or alternate). I realize this is a bit off topic for this blog but I share this so that Wafers begin asking questions about the Western narrative abt India/Modi. Also here is a short clip (15 mins) which looks back at one of Rajiv Malhotra's finest insight on the 75th Indian independence as nation state and the future of ancient Bharat
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwL1gOk6PE0
Today is also Sri Aurobindo's birthday. One of the greatest sages India has produced. I will post about him in prt 2.
Best wishes,
Himanshu

10:58 AM  
Blogger Ordinary Indian said...

Hello Wafers,

Today happens to be India’s 75th Independence Day. Though this blog is not about India or its trajectory, that trajectory cannot be completely decoupled from the course the US takes. In general, we are both on the trajectory of declining democracy. Hollowing out would be more appropriate. It is my everyday experience. So I don’t really know where to start describing it if I have to keep it short. But short I have to keep it. So,only, a statement that Rushdie issued on the occasion:
‘Then, in the First Age of Hindustan Hamara, our India, we celebrated one another’s festivals, and believed, or almost believed, that all of the land’s multifariousness belonged to all of us. Now that dream of fellowship and liberty is dead, or close to death. A shadow lies upon the country we loved so deeply. Hindustan isn’t hamara any more. The Ruling Ring – one might say – has been forged in the fire of an Indian Mount Doom. Can any new fellowship be created to stand against it?’
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/aug/15/salman-rushdies-grave-fears-for-indian-democracy-published-in-pen-anthology



1:46 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Pol-

Cdn't run it (24-hr rule). However, the stuff you cite only proves synchronicity, not causality--i.e., not deliberate intent. You haven't made yr case.

mb

2:15 PM  
Anonymous Nik said...

"JPMorgan, $JPM, CEO Jamie Dimon told wealthy clients there's a chance the US is heading into 'something worse' than a recession, per BI."

https://twitter.com/unusual_whales/status/1559239570436538368?t=cVxRTXWprxc-ryh8_MYXwA&s=19

Well that doesn't sound great..

MB, I know of Nomi Prins, but has she or anyone else written a book in the last cpl years that covers the Here & Now of what the hell is going on with this economic shit show?

10:17 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Wafers-

It really is hard to get yr mind around this. Schmiden is a warmonger. For no visible reason (but for a major invisible one; see QOV), he seeks to provoke 2 nuclear superpowers into war or confrontation. His foreign policy is that of a madman. Trumpola, on the other hand, is not likely to do this. Thus--amazingly enuf--the world wd be safer w/him in the W.H., and the current messes wd cool off. Go figure. Of course, the damage he wd do to the US wd be huge beyond imagination, but keep in mind that we are on a downward trajectory anyway, regardless of who is president.

mb

10:18 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Nik-

I don't know what BI is. As for Nomi:

https://www.amazon.com/-/es/Nomi-Prins/dp/1541789067/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1ZF6LQF3FUCIV&keywords=nomi+prins+permanent+distortion&qid=1660618565&s=books&sprefix=nomi+prins%2Cstripbooks%2C248&sr=1-1

mb

10:59 PM  
Blogger Krakhed said...

On whether peace would be more likely with Trumpi as 2024 President.

I don't know if Trumpi would be up to the task of a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine conflict but Biden doesn't seem to be trying at all. I'm undecided about it. Like we've read hear often -- we're going downwards no matter who's in charge. Trump left many State Dept and other key administrative appointments unfilled. So in a way his blunders contributed to the present day conflict.

1:04 AM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

James-

We are a discussion forum, not a bulletin board. Thank you.

mb

4:50 AM  
Anonymous Dr. Shithouse said...

67 yo USian murdered over hamburger order and a shake licking ("frosty").

https://www.crimeonline.com/2022/08/12/fast-food-fury-see-shocking-moment-arizona-wendys-worker-punches-senior-licking-a-frosty/

https://www.fox10phoenix.com/news/arizona-wendys-employee-facing-murder-charge-following-customers-death


Geez, wonder where all that US empire violence and fury comes from? Maybe have yet another 'blue-ribbon' panel and write some 'academic' papers abt these chronic 'beat-down' occurrences-but never ever address America's fundamental structural flaws.

9:59 AM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Dr. Shit-

Buffoons don't address America's fundamental structural flaws. They don't even know such flaws exist. They do, however, kill a senior citizen for complaining abt a food order.

Dredd-

This is a discussion forum, not a bulletin board. Thank you.

Orca-

Pls don't violate half-pg-max rule. Thank you.

mb

11:40 AM  
Blogger Joe McIlnen said...

What’s that saying, Doctor? “Take no prisoners?” In this rotten violent shithole of a country it’s “Take no patients.” LOL!
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2022/08/16/tennessee-memphis-hospital-shooting/4761660658331/

U.S.A.!, U.S.A.!, U.S.A.!

12:07 PM  
Anonymous Sasha White said...

I want to reply to MB's question about our culture (or lack thereof). Where is the American Dostoevsky? I am sure that even if such a person existed, he would NEVER be published by the English language publishing industry. He/she would be rejected by an intern and thrown into a pile. I was in the New York publishing industry for a bit and besides the obvious fact that they are not looking for quality writing but for anything that will make them money, they are also slaves to a very flat, boring and stupid ideology.

Have you all heard of sensitivity readers? https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/mar/08/stop-moaning-sensitivity-readers-diversity-publishing They are people who comb through manuscripts for anything that might offend readers and cause an online mob to attack the publisher. Imagine putting Dostoevsky or any great writer through a sensitivity reader. It's laughable but also depressing. That the literary industry is full of weak, stupid conformists is terrible for our society. 

The attack on Rushdie highlights how rare bravery is in the literary world today. William Nygaard, Rushdie's Norwegian editor, was shot three times for publishing The Satanic Verses in 1993. He has said he would publish it again. The Italian and Japanese translators were also attacked and the latter, Hitoshi Igarashi, was killed. Most American editors/agents today can't even take one lick of online heat from keyboard warriors! 

12:14 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Sasha-

Thanks for yr input. What u.r. describing is part of the American collapse. Stupidity and cowardice are integral to it, obviously. I'm not even sure it matters, inasmuch as all Americans read these days are their cell fones. Regarding Dostoevsky, Caryl Emerson, Princeton emerita and the premier American scholar of Russian literature, writes that Dostoevsky hasta be read on 3 simultaneous levels: paganism, Christian monotheism, and modernization. So let me put it to you:
1. What % of Americans have even heard of Dostoevsky? 3%?
2. What % could correctly define 'paganism'? 5%?
3. What % could understand the meaning of a bk like "The Brothers Karamazov"? 2%?
4. What % wd be able to understand the phrase, "simultaneous levels"? 10%?

You see the problem. The bottom line: America is a joke, and Americans are little more than sad buffoons. In terms of what life is about, wh/was the focus of Dostoevsky's work, they haven't a clue.

mb

1:44 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Krak-

Problem w/yr argument is that leaving admin app'tments unfilled hardly adds up to being a warmonger. I can't help feeling that the diff between Trumpi and Schmiden on this pt is quite real.

mb

3:43 PM  
Blogger Miles Deli said...

Greetings MB and Wafers,

James Hunt hurled a cheeseburger at his girlfriend's head inside a Florida Burger King:

https://www.nydanews.com/florida-man-tosses-burger/

In any event,

Imagine there's no Schmiden
It's easy if u try
Stroking his nuke completely nonplussed
As Americans turn a blind eye

Imagine all the people
Livin' for today
Ah

Imagine if we had Trumpi
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And Tulsi can join him too

Imagine all the people
Livin' life in peace

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Miles

4:01 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Jeff-

What is happening to American masculinity? Jas Hunt is a wimp. A real man wd have gunned the woman down like a dog, in the street, while yelling "Take that, you douche baguette!". As fer yr poem/song, I was moved to tears.

mb

4:31 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

ps: I was taking a stroll down memory lane recently, wondering what happened to our favorite trollfoons. Is Shaneka still in the slammer? What abt Laquisha Jones? As for the blog, whatever happened to that dolt Schmendrick, who panned my Japan bk w/o ever having read it? (You liked it, so it must be terrible.) Or P. Snoots? I tell ya, I miss the old days. We had some fun.

mb

4:40 PM  
Anonymous birney zouave said...

Dr. B-

A friend sent me this link today to Neil Young's song "Cortez the Killer," which immediately reminded me of your column from 9 years ago on "Existential Strain."

https://youtu.be/uX9k9aoX6gk

Here are the lyrics-

https://www.bing.com/search?q=cortez+the+killer+lyrics&form=APIPH1&PC=APPL

And John Keats' poem that you referred to in your column-

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44481/on-first-looking-into-chapmans-homer

(As you noted in your column, it was actually Balboa who discovered the Pacific...but it's still a great poem.)

You really have to feel for the Native Americans- getting the shaft from the Spaniards and then the English...

And a link to your column from 2013, well worth a review by Wafers who may have missed it-

http://morrisberman.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-existential-strain_20.html

5:40 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

birn-

Gd stuff, thanks.

mb

5:48 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

I cdn't have said it better myself:

https://americaage.com/putin-condemns-u-s-hegemony-predicts-an-end-to-unipolar-world/

Putin: smart guy
Schmiden: doofus

Putin understands that the "American century" is over.
Schmiden thinks it will last forever.

One understands geopolitics.
The other lives in a fog.

One is the leader of a great people w/a great heritage.
The other is the leader of fog-brained buffoons.

mb

6:05 PM  
Anonymous Pastrami and Coleslaw said...

Dr. B, one more thing to add to your above list; of the few Americans who CAN answer the question "3. What % could understand the meaning of a bk like "The Brothers Karamazov"? 2%?" how many of these are actually High-IQ Morons as often describe?

Half?

I know many myself affected with Trump Derangement Syndrome, Russia Bad Syndrome, etc, etc. If I sent them the link to the article quoting Putin on hegemony (which originally appeared in the LA Times) they would go bonkers. I betcha Robert McNamara and Kissinger could answer all 4 questions, yet...

Hmmm, I don't have a link. How about this: https://hedgehogreview.com/issues/the-use-and-abuse-of-history/articles/whataboutism

7:27 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Pastrami-

You recall the distinction between intellectual and ontological knowing, wh/we've discussed a # of times before. Of the 4 questions listed, only #3 falls into the latter category. Wd McNamara and Kissinger really get it, really understand the spiritual purport of that bk? I suppose it's possible, but it might not make any difference for their behavior. You know, operators of the gas chambers in Nazi Germany had no trouble spending the day murdering large #s of people, then going home and being moved by Goethe, or Beethoven. Of course, I was just trying to make the pt that in terms of anything that has depth or complexity, the overwhelming % of Americans are out of their league. But clearly, you make a gd pt.

mb

8:33 PM  
Anonymous Xenakis said...

I had the most American experience today.

I exercise regularly by hiking around my neighborhood and the surrounding woods. I still wear a Covid mask because I don't want to transmit it AND it's great at blocking the sun.

Today, one of my 'neighbors' came screaming out of his house with his stupid cellphone taking pictures of me and yelling that I shouldn't be here because I'm "not part of the neighborhood". When I tried to calmly explain why I wear the mask (and that I moved into the neighborhood before he did), he accused me of lying. He then threatened to call the cops on me, at which point I just told him he's a fucking idiot.

He was VERY insulted that his intelligence was called into question.

The British understand the painful stupidity of the average American all too well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuCN0dvVWp8

10:22 PM  
Anonymous Hedvig Lockwood said...

Dr. Berman,

You asked us to weigh in on the hypothesis that the world wold be safer and peace more likely if Trump were to win in 2024. So...

First we heard from UN chief, Antonio Guterres at the August 1st meeting to review the 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/8/1/un-chief-warns-world-is-one-step-from-nuclear-annihilation

Then this:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/8/11/un-chief-military-activity-at-ukraine-nuke-plant-must-end

I'm sure all of you have seen/read both clips coming from one news outlet or another but I'll reference them anyway, per the rules, .

so... here's my response: it would be a bitter pill indeed, voting for Trump, but I've been thinking pretty much the same thing since Mr. Gutteres' warning. That I should live so long!

Thanks for coming out and saying it.

10:30 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Heidi-

Only Yiddish and Russian can capture the awfulness that is Trumpi: he is a bulvan, and an outstanding example of poshlost'. What reasonable person wdn't want to vomit on him? However, look at the alternative. Schmiden is presidential, well turned-out, well spoken, and an utter fool. Worse, a dangerous fool. No one but a moron courts war with 2 nuclear superpowers simultaneously. No guarantees, but I doubt Trumpi wd be doing this. What Trumpi will do, if elected in 2024, is return America to the kleptocracy it was during 2017-20. His goal, and focus, is to enrich himself, his family, and his friends at the national expense. Fucking around w/Russia and China cd only serve as a distraction to this. So he's a crook, and he lines his pockets. BFD.

Xen-

"Fish Called Wanda" was a great film. I loved it. As for yr neighbor: if you can grasp the fact that America is drowning in buffoons, very little will surprise you. I'm guessing that if you had told yr neighbor that he was a buffoon (as opposed to fucking idiot), he wdn't know what you were talking abt. It's amazing to see it up close, but this IS America!

mb

11:50 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Wafers-

Think abt this:

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/08/16/us/highland-park-shooting-cooper-roberts-physical-recovery/index.html

Think abt how awful this is, how cruel. Think abt how you wd feel, if it had happened to you.

This is America.

mb

12:00 AM  
Anonymous Wu said...

"US foreign arms sales spike to nearly $20B in the dog days of summer

Between Jul 15 & Aug 2, Washington signed off on billions of dollars worth of military deals, over a third of which went to autocracies."

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2022/08/10/us-foreign-arms-sales-spike-to-nearly-20b-in-the-dog-days-of-summer/

I recall Biden first taking office & he put these weapons sales to Saudi and UAE on hold! So much for all of that, I Guess... Just another monger of war..

Also:

Nuclear war would cause global famine with more than five billion people killed, new study finds | Science & Tech News | Sky News
https://news.sky.com/story/nuclear-war-would-cause-global-famine-with-more-than-five-billion-people-killed-new-study-finds-12673773

3:56 AM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Wu-

So the public face of the Biden admin is "democracy vs. autocracy," wh/is supposedly why we hafta confront Putin and Xi, even if it means flirting w/nuclear war--a war that cd kill 5 billion people. But the reality is that we supply billions in arms to autocratic nations. What are the choices in 2024? Dems and wokes will be ignorant of this reality, or perhaps not even care. They will see a bigot, an anti-Semite, a white supremacist, and a vulgar and disgusting human being, and they will vote against him. They will vote for a cultured gentleman, who will make diversity appointments, approve of the tearing down of Confederate statues and the editing of Mark Twain, work to protect the environment, and who also happens to be a dangerous warmonger (if unconscious).

I guess our future, and possibly the future of the planet, boils down to a question of style. Great!

mb

5:01 AM  
Anonymous Jm said...

MB-
Isn’t democracy a worthy ideal?
I wouldn’t argue that the US is in any meaningful way a democracy nor would I hold my breath that the trend toward authoritarianism will be reversed. (Of course, I think this statement holds true for Russian and China as well.) I suppose the argument could be made that democracies are not efficient and decisive enough to address an issue such as global warming (and this is THE issue) but I doubt authoritarians consider addressing climate change as priority number one.
I’d love to hear your thoughts.
J

7:45 AM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Jm-

I'm guessing that democracies might do slightly better than autocracies re: global warming, but keep in mind that Biden's climate change bill squeaked thru by 1 vote. It was almost an accident. Regarding democracies in general, however: Tocqueville wrote that they could succeed, but only with an intelligent population. I think you are fully aware of that problem as it applies to the US. You might also check out WAF.

mb

10:53 AM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Just a reminder re: election of 2024:

Trumpi: vulgar piece of trash; peace
Schmiden: courteous gentleman; war

10:56 AM  
Blogger Christian Schulzke said...

You asked us to weigh in on the hypothesis that the world wold be safer and peace more likely if Trump were to win in 2024.

As the sites resident Fascist, I vote for whoever will do the most damage to the US system, and the legitimacy of Liberal Democracy, which means I am "riden with Biden!"

2:05 PM  
Blogger Miles Deli said...

Greetings MB and Wafers,

MB-

Indeed, Trumpi and Schmiden are all of those things and more. And WOW, it sure looks like Liz Cheney's loss in Wyoming completes the total capitulation of the Republican Party to Trumpi. There will be no post-Trumpi Republican Party; at least not in the near future. A friend of mine said, "Maybe Cheney could now run for President and save the nation!" I told him he was "deluded" and "fucked in the head." Reason has left the GOP long ago. When are people gonna realize this? Trumpi is what the Republican Party is now. When are they gonna realize it's over for the US? Oh, right, when pigs fly:

https://news.yahoo.com/adam-kinzinger-says-liz-cheneys-072240823.html

Presidential election slogans, 2024:

Trumpi: "He kept us out of war!"(borrowing a line from Woodrow Wilson)
Schmiden: "I just sent the 18th package of aid to Ukraine for a grand total of 8.5 billion!"

The choice is yours, America.

Miles

2:35 PM  
Anonymous Knut said...

Hi Mr. Berman!
Is there a way to reach you? E-mail?

All the best,
Knut

3:04 PM  
Anonymous Bingham said...

Ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus said “War is the Father of All Things”. Is there any truth to that claim? Peter Turchin and colleagues crunched some data and say yes. https://www.science.org/content/article/does-warfare-make-societies-more-complex-controversial-study-says-yes

Kind of sides with some of your conclusions in "Wandering God" MB? That the forager-gather / hunter-gatherer state of the paleolithic was in a relatively harmonic balance (if not w/o conflict) & the more complex sedentary societies of the neolithic saw more of the development of societal neurosis.

I've often wondered if the violent and boorish presence the USA occupies in the world is something exceptional to its existence; or something atavistic, more primal and animal..

3:14 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Bing-

Complexity creates war (also religion, social inequality, etc.), not the other way around.

Knut-

mauricio@morrisberman.com

Jeff-

Yr friend also needs to know he's a buffoon.

Christian-

Good man! Plus, if Biden triggers a nuclear war, that wd do a lot of damage to the American system. Of course, Trumpi cd do even more damage, but w/o the nuclear option. Rethink?

mb

3:34 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

ps: a famous medieval (Scholastic) question, updated: How many buffoons can dance on the tip of a nuclear warhead?

3:35 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

But Kanye is *himself* a trash bag. And look at that face, willya? Barf City.

https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/kanye-west-yeezy-trash-bag-gap-store/index.html

6:53 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Wafers, remember:

Schmiden: polite, diplomatic, interested in nuclear brinksmanship.

Trumpi: vulgar, grotesque, interested in money.

mb

2:27 AM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

What "morals"? r.u. kidding me?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/aug/18/us-universities-are-pipelines-to-the-defense-industry-what-does-that-say-about-our-morals

6:58 AM  
Anonymous Anjin-san said...

What morals indeed...

https://www.npr.org/2022/08/18/1118108084/michael-conahan-mark-ciavarella-kids-for-cash

Clearly there is no level too low for American hustling.

10:16 AM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Anjin-

It really doesn't get any lower than this, does it? What has become of America, the sickest of the sick?

mb

10:36 AM  
Blogger Politically Incorrect Russian Spy said...

Trying to work through the conundrum of Trump 2024 v. Schmiden Part Duh. At this point Trump would need to be an escape artist on par with Houdini to slip out of all the legal nooses tightening around him, but if he is indicted, his money could tie up any court case for years (if he can find anyone to represent him: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/08/16/trump-lawyers-fbi-raid/).

In 2016 many people worried Hillary might start a war with Russia if she were elected. Obama had Ukraine all teed up for her. Trump threw a wrench into that. Dems back in power and quickly we've got a full-on endless proxy war going with Putin.

We'd all like to see the end of US empire, and Trump's ability to focus on revenge and feathering his nest in 2024 and beyond may just run out the clock on American hegemony without a shot fired. Biden or another Dem will just keep causing chaos around the globe, playing chicken with nuclear armageddon.

So yeah, the declinist's choice 2024: Cheeto Benito, Trumpolini, The Orange Menace, Make America Grotesque Again

Bonus: Paul Street wants us all to use the F-word: https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/08/18/the-tendentious-mr-brooks-the-chickenshit-conformist-of-the-nyt/

3:30 PM  
Anonymous Bruce Bennett said...

We are a like a baby waving a bazooka. Thank you for that image. It conveys our thoughtlessness and our destructiveness at the same time. Since 2000 this country has been getting stupider and stupider and by 2016 Trumpo the Traitor seemed to make more and more sense to millions of Uh-meriKKKans.
It looks like the so-called "American Century" is over already.

4:11 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Pol-

Thank you for that link. I was ecstatic that the author called Brooks a buffoon. Here I thought I had copyrighted the word. But yes, he is a cowardly buffoon. As is that whole crowd at the NYT.

Brooks got a $4m apt. in Manhattan and a regular column in the NYT by flattering the professional classes that suck at the teat of the NYT, and are desperate to hear that the ship of state is sound (there's a joke for ya). He is a bootlicker from Day 1, little more than a bad joke. When he dumped his wife of 25 yrs to marry his young secretary, who is Christian rather than Jewish, he suddenly started to spout Christian doctrine. One female critic argued that what he really discovered was his young wife's vagina. Consider Paul Krugman, a "Nobel" economist who is trying to save capitalism, when growth and endless expansion are the cause of our problems. Consider the ex-reviewer Michiko Kakutani, who wrote a savage and dishonest review of "Dark Ages America," and then wouldn't allow me to publish a response. (And who went on to write a book called "The Assault on the Truth"; what irony. Maybe look in the mirror, you dumb cluck?) The list goes on and on. Anyway, "chickenshit" is too gd a word for Mr. Brooks. If President Trump closes down the NYT offices, I'll be glad to come north and help him throw their furniture out the window. What hypocrites these people are.

mb

6:01 PM  
Blogger Jack Lattemann said...

Greetings Wafers everywhere from Cascadia, here are some news reports on the state of popular precarity in our region, with today’s focus being housing.

A report from FOX News cleverly implies that the homeless are to blame for families deciding to put their homes up for sale in a Portland neighborhood:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/portland-families-forced-sell-homes-161833439.html

And in my own hometown Olympia, the Olympia City Council unanimously passed an ordinance that limits what landlords can charge renters at time of move-in,and imposes advance notices of 120 days for rent increases greater than 5% and 180 days for increases greater than 10%. Better than nothing, but simply postponing precarity:

https://www.theolympian.com/news/local/article264654704.html?ac_cid=DM686343@ac_bid=703315369

Meanwhile, yours truly received notice of a 32 percent increase in our home property tax for the coming year, reflecting the induced inflation in housing prices even 70 miles south of Seattle, which will increase our monthly mortgage payment by $160.

7:11 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

This looks gd:

https://www.amazon.com/-/es/Avram-Alpert/dp/0691204357/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2TZB1S2FJS93N&keywords=avram+alpert&qid=1660871199&s=books&sprefix=avram+alpert%2Cstripbooks%2C687&sr=1-1

Meanwhile: Is Schmiden the most dangerous person on the planet? Is Schmamala the dumbest?

mb

9:15 PM  
Anonymous Himanshu Tiwari said...

Dear Dr. Berman,
Prt2 of my post:Aug 15 is also Sri Aurobindo's birthday. One of the greatest sages India has produced: The sage for this age: https://www.newindianexpress.com/lifestyle/spirituality/2022/aug/14/sagefor-the-age-remembering-sri-aurobindo-on-his-150th-birth-anniversary-2486579.html?fbclid=IwAR32Y1w6Ozv9lyUqdlnzxxOhOIMmgR8PrJHE2PYn1ZAKKAUc88_5PEdI6Ds
I do not know anyone else who had/has the depth of understanding of the West and the East as he did. His magnum opus "The Life Divine" (https://www.auro-ebooks.com/the-life-divine/)has had a profound impact on me. Here is an excerpt about him (https://www.connieleemarie.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Satprem-Sri-Aurobindo-or-The-Adventure-of-Consciousness.pdf):
"When he began his life in London, at the age of twelve, Sri Aurobindo knew Latin and French thoroughly. The headmaster of St.Paul's School, where he had enrolled, was so surprised at the aptitude of his young student that he personally coached him in Greek. Three years later, Sri Aurobindo could skip half his classes and spend most of his time engrossed in his favorite occupation:reading. Nothing seemed to escape this voracious adolescent Shelley and "Prometheus Unbound," the French poets, Homer, Aristophanes, and soon all of European thought – for he quickly came to master enough German and Italian to read Dante and Goethe in the original – peopled a solitude of which he has said nothing.However, there was nothing austere about Sri Aurobindo, and certainly nothing of the puritan (the prurient,as he called it); it was just that he was "elsewhere," and his world was replete. He even had a way of jesting with a straight face, which never left him: Sense of humour? It is the salt of existence...For there is also Sri Aurobindo the humorist, and that Sri Aurobindo is perhaps more important than the philosopher whom Western universities speak of so solemnly. Philosophy, for Sri Aurobindo, was only a way of reaching those who could not understand anything without explanations; it was only a language, just as poetry was another, clearer and truer language."
Himanshu

7:24 AM  
Anonymous Savantesimal said...

One important thing for USA declinists to remember, as I pointed out in a previous post: The other "great powers" have got some serious problems of their own. Russia has remained a failed state since the collapse of the USSR. It's really just a petro-state managed by an organized crime ring. And though they aren't transparent with their numbers, the signs we can see are that China's economy is teetering on the edge of a major crisis similar to the 2008 crash.

This doesn't look like the decline of the US specifically, it looks like a global crisis. We may be headed into a dark age similar to the Late Bronze Age event with no real winners.

And speaking to Trump specifically, there is a huge roadblock to any potential prosecution: Jury selection! Imagining how they are going to find an 'unbiased' jury for a trial of Trump should be a source of endless entertainment.

9:16 AM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Wafers-

Don' ferget to begin each day by yelling KAMALA, SCHMAMALA! It's extremely cathartic.

mb

11:30 AM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Apparently it doesn't bother Schmiden, nor his avid followers, that he is courting the possibility of triggering a nuclear war. Wafers are asked to weigh in on this frightening dementia.

mb

12:39 PM  
Anonymous Glenn said...

Hello Dear Doctor Berman,

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/russia-ukraine-war-accusations-zaporizhzhia-europes-largest-nuclear-power-plant/

Kyiv and Moscow continued to accuse each other on Friday of shelling Europe's largest nuclear power plant, stoking international fears of a catastrophe on the continent as Russian President Vladimir Putin said independent inspectors should visit the Zaporizhzhia plant "as soon as possible."

There seems to be more concern about a possible nuclear meltdown than the US weapon backed escalation toward Mutual Assured Destruction.

Negotiation is absolutely necessary, but short-memoried Americans seem to be numb to the possibility of MAD because it is not daily in the news, and if a choice has to be made between averting MAD or a meltdown, everyone needs to know that nuclear weapons are still on high alert so as to avoid being destroyed by a first strike by either side.

1:35 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Glenn-

What would a Tulsi meltdown look like, and could it keep us back from the edge?

mb

4:27 PM  
Blogger ccg said...

Here's my answer to your question on the frightening dementia of not only Joe Biden but of his avid supporters: They totally blame Putin for any concern they have about nuclear war. They do have some concern, but cannot or will not see that Biden is the escalator of this war. Which in their minds is a great thing to do because Putin is bad, ya know, because he helped Trump get elected etc. The folks I know who think this way are all Russiagaters, who long ago contracted Trump Derangement Syndrome such that their world view can be summarized as follows: "Trump bad", "Putin bad," and they can't tolerate any differences of opinion.

Most of the people I have in mind here are academics and are thus perfect examples of high IQ morons. Oh yeah, they are the same people who think Liz Cheney is wonderful because she hates Trump. That Liz C. supports waterboarding is OK, I guess, as long as she hates Trump. Here's a video on that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=botntr65rB8&t=3s



4:46 PM  
Anonymous Dr. Shithouse said...

Dear Dr. Berman,

A Tulsi meltdown may appear cool, hip, and chill.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvM4EmFxMBw


Watching this shining star USian definitely kept me back from the edge. Verklempt...

5:24 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Wafers-

Here is a poem by a great, little-known poet called A.R. Ammons. It's called "Stills":

"I have nowhere
to go and

nowhere to go

when I get
back from there."

This is a perfect description of Schmamala, no? She has no purpose on this earth, and just wanders around in a fog. She's a doofus-ette.

Schmiden, of course, lives in his own kind of fog. He thinks that by provoking Russia and China, he is protecting America; when in reality, he is endangering America. He's a doofus.

Dr. Shit-

Tulsi is the answer. She always was the answer; we just refused to see it.

ccg-

Ontologically speaking, academics are probably the dumbest people on the planet (next to Schmiden and Schmamala).

mb


6:04 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Wafers-

You might wanna mix it up occasionally. For example, I usually wake up and scream KAMALA SCHMAMALA! But once in a while, I'll yell SCHMAMALA KAMALA! Turns out, it has the same cathartic effect.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVFFnxwLp2o

mb

8:19 PM  
Blogger Joe McIlnen said...


More and More!
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2022/08/19/more-weapons-ukraine/4321660932793/

( Next Week) We heard a bid of $775 million? Can anyone here say $1 Billion?!
Go MIC! Go Joe! Save us from those Russian bastards! “Freedom” reigns in Ukraine!
U.S.A.!, U.S.A.!, U.S.A.!

9:44 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Buffoons can't be stopped:

https://www.foxnews.com/media/social-justice-become-new-religion-making-politics-feel-like-we-hell-already-atlantic-article

Dunno abt u guys, but I luv a gd buffoon!

mb

11:28 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

ps: So buffoons can't be stopped, but at least they can be ridiculed (while they ruin the country, and human life):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jq043pEw5Dk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDkNmbJLB3o

12:17 AM  
Anonymous Himanshu Tiwari said...

Dear Dr. Berman,

"There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn't true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true." - Soren Kierkegaard

Which way of self-fooling is predominant in US? Are they in equal proportions?

(Sri Aurobindo, 1926:) “The general mind [in India] has not yet advanced far enough from the old moorings to form even an inadequate conception of what I am doing here and it is easily disconcerted by the departure from old forms, a willed absence of the customary paraphernalia and the breaking of traditional barriers and limits.
That is one considerable advantage of America; there is evidently a sufficiently widespread eagerness and openness of mind to new things. We have to see whether this will be sufficient to open the mind also to deep and true things. The spiritual future of America is not yet decided; it is in the balance. There is a great possibility before her, but it depends on Americans themselves whether she will make good and realise it. Otherwise she will follow the disastrous curve of other western peoples." - from autobiographical notes (p 387) https://wiki.auroville.org.in/wiki/Autobiographical_Notes_and_Other_Writings_of_Historical_Interest

Himanshu

7:54 AM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Himan-

That was 1926. Nearly a century a later, I think we can say that the results are in.

mb

10:22 AM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Something to think abt:

https://www.noemamag.com/rushdies-forgotten-fatwa/

10:32 AM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

A Positive Dream Experience

1st, this is not a dream: in June of 2006 Gore Vidal was in Toronto and did an interview w/the Globe & Mail. In that interview he stated, "America is a nation of morons" (see newspaper edition of 9-10 June).

Here's the dream I had recently: a hippie millionaire donated $1m to Princeton to set up the Gore Vidal Chair of Buffoonology, with me as its first appointee. In my interview for the job, I promised to root out all buffoonery in New Jersey, then move on to other states. I also promised to set up 3 divisions w/in the dept.: The Freddie Wadsworth Division of Goatfucking, the Schmiden Division of Warmongering, and the Schmamala Division of Complete Emptiness. The committee was impressed, but I have yet to hear back from them. Stay tuned.

mb

12:45 PM  
Blogger Jack Lattemann said...

Re: Curricula for Buffoons - I couldn't find any Evergreen State College news for August (no news is news?), but did learn that the college has a branch "campus" in nearby Tacoma, WA, with a self-described "small and mighty liberal arts program." Using the branch campus existing curriculum as a guide, I think this suggests an opportunity to set up a virtual certificate program in Buffoonology, with such courses like:

- Working with Buffoons
- Language, Culture & Buffoons (An Abridged Approach)
- Tribal Sovereignty & Early Buffoon Education
- Getting Down to Business: Fast Food, Small Arms, and the Buffoon Clientele

Convincing Evergreen might be a long shot, but one can dream!

1:47 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Jack-

Maybe not...like knows like. E.g., to yr curriculum you might add Heads in Shit.

mb

3:47 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Wafers-

Pls clarify something for me. Whenever Putin gives a speech, no matter what he says (or how accurate it is), the Western press calls it propaganda. But when the US gov't issues a statement, it is not labeled propaganda. It is just matter-of-factly assumed to be the Truth. Can someone explain this for me? I'm confused.

mb

4:46 PM  
Anonymous Glans Butterworth, III said...

Predictably in the world's massive mistake (Freud), Uvale massacre relief funds delayed, bureaucratic to the survivors. Maybe that's just propaganda? Naah, Western "press" never, ever lie, it's The Truth. The Western gov'ts are all abt "democracy" and "freedom" bc they say so, over and over again.

https://www.texastribune.org/2022/08/16/texas-uvalde-shooting-relief-money-victims/

Yet, Schmiden et al. has given another "aid" package ($775,000,000) for more ammunitions/weapons/etc. to Ukraine. Curious if those funds were delayed, bureaucratic to reach Ukraine to help 'fight' Putin's "propaganda..."

https://gagadget.com/en/weapons/159061-105-mm-howitzers-ammunition-for-himars-javelin-missiles-tow-missile-launchers-drones-and-mrap-vehicles-details-of/

5:00 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Glans-

Regarding the upcoming G20 mtg in Bali, and discussions of confrontation among Xi-Putin-Schmiden: in terms of making a (bold) statement, I have this recurring image of Xi and Putin getting Schmiden into a corner, and simultaneously drenching his shoes w/urine. Your input on this scenario is most welcome. (I favor it because as a message, it contains no ambiguity.)

mb

7:00 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

ps: Other Wafers are encouraged to join in.

7:01 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Call me crazy, I love Americans:

https://www.wfla.com/news/crime/florida-college-student-shot-killed-while-protecting-girlfriend-from-would-be-robber-in-alabama-forest/

7:10 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Ara-

Sorry, cdn't run it. We have a half-pg-max limit on this blog.

mb

11:49 PM  
Anonymous Ara the Armenian said...

Dr. Berman, Wafers,
Two things to highlight the current American landscape:
First is an interview with Jonathan Haidt, about how social media has made us all stupid. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yE9Z2WUDYwg

The second is a new video by the Gravel institute highlighting the loneliness epidemic in America. “More and more people are reporting that they’re depressed, lonely, or friendless.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlNPVhmS7Yw

Now some anecdotal references:
-Friends talk openly about buying arms etc. I usually give the Bermanian suggestion to just arm everyone and… you know the rest. This often leaves them confused.
- Parents just bought 3 new smart TVs to replace the dumb ones; we are a household of 3.
-My uncle and father recently asked themselves “when was it better, 40 years ago or now?” They both answered 40 years ago, citing the ease to make money then (hustle), but also more community and less phones etc. The spiritual vacuity was in question.
-An Armenian priest and I reflected on the tribalization within the Armenian diasporan community in LA, and the possibility of Armenia disappearing. When I suggested that Armenia should gain more support from the US, he said, “but, don’t get your hopes up too much about America; I give it 40 years.” To which I replied, “Not 40, but 8,” in line with your prediction of 2030 as the eclipsing year.

Armenians in LA are in disarray, and people secretly dream about leaving the US and moving to Armenia, sensing that Armenia may disappear while we live empty lives of opulence here in the US… Cheers, Ara

4:06 AM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Ara-

Still a bit too long, but OK. In future, shoot for *under* half a page. Thank you.

mb

5:56 AM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Question: For a long time now, Americans have been degraded. A bad condition, but at least it's reversible. Then at some pt, we became debased. This is v. bad, because it is not reversible. Once yr debased, yr debased. My question is: When did we go from degradation to debasement?

mb

1:30 PM  
Anonymous H. E. Pennypacker said...

Greetings Dr Berman,

longtime fan and lurker on the blog. As a GenXer that graduated in the early 80s, I'd say that as of the beginning of that decade we had certainly arrived at mass debauchery. Reagan's turning back the clock to the roaring twenties was surely a factor. It had an effect on society well beyond just the economic realm. Gordon Gekko's line from Wall Street, "greed is good", captures the zeitgeist pretty well. And let's not forget Robin Leach and 'Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous'. Any rube can hustle their way to untold bling accumulation. But as you've pointed out in your writings, America was born as a hustling nation. It seems that any society that embraces such a way of life, as we have, is on a a very short road to debasement.

"America: predestined to be debased".

10:24 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Pennypacker-

Welcome, Kramer! I'd recognize you anywhere. As for our road to debasement: it wasn't really that short, when u think abt it. But true, debasement was always in the cards.

O&D, amigo-

mb

ps: Link for Leach wd help.

10:33 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Penny-

Impt rule on this blog: post no more frequently than once every 24 hrs. Thank you.

mb

1:08 AM  
Anonymous Satchmo said...

Here's a new "gaming wand" thingamajig that's supposed to get kids away from screens & outside playing. One of the games includes a new version of Tag.

https://www.techradar.com/news/picoo-digital-gaming-wand-drags-kids-away-from-screens-and-back-oudoors

Whatever happened to crayons & coloring books? Jigsaw puzzles? Building things from popsicles sticks? Biking? When I was a rugrat, there was far less of this stuff which just seems to complicate the simple act of playing, not to mention malfunctions.

I would sure hate to be comin' up now

1:32 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Satch-

In a demented society, discarding crayons etc. and moving on to screens is regarded as progress. My own version of progress is, You take away all of those electronic toys, give the child a mild beating, then hand him or her a box of crayons. A severe beating is reserved for their parents; or perhaps a bit of waterboarding.

mb

1:48 PM  
Blogger Miles Deli said...

Greetings MB and Wafers,

Rushdie attacker Hadi Matar said he was 'surprised' that Rushdie survived his gruesome attack:

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/08/17/salman-rushdie-survive-attacker-00052549

Customer assaulted Papa John's Pizza worker. Reason? Incorrect pizza toppings:

https://www.cbs17.com/news/south/more-toppings-more-problems-maryland-papa-johns-worker-spears-customer-after-attacked-with-pizza-paddle/

Miles

ps: Sorry I can't find a photo of this clown yet.

1:58 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

"Ukraine has denied any involvement in Dugina's killing."

Yeah, right. And my mother is the Empress of Japan.

3:55 PM  
Anonymous Rilo said...

Neil Postman, Revisited: Are We Having Too Much Fun?

“In 1985, Neil Postman observed an America imprisoned by its own need for amusement. He was, it turns out, extremely prescient.” | By Megan Garber https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/04/are-we-having-too-much-fun/523143/

This archived essay reminds me of the quip Scorsese has made regarding modern superhero "films" - that they're not cinema but amusement park rides!

Wafers: Reply with your favorite film you've seen recently! Mine is probably Peele's recent "Nope"

https://youtube.com/watch?v=3XAMCTE8lBg&feature=youtu.be

4:26 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Rilo-

Actually, I quote him several times in my work. He did understand that America was a joke, and that Americans had shit for brains.

mb

4:42 PM  
Anonymous The Flabster said...

Everything is for sale and profit:

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2022/08/some-rural-hospitals-are-in-such-bad-shape-local-governments-are-practically-giving-them-away.html

I was out of the country for nearly three weeks and came home tonight. While catching up on the blog I read the horrible truth about the boy injured in the Highland shooting. Being away from my countrymen and seeing the contrast upon returning has been a shock. America is macho idiot Disneyland. The fantasy of owning firearms is heroic acts. The reality is horrible wounds and death. Ever other hot button issue is similar, with a fantastic ideal or possibility in the public imagination yet a terrible reality.

I’m trying to leave but the financial reality is a little tough.

7:42 PM  
Blogger Politically Incorrect Russian Spy said...

More proof the great seer MB was correct in suggesting we are living through, "the waning of the modern ages". Now the math has been done, and the techno-industrial party is indeed over:

https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/08/23/is-there-enough-metal-to-replace-oil/

Reminds me of an old Derrick Jensen chestnut: "the only sustainable level of technology is the Stone Age, and we are going to get there again. The only question is, 'what will be left when we do?'"

Side note: those praying fusion power will save modernity's sorry backside, well, bad news:

https://www.science.org/content/article/fusion-power-may-run-fuel-even-gets-started

3:43 AM  
Blogger Joe McIlnen said...

A funny Portland, Oregon road rager video. This typical USAin in his pickup truck is angry at the streets being closed to motorists for an annual event there. His limited vocabulary consists of saying “fuck” to everyone. LOL.

https://bikeportland.org/2022/08/22/man-flashes-gun-during-sunday-parkways-road-rage-incident-362037

9:47 AM  
Anonymous H. E. Pennypacker said...

Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous (original intro circa '84-85)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2n1WcT_pQQ&t=27s

then there was this infamous huckster from the late 80s. Proof of the "American Dream".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzsSpDyBc_4&t=146s

This Steinbeck quote comes to mind, "Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires"

When a population internalizes this ideology, no need for the ruling class to seriously worry about class resentment....their heads will remain firmly attached to their bodies.

1:53 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Penny-

Check out my 2 latest bks:

The Yellow River, by I.P. Daily
Chopped Liver Is the Answer, by Seymour Goosefat

mb

2:26 PM  
Anonymous satanic panic said...

I've only recently been learning about the "anti-cult" and "satanic panic" movements of the 1980s. I'm no fan of the conservatives who bought into all this stuff, but many of the contrarians writing against the "satanic panic" movement seem wrong as well. The anti-satanic panic people almost seem to be endorsing the way of life in America, as if all was well and there's no issue whatsoever.

The debates people have in American seem worthless, it's just idiots vs idiots.

https://www.newsweek.com/what-satanic-panic-debunked-80s-conspiracy-theory-making-return-1728190

3:20 PM  
Anonymous Glenn said...

https://www.laprogressive.com/the-environment/limited-scope-of-human-competence

"The human future, inevitably, will be smaller—fewer people, consuming less, in less complex societies. Most people are nervous about how such a dramatic transformation will come about, for good reason."

Why is obvious to me.

Automobiles and energy dense fuel will become so scarce that idling in line for a chicken sandwich, and then cleanup after the shot dead food server mistakes, will result in a cascade of further shootings for slow service.

3:28 PM  
Blogger comrade simba said...

MB said:
"Apparently it doesn't bother Schmiden, nor his avid followers, that he is courting the possibility of triggering a nuclear war. Wafers are asked to weigh in on this frightening dementia."

I gotta poke at what would be an underlaying premise... that schmiden has more than a rudimentary idea of what's going on around him. Does he even turn to the light anymore? So, with that in mind, here's another brain teaser - what sort of JoeBiden facsimile would be out there on the 2024 campaign trail?

11:57 PM  
Anonymous Dr. Shithouse said...

Forget about having no universal health care, Uvalde families still waiting for help, massive student loan debts to attend USian uni, no employment rights, FATCA, etc.

The US empire rubber stamps another $3,000,000,000 for Ukraine-land; for more militarism of course.


https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-nato-government-and-politics-a3036fcc3d289be7f4b84ab28953d33e

8:47 AM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Dr. Shit-

What wd we do, w/o endless war, and a permanent enemy? Our spiritual hollowness wd be revealed, for all to see. Can't have *that*! But we have no self-transparency at all. Walter Lippmann said it yrs ago: "Our imperialism is largely unconscious."

mb

11:14 AM  
Anonymous Matt Reese said...

Be reminded that WWII caused a booming economy in LA. Will this be
enough again to correct these messes?

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/does-anyone-else-feel-theyre-130031316.html

7:54 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Matt-

Some rules for the blog:
1. Send messages to the most recent post. No one reads the old stuff.
2. Do not treat this as a bulletin board. It's a forum for discussion. Hence, when you send a link, add a para of yr own commentary.
Thank you.
mb

8:29 PM  

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