The Deepest Truth
For many years now, I have been fascinated by the life and work of Remedios Varo (1908-63), a Spanish Surrealist artist who died in Mexico City at the age of 54, after having lived there for 22 years. I just read, for the third time, the superb biography of her by Janet Kaplan, which reproduces a good many of her canvases:
posted by Morris Berman at 7:42 PM
183 Comments:
Dr. Berman—
Interesting about Varo. I bumped into "Embroidering the Earth's Mantle," which resides in the Met, on my favorite Flickr art photo stream:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/profzucker/52537166919/
I also thought you might get a chuckle out of this McSweeney's piece on the ever-ongoing hustle in the sky:
https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/we-built-a-giant-casino-in-an-economically-depressed-opioid-plagued-city-and-we-cant-understand-where-all-the-high-rollers-are
Oops-
A gd article, except that the author is ignoring the crucial role Tulsi, Kamala, and Gisele Bundchen have played in the furtherance of the American Dream. Not to mention, of course, Lorenzo Riggins, and the late great Herman Cain (999 Plan).
mb
More than a few people have noticed that Biden has expressed less concern for Maui in the wake of the wildfire than "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job" Bush did for New Orleans in the wake of Katrina. Of course, it probably took Biden's handlers the better part of an afternoon just to get him to understand and be able to recall that something bad had happened in Maui. Even then, it didn't seem to stick:
https://nypost.com/2023/08/15/biden-seems-to-forget-maui-as-he-finally-publicly-speaks-about-wildfire-disaster-in-hawaii/
And while we're on the subject of global boiling, I like to keep up with how close we are to the end by checking in with the Arctic News Blog from time to time. Short version: it's over:
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/
Pol-
Well, he *is* a senile doofus. However, if reelected, and if he has a heart attack in Feb. 2025, guess what?
KAMALA SCHMAMALA!
Hey, she's senile w/o being old! The other option is Alternative Reality Trumpi! Either way, I'm excited.
mb
We are such a great country!:
https://news.yahoo.com/white-house-told-russians-flee-100021034.html
Wafers-
Will someone tell me why I'm supposed to be concerned abt Britney Spears, when it has been revealed that Gisele Bundchen is secretly running the State Dept.?
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/aug/17/husband-of-britney-spears-files-for-divorce-14-months-after-they-married-sam-asghari
Of course, any sane man wd divorce Britney; she's a douche baguette. But really, amigos, who gives a flying fuck? Gisele is the issue!
mb
Why do we keep rdg headlines like this one? It seems like there's a new one every wk:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/aug/17/destinee-thompson-family-sue-colorado-police-fatal-shooting
Our good Doctor often has stated that our college students learn little, if anything, at our USAin universities. As shown below these young adults also are becoming possible compulsive gamblers. If a class is boring they can whip out their dumbphones and place bets while the professor is lecturing. Check out below what students at Hofstra, an expensive, highly respected local university near me that hosted a presidential election, are doing.
https://longislandadvocate.com/online-gambling-growing-in-popularity-among-college-students-worrying-many/
From the USAin callousness department: Thieves shall stoop to any level possible to steal something.
https://www.clickorlando.com/news/local/2023/08/18/5k-reward-offered-after-tiny-home-taken-from-lake-county-lot/
And today’s mugshot is of a brainwashed conspiracy idiot who obviously is one of those anti-free masons who listens to far right talk radio overnight.
https://www.clickorlando.com/news/local/2023/06/23/man-accused-of-torching-leesburg-masonic-lodge/
BUFFOONS galore here in the U.S.A.!, U.S.A.!, U.S.A.!
Amerikkka is forming a trilateral military alliance w/ Japan & Korea. The trite reason given was 4 "security" purposes, but Amerikkka just wants 2 get @ China, since it can't compete anymore.
https://rollcall.com/2023/08/18/biden-asian-leaders-pledge-deeper-ties-amid-tensions-with-china-north-korea/
From Schmiden:
"We're opening a new era, and making sure that era has staying power. The intention" of making the 3-way alliance more permanent is to ensure closer work among leaders and Cabinet-level officials "forever."
For such delusions 2 b carried out "forever" would require a "forever" empire, dontcha think? I doubt hostile empires have all that much "staying power". Amerikkka is the main force behind tensions in that region
Satch-
1st, keep in mind that Schmiden is a senile doofus. Opposition is all he knows. In any case, it's a futile gesture. China is the rising hegemon; America is the waning one. There is no stopping this. A better strategy on the part of the US wd be detente, but that isn't our strong suit, to say the least. A female triumvirate of Gisele Bundchen, Tulsi, and Kamala (Schmamala) might be able to save the day, but Gisele refuses to come out of hiding as the real force behind the State Dept. Tulsi is working on her memoirs ("Tulsism for the Masses"), and Kamala has been beating her head against a wall for lack of anything better to do.
mb
Joe-
Gd to know that American youths are pissing their lives away. They are our future, after all. Which means we don't have a future, but we already knew that. As a declinist, I am excited.
Into the Abyss, meine Kinder!
mb
AI: The latest anodyne. Try this instead (along w/Proust):
https://www.noemamag.com/poetic-time-in-the-age-of-acceleration/
Wafers-
What's Michael Moore been up2 lately? Not a peep, so far.
Cd he be in league w/Gisele Bundchen? Or Kamala?
mb
Greetings from the shithole of Downtown L.A. Mobile oxygen units r being deployed in Skid Row 2 revive the hopeless, defeated druggies who've overdosed. But what'll happen if more folks OD? Or the same 1s they "helped" have ODed again? These oxy rescue teams don't get @ the root of these overdoses, I feel. Putting bandaids on fatal wounds is what Amerikkka does best now, besides reducing countries 2 rubble. Decadent civilizations party hard & collapse even harder
https://news.yahoo.
com/mobile-teams-skid-row-oxygen-100013568.html
I have learned many key insights into America and its pernicious effects on all of us in the rest of the world.
One key insight is the ability of capitalism to find a way to monetise anything no matter how disgusting and degrading.
Another is that given Americans belief in capitalism as the be all and end all of everything is that there is no bottom to what people will pay to see.
https://nypost.com/2023/08/15/san-francisco-doom-loop-walking-tour-gets-visitors-close-and-personal-to-the-squalor/
Anjin-
Yr rt: there are no limits to our degradation. The squalor is disgusting, but the 'tourist' visitors even more so.
Satch-
It can only get worse. There is no reversing our slide into the Abyss. Of that u can be sure.
Both of you: Cal is the canary in the coal mine.
mb
Wafers-
The Univ. of West Virginia is currently doing itself in. This just off the Net: "In proposing last week to eliminate 169 faculty positions and cut more than 30 degree programs from its flagship university, West Virginia, the state with the fourth-highest poverty rate in the country, is engaging in a kind of educational gerrymandering." Educational suicide, more like it. Of course, most American universities aren't teaching anybody anything anyway; but from a declinist pt of view, they might as well follow the example of UWV and close up shop. Well, with the exception of Evergreen, which needs to institute a single degree program: Buffoon Studies. This program will be inaugurated in Sept.; Gisele Bundchen and I will be the keynote speakers.
mb
Dr. Shit-
Surely by now you know that we are a discussion forum, not a bulletin board. Get w/the program, amigo!
mb
I see a silver lining 2 the link Anjin posted. These Doom & Squalor "tours" might help disillusion visitors of the notion that Amerikkka is (still) the "land of milk & honey". THEN they can see it 4 the declining has-been it really is. I found on a blog I used 2 read, a link from 2018 of SF tourists being shocked @ what they saw. It's an archived version, though…the regular link has since disappeared
https://web.archive.org/web/20180616160650/http://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/news/am-i-in-the-bad-part-of-town-tourists-shocked-by-what-they-see-on-san-francisco-streets/ar-AAyGAba
Here are a couple of examples of the screwed up USAin court system working in tandem with the rampant frivolous lawsuit hustling that goes on here. First off, Wafers, if you go to McDonald’s chances are your McNuggets only will be served lukewarm. Here’s why:
https://www.wesh.com/article/florida-lawsuit-chicken-nuggets/44598314
If you get arrested in a road rage, you can sue the City and collect $300,000 before you get arrested again.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12426857/Philly-woman-won-300-000-city-arrested-road-rage-jailed-drink-driving-separate-incident-lawmakers-say-woke-city-settled-easily.html
And today’s mugshot is of a church going/retired child porn-loving cop. He definitely is admired by the many worshipping Christians here in this de facto Christian theocracy who also “Back the Blue”.
https://www.news4jax.com/news/local/2023/07/28/retired-baker-county-officer-arrested-on-child-porn-charges-accused-of-distributing-online/
Only here in the U.S.A.!, U.S.A.!, U.S.A.!
Satch-
The problem is, Americans are stupid. Facts don't affect them at all.
Joe-
When I see lukewarm Nuggets, I reach for my gun (a riff on Josef Goebbels).
mb
Hello Dr. Berman,
I have not posted in a while, but when I saw the picture in the following article I was reminded of a response you gave at the Media Ecology award Q&A when someone asked you about the youth saving the future. I vividly remember you saying that the technology has already colonized their minds.
Take a close look at the new american immigrants having dinner in Cincinnati.
https://apnews.com/article/mauritania-immigration-west-africa-united-states-tiktok-route-bbef5afc25680ad7f2704afa76f44cea
Ah yes, the american dream.
Peace,
Vince
Vince-
Welcome back. As for immigrants: once they enter the US, they are subject to the Buffoon Machine, wh/turns them into buffoons.
mb
Want concrete pr00f that fascism has already claimed Amerikkka? Cops raided the house of a Kansas newspaper (Marion County Record) publisher named Eric Meyer. His mother Joan was the co-publisher @ 1 pt, & she croaked shortly after the raid. Eric says the experience contributed 2 her demise. The gov't thugs made sure she went out w/ a bang. Perhaps they'll start raiding daycare ctrs & nursing homes next.
https://www.kshb.com/news/local-news/investigations/new-video-shows-police-raid-inside-home-of-kansas-newspaper-owner
So according to the New York Times, US officials fear that Ukraine is becoming casualty averse. this was actually a headline. Imagine Ukrainians not wanting to die for US imperial ambitions. Jeez, what's wrong with those people?
Here's a short video about this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Oob7bzQuEg
fly, ccg-
Keep in mind that the deeper (and more extensive) the buffoonage, the faster our decline.
mb
Speaking of art.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xB9n0XA8dks
Listen to these lyrics and tell me that this man isn't suffering deeply from living in this godawful fucked-up country. This is what America produces. Unending misery and punishing levels of self-hatred.
A healthy society doesn't produce music THIS depressing that also hits #1 on the charts.
He's speaking to what you've mentioned about Southern culture in your writings, Dr B.
Broke-
Food for thought, that's for sure. I wonder where this will all lead. In the entertainment business, everything seems to be a flash in the pan. But he's got the central pt: American is rotting, and rotten. There is simply no getting around these facts.
What can one think, when Leno or Leno-types stop young people in the street, and show them a world map, and ask them to pt to the Ukraine, and they point to Australia? Or if he asks them to name a continent, and they say Utah, or France? America is a garbage culture filled w/garbage people; its values have been wrong from Day 1; and as China and India and "BRICS" rise, it is sinking into a quagmire of self-destruction, and stupidity, and something pretty disgusting--a horror show. And what leaders! Trump is a very sick man, Biden is a senile buffoon, and Kamala is little more than a joke. Finally, consider the endless stream of evidence submitted to this blog--all of you guys---Joe and Fly and ccg and the rest--validating these claims, over and over again.
And yr rt: this guy's song, "Rich Men North of Richmond," echoes ch. 4 of WAF. I was vilified for that chapter, by morons who live in a B&W world, and cdn't see that the South was not nothing more than some monochromatic evil. But no, immediately I was a 'racist' and 'pro-slavery', a Confederate sympathizer and so on. What bullshit. I also pointed out that the Civil War never really ended, and I was dead on. Just look at what's going on in the US today, fer chrissakes.
The overarching theme of WAF was that America had failed because from the earliest days, it ignored or vilified or marginalized alternative voices, and it is still doing that to this day (John Mearsheimer, John Pilger, Scott Ritter, Jeffrey Sachs et al. on the Ukrainian war, for example). Nothing must tarnish the American Dream, wh/, as Oliver Anthony sings, is, for a large % of the American population, a nightmare.
When America finally does collapse, 80% of the planet will be dancing in the streets. Gee, wonder why.
mb
Wafers may find this interesting. A piece by Inderjeet Parmar, a Professor at the City University of London, writes what could happen pre- and post- 2024 elections. I think his last sentence sums it up well, “ Great empires normally collapse from within, and take many others down with them.”
https://thewire.in/world/us-fascistic-violence-civil-war-election-2024
Indian-
Gd essay. Things will certainly heat up. Prosecution of Trumpi is translating into higher rankings in the polls for him, thus increasing his chances of reelection. I was gratified to see the author using the word 'debasement', referring to our current political situation; I just wish he had also used the word 'buffoons' (and 'degradation'). As for his closing sentence: Arnold Toynbee observed that empires don't collapse from external attacks, but rather, they commit suicide. Wh/is what the US is in the process of doing.
mb
As for reality in the Ukraine war:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpJtiuniCoA&t=6s
I hardly ever watched Tucker Carlson when he was on Fox News. But since he came to Twitter he has been having some interesting interviews. Yesterday he interviewed Douglas MacGregor who paints a true realistic picture of the fiasco and human tragedy of the war in Ukraine.
https://youtu.be/iMUAaWK79Vc?si=G7uV3wAdqw9lh82U
The hubris and folly of the leadership of America in this war is likely their true Suez moment. How can they be so delusional?
To help keep up the delusion You Tube recently banned Scott Ritter and his associated channels. They also wiped all his past shows. Happily though his stuff can still be found on Rumble. He recently posted a short video about Putin.
https://rumble.com/v3a8wqi-vladimir-soloviev-tells-scott-ritter-what-putin-is-really-like.html
Somehow he doesn't seem to be a devil to those in Russia.
Anjin-
I tell ya, every aspect of American life, including US foreign policy, has turned into theater and beating off. Reporting of the Ukraine war on CNN and other media outlets is pure propaganda; one wonders if the American public even cares anymore, altho when polled, more than 50% were opposed to sending more assistance to Zelenskomu (that's the dative case of Zelensky). Meanwhile, most 'news' consists of crap like Britney's divorce, or some guy trying to talk to Drew Barrymore. The theater is sillier; the beating off more intense and widespread. And why, I ask u, are these people silent?: Michael Moore, Gisele Bundchen, Tulsi, Sarah Palin, Lorenzo Riggins, Laquisha Jones, Freddy Wadsworth, and the faculty and admin of Evergreen State College? (Herman Cain being dead, along w/his much-needed 999 Plan) We are drowning in poop.
mb
Here's more amerikkkan fascism w/ a side of fries. A Texas bill called HB 2127 was signed in2 law by governor Greg Abbott & takes effect soon. This essentially means it can overrule local laws and regs. According 2 the state Rep:
"Basically, it’s the greatest transfer of power away from the public and into the hands of a few people in Austin that we’ve ever seen."
https://news.yahoo.com/texas-takes-attacks-austin-level-212633348.html
Houston bigwigs sued over this, as the 2nd link shows. But since John Q. Public is too ignorant & drugged 2 oblivion, fierce opposition is slim. So I foresee chaos down the line. Yee-haw!
https://spectrumlocalnews.com/tx/south-texas-el-paso/news/2023/07/04/houston-sues-texas-over-controversial--death-star--law-
Dr. Berman - thanks for the Noema article. In the materialistic west only poets and mystics understand time.
"Wer sich als Quelle ergießt, den erkennt die Erkennung;
und sie führt ihn entzückt durch das heiter Geschaffne,
das mit Anfang oft schließt und mit Ende beginnt."
-Rilke, Die Sonette an Orpheus, Teil 2 XII
Whoever flows out like a fountain will discover by discovering;
It leads him rapt through joyous creation,
and often begins with an ending, and ends with a beginning.
(my translation)
As for Michael Moore, in 2020 he put out a film about the environmental movement called "Planet of the Humans" that enraged much of his liberal audience. He's been persona non grata since then.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/28/climate-dangerous-documentary-planet-of-the-humans-michael-moore-taken-down
Jason-
Good translation! Vielen Dank! As for Moore: Was he rt?
mb
Hello Wafers and the good doctor.
This was linked on this site a long time ago and it still says it all. Time for a revisit perhaps.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXi23qiu7a8
Harvey-
Next time, pls provide some commentary of yr own. We are a discussion forum, not a bulletin board. Thanks.
mb
More irresponsible talk of US military action in Mexico, MB!
Bill Barr invokes the counter-ISIS campaign as a model for tackling drug cartels.
Though he disavows airstrikes, he endorses "military precision operations to either destroy or arrest or capture."
Wild that all the Republican candidates running for POTUS actually want to initiate a war w Mexico !!
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/bill-barr-lays-out-war-on-terror-playbook-for-decimating-mexican-drug-cartels/
Nix-
Wdn't it be nice if Bill managed to figure out why Americans need these drugs, and addressed causes rather than symptoms?
mb
There are a lot of gems in this Ronan Farrow New Yorker piece on Elon Musk. This might be the most important finding.>>
"In the past twenty years, against a backdrop of crumbling infrastructure and declining trust in institutions, Musk has sought out business opportunities in crucial areas where, after decades of privatization, the state has receded. The government is now reliant on him, but struggles to respond to his risk-taking, brinkmanship, and caprice. Current and former officials from nasa, the Department of Defense, the Department of Transportation, the Federal Aviation Administration, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration told me that Musk’s influence had become inescapable in their work, and several of them said that they now treat him like a sort of unelected official. One Pentagon spokesman said that he was keeping Musk apprised of my inquiries about his role in Ukraine and would grant an interview with an official about the matter only with Musk’s permission. “We’ll talk to you if Elon wants us to,” he told me. In a podcast interview last year, Musk was asked whether he has more influence than the American government. He replied immediately, “In some ways.” Reid Hoffman told me that Musk’s attitude is “like Louis XIV: ‘L’état, c’est moi.’ ”"
"During the pandemic, Musk seemed to embrace covid denialism, and for a while he changed his Twitter profile picture to an image of the protagonist of the game, which turns on a manufactured plague designed to control the masses. But Deus Ex, like “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” is a fundamentally anti-capitalist text, in which the plague is the culmination of unrestrained corporate power, and the villain is the world’s richest man, a media-darling tech entrepreneur with global aspirations and political leaders under his control.""
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/08/28/elon-musks-shadow-rule
What a complete asshole Musk is. I have so many college buddies that idolize this guy as some kind of intrepid heterodox entrepreneur....good grief!
Ronnie-
Gd profile, thanks. He's basically a boy emperor, and a douchebag.
mb
Move over, Texas. Florida is outdoing it when it comes to violence and downright hilarious stupidity. In this case, stupidity is the idea that “thoughts and prayers” and counting on this country’s imaginary god will solve everything. But then again, Florida is part of this backward country’s Bible Belt. These goofballs obviously don’t see the forest from the trees.
https://www.wctv.tv/video/2023/08/24/organizers-hope-prayer-summit-helps-stop-gun-violence-tallahassee/
So what happens? Another deadly shooting in Tallahassee shortly after a “stop the violence” forum.
https://www.wctv.tv/video/2023/08/24/two-dead-shooting-dade-street-rec-center-follows-stop-violence-forum/
Speaking of criminals in Tallahassee, here’s today’s mugshot of an angry ax-wielding Tallahassean.
https://www.wctv.tv/video/2023/08/24/tallahassee-man-accused-axe-attack-set-have-first-court-appearance-thursday/
And what’s this uber conservative Roman Catholic’s governor and state legislature’s answer to the Sunshine State’s violence? Summarily fire school board transgender members who use the wrong bathroom in these narrow-minded elected Republican leaders’ eyes. Because after all, this less than one percent of the population is the cause of all that’s wrong in USAin society.
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2023/08/24/Florida-transgender-school-bathrooms/9211692885968/
p.s. As the GSWH once joked on an interview concerning the USAin public: “Where are your brains?”
Re: The Planet of the Humans documentary mentioned above: (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12192654/)
The documentary accepted that climate change and mass environmental destruction is happening. But presented the "green" industry as having little chance of actually resolving the fundamental environmental problems generated by modern living.
The documentary highlighted the limits of energy generation from "green" sources, the mirage of "green" resource extraction, problems of overconsumption, resource scarcity, and the hustling, bullshitting ethos that is utterly rife within "green" industries (and every industry in the U.S. as far as I know).
It caused an uproar because many of those green bullshitters are rich people and significant Democratic Party donors/luminaries. If the doc is right, the only likely way forward is a fundamental shift in how we live our lives and how we consume. Nobody really wants change here. (Worth seeing the documentary. I can't evaluate the scientific or engineering critiques some reviewers have made - I don't have the technical background.)
Bud-
It really is all abt politics. In this case, it's called greenwashing. Plus, Americans really believe that all our problems can be solved by technology. Check out WAF ch. 3.
There certainly isn't going to be a fundamental shift in our way of life. The changes America makes in every area are cosmetic. For example, relations of money and power as they affect black people remain the same now as in 1960 (this has been statistically documented). What do blacks settle for? Diversity appointments. BFD. Whites and browns are similarly gullible; yellows, much less.
Joe-
I wd recommend slapping and urine, but it wdn't chg anything.
mb
ps: all of you: just step back, observe America at a distance. Isn't it incredible, what we have become?
Hey everyone, DioGenes checking in from Canada. A friend of mine recently created this song about the "left coast" version of Americanism. Gatsby has moved out to the West Coast indeed...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0axziFEZ7bI
And some self-analysis from the artist:
https://medium.com/@panthsaad/west-coast-gatsby-musk-grimes-and-the-cultural-aftermath-bf9bfc9c3fe7
There have been times in civilization when the artists have functioned as an "early warning system" of what is going on... sadly this is not to be found in any mainstream American art
MB,
Amerikkkans need the Mexican drugs 2 numb themselves from their dull, lifeless, empty joke of a "society". Remember my earlier post about the Skid Row junkies? The drugs also serve another purpose of deterring any large-scale resistance that might arise if Amerikkkans actually had a spine & a lil bit of intelligence.
Here's a White House press release w/ an interesting smoking gun about Amerikkka's real intentions w/ this recent trilateral Alliance.
"One area that President Biden has particularly emphasized from his first conversations as president with both of these leaders was how to build stronger Japan-ROK ties and how that is in the fundamental national security interests of the United States"
Any further rhetoric Amerikkka spews about its presence in the Pacific should b tossed
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2023/08/18/press-gaggle-by-national-security-advisor-jake-sullivan-thurmont-md/
Greenwashing died at the University of Kansas. Ten years or so ago it was all the rage with videos showing the treadmills at the gym equipped with generators to help offset the electrical costs of an air conditioned, lights galore gym (imagine the offset was substantial LOL)!
Kids today don't want a downer experience so the "sustainability" office, which was a joke anyway, has gone away. Instead they want a winning football team and $350 million will be spent rebuilding the stadium and turning the university into a conference and hotel business. Who cares about the education they just want warm bodies with money. They also think the winning basketball team is why there is a bumper freshman class this year. I bet kids lured to a university by sports are here for an education to make them think. Most will go into the business school which dictates much of what goes on since they have the big dollar donors. And the six figure admins only care about keeping the gravy train going. Yes indeed, the United States is prepared to face competition from China and Russia.
https://www.cjonline.com/story/sports/college/2017/09/22/ku-unveils-350-million-campaign-renovate-memorial-stadium-other/16527587007/
Harvey-
Well, anything that adds to our decline is gd. I celebrate the cancellation of humanities, and the investment in sports. 100% business majors shd also help our self-destruction.
Satch-
W/or w/o drugs, Americans are dumb and cowardly. I guess Chris Hedges has given up on his plans for revolution.
mb
what else it may be, militarism is a colossal, shameful waste of resources. here are some details on the hundreds of billions that the usa and china are spending on war preparations that could instead help save the planet, feed the poor, etc etc etc...
https://www.commondreams.org/news/us-china-cold-war
we're the nxt empire to fall, then i suppose it will be china, then the nxt, then the nxt.....
@Bud
I have seen that documentary several times. It is spot on.
Michael C. Ruppert warned us all many years ago that there was nothing available that could replace oil and the systems built on it.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=S_KRNXoAaNc
Peace,
Vince
Wafers-
Short word of advice: Don't cross Putin. It won't be gd for yr health.
Grace-
The only way out is to put Gisele Bundchen in charge of everything. Just my 2 cents. But for an alternative to yr Toynbeean scenario, check out 2nd story in my bk "The Heart of the Matter."
GOP debate: 8 turkeys gobbling. ("On the 8th day of Xmas...") Jesus, talk abt beating off. But note that next month, at Evergreen State College, Tulsi and I will be launching the Dept. of Buffonic Studies. Jack L. promises to kick off the festivities w/a hearty rendition of "You're a Grand Ol' Flag." The 1st yr will be devoted to studying the faculty and admin of Evergreen. Hope y'all can attend.
Vince-
Haven't there been some studies showing that green alternatives tax the environment more than the usual energy sources? I seem to recall rdg something like that during the past few yrs.
mb
Dr. Berman and Wafers,
I bring you a new example of beating off: semi-mandatory patriotism (https://www.foxnews.com/media/nc-community-residents-pledge-uphold-constitution-fly-american-flag-year-round). Quoting the property developer of this new housing development:
"I think it's safe to say right now our nation is a little bit sick," Fankhauser told "Fox & Friends First" Monday. "As I look across the landscape of America right now, I see a country that's suffering. I think there's some pain and hurt going on. I think the medicine that America needs right now in some form is patriotism."
An American flag will be provided with the purchase of each home and must be displayed (though there is no punishment for non-compliance).
Related is this: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/republican-lawmaker-introduces-fidelity-month-bill-hopes-rededicate-us-core-values . Rep. Alex Mooney introduced a bill recently that would designate one month every year as "Fidelity Month," with the hope that Americans will unite in rededicating themselves "to the values of faith, family and patriotism."
-- Torreblanca
Dr. Berman - Bud helpfully wrote a response to your question about "Planet of the Humans". I will add that the film provided many examples of the greenwashing and hypocrisy of the modern environmental movement (like how most electric vehicles are charged on a grid that mainly runs on coal, natural gas, and nuclear power). The green left went into an uproar. They are in denial about uncomfortable facts like where rare-earth minerals come from, recycling doesn't save the environment, polar bears aren't going extinct, etc. In the USA, even the "smart" people are stupid.
https://www.epa.gov/energy/about-us-electricity-system-and-its-impact-environment
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/01/recycling-wont-solve-climate-change/617851/
https://www.arcticwwf.org/wildlife/polar-bear/polar-bear-population/
https://hir.harvard.edu/not-so-green-technology-the-complicated-legacy-of-rare-earth-mining/
Torre-
But how long b4 there will be punishment for non-compliance?
Instead of rededicating ourselves to patriotism, what if every American suddenly said to themselves: "My God, I'm a degraded buffoon! I'm nothing more than a stupid piece of dreck. Well, enuf o' that! I see now that the US is a pile of shit, but *I* don't hafta be a pile of shit. I'm going to start by rejecting American values and becoming a human being."
Wdn't that be great?
mb
Jason-
Thanks for info. What you talk abt really is stupidity, but of a particular sort. We tend to turn everything into (secular) religions; the environmental movement is no exception. I discuss this phenomenon in my bk "Healing"; see also Eric Hoffer, "The True Believer." I've also come up against this 'religious' reaction with faculty members, regarding various isms: diversity, environmentalism, Zionism, feminism, and so forth (even systems theory!). A lot of them can't tolerate serious debate or dialogue about their cause; they just go into limbic mode, so to speak. Sally Potter, a feminist writer and film director (see "The Tango Lesson" and "Orlando"; great movies), once remarked that she decided to avoid any reference to feminism when she was w/a group of women, because the minute you did their eyes glazed over and rational discussion became possible. This limbic (and childish) syndrome is unfortunately characteristic of most isms; it's what happens when people are unable to separate issues of self and identity from their beliefs. Doris Lessing talks about this in her classic novel, "The Golden Notebook," with respect to 1930s Marxists; contemporary updates wd be Trumpism and wokism. Of course, some of these causes are worthwhile; the problem, however, is (very often) not w/the cause itself, but with how it is held.
mb
“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.”
― Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
It certainly seems we are there in terms of the rapid decline of the USA. The recent BRICS meeting added six more members so they are now significantly larger than the G7. The implications and history of this are well discussed in the recent Duran episode with Jeffrey Sachs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJboBdQeJzg
On larger scale of decline it appears the Wests fascination and love of technology will soon end us all because it seems we won't be able to control AI.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osTGlTAfdWk&t=189s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae4o92F4tVM&t=533s
We are living through revolutionary times.
Longtime lurker, first time poster
This Biden ad popped up today while I was searching for (longtime former NYC talk radio host) Lionel's (aka Michael William Lebron) youtube channel:
https://ifunny.co/picture/donate-now-he-thing-but-we-ve-made-historic-progress-ycIKmKjeA
The title reads "We’ve made historic progress and that doesn’t happen with you."
But the subtitle reads "We need you with us."
I'm confused.
I turned to my friend to explain this. He said, "Your donations are necessary. You aren't"
I found a poster of a lecture Dr. Berman did in october 1979
https://archive.org/details/the-disenchantment-of-the-world-poster-1979
On the other hand, this is what is real news for me
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/08/24/world/emperor-penguin-breeding-antarctic-sea-ice-climate/index.html
I know that this may belong to the -ism category, but it stems from a real concern, I have lived through some of the hottest summers in the last decade (46+ degrees celcius were the norm), a thing that had never happened in the few decades I've been on earth, coupeled with a drought and a possible famine to come, environmental issues are not some bourgouis activism for the millions of us that are not from the global north, it is a real issue felt in the flesh.
french-
No kidding! I didn't even no such a thing even existed. As for your environmental concerns: read carefully. I never said it wasn't a real issue; the sticking point is how an ism is held. (see last sentence of my last post)
Star-
Welcome to the blog. As for that ad: only a senile doofus cd have composed it.
mb
Here are some more wonderful kind deeds from the “Back the Blue” department. Active or retired, it doesn’t matter. The title of course is from the many stickers with the same slogan that are attached to the bumpers of the myriad authority-worshipping conservatives here in the U.S.A.!, U.S.A.!, U.S.A.!.
https://apnews.com/article/new-york-city-police-drug-bust-death-12868cc26b1866e9c2e769e3f91b0e01
https://www.cbsnews.com/philadelphia/news/eddie-irizarry-video-philadelphia-police-officer-shooting-kensington-family-news-conference/
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-08-24/cooks-corner-shooting-suspect-john-snowling-worked-for-decades-for-ventura-police-department
And remember something just as important as 2030 approaches: these angry/bully authoritarians are part and parcel of the violent implosion of this shithole country.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/number-capitol-riot-arrests-military-law-enforcement-government/story?id=77246717
Joe-
Regarding yr last link: I'm quite sure that our military is infested with Nazim and Nazot.
mb
The latest Nat'l Intelligence Strategy was just released. It makes it clear that China, much more than Russia or "terrorism," is Amerikkka's primary target. From pg 7, under the "goals" section:
"Strategic competition from powers that layer authoritarian governance with a
revisionist foreign policy is a principal challenge to a free, open, secure, and
prosperous world. The PRC is the only U.S. competitor with both the intent to
reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic,
military, and technological power to do so."
https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/National_Intelligence_Strategy_2023.pdf
Amerikkka has watched its proxy army get hosed by Russia. But DC's answer is to take on an even more powerful and well-funded nation…one that also manufactures a lot of its junk. Totally wise decision, rite? ;)
Fly-
The depth to which the American gov't has its head up its ass is dazzling. Here's only 1 example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQdo5Ec_zDo
But sure, let's take on China, WTF! All of it is a declinist's delight. It's as tho the US is addicted to self-destruction.
mb
ps: The bottom line is that in the US, there is no upper limit to buffoonage. You get to a pt, e.g. the Ukraine war, and you say: Oh, but it can't get more stupid than that (as we go down in flames). And then, (some) Americans find out that the gov't is putting China in its crosshairs. And what will it be after that, if we even continue to exist? Not detente; no fucking way.
french-
Pls pardon my bad spelling and grammar; I was thinking abt Kamala, and got distracted by a spontaneous vomit problem.
ps: french: this is what I'm talking abt:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THe1JWz38rM
Reading this stuff about the US invading Mexico has me seeing visions of MB's romantic downfall fighting for a Mexican Republican guerilla movement against the fascists. I picture him in a gaucho and sombrero, cutting down gringos with a six-shooter. Only problem with this vision is if he did so, he'd be fighting against American doucehebags and buffoons, when the reality is that as a declinist, he's more inclined to cheer them on in their self-destructive misadventures:
https://thehill.com/latino/4170236-gop-talk-of-military-action-in-mexico-sparks-dire-warnings/
Pol-
I am currently trying to grow a moustache a la Pancho Villa.
mb
Karl Rove some years ago put forth the claim that the United States as a global power “makes our own reality.” But in a short essay posted yesterday, commentator William Schryver says that Rove’s assertion is pure fantasy in the case of the U.S. taking on a peer antagonist such as Russia or China. The claim of ability to project power anywhere is “meaningless fantasy”, says Schryver. Short of employing nuclear weapons, the United States would run out of weapons and ammo in 6-8 weeks of high intensity warfare against Russia and/or China. Even if a War on Chad would tax U.S. military capabilities, this period of imperial overstretch is no less dangerous if those immersed in fantasy get tempted to deploy nukes out of desperation to retain their “rules-based international order.” Link:
https://imetatronink.substack.com/p/the-fleeting-mirage-of-imagined-supremacy
Jack-
What a jackass Rove is. What jackasses all of them are. We hardly made our own reality in Vietnam, for example. And yr rt: the danger is that these people are so stupid, they will deploy nukes to prove they are 'right'. In general, there will be no wake-up moment for the gov't or for the American people.
mb
“Take me out to the ballgame
Take me there to hear guns
Let’s see some bullets and powder kegs
There’s a chance I’ll get shot in my leg”
Churches. Synagogues. Schools. Movie theaters. Workplaces. Now we can add major league baseball stadiums to the mix of places where USAins can get shot by their fellow USAins on a family night out as the daily gun violence continues in this shitty wasteland.
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2023/08/26/chicago-white-sox-game-shooting-injures-two/1091693055829/
Oops. Wait. Not to be outdone by the national pastime, high school football games can be included as well.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/4-people-shot-oklahoma-high-school-football-game-102583146
Alarming press release from the Intel cabal. Computerized "smart" clothes is in the works, a project headed by the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity.
They're on board to "provide the Intelligence Community, Dept of Defense, Dept of Homeland Security, & other agencies with durable, ready-to-wear clothing that can record audio, video, and geolocation data."
There's already dumb-fones & other junk that can do this. Apparently Big Brother got bored w/ just gadgets. Now they need surveillance clothes too. Maybe someday there'll b "smart" headstones monitoring the graves 2 ensure corpses don't rise from the dead
https://www.odni.gov/index.php/newsroom/press-releases/press-releases-2023/3717-iarpa-leads-first-of-its-kind-effort-to-fashion-smart-clothing
Wafers-
Talk abt a rock and a hard place.
Of course, the election is 14 mos. away, and anything cd happen during that time. Scenarios might include Trumpi going to jail, Trumpi getting elected president from jail, Trumpi not getting elected and civil war breaking out as a result, the trial(s) getting postponed until after Nov. 2024, and so on. Meanwhile, the GOP primary debate was so lame, it wasn’t even a bad joke. Trumpi is 30 pts ahead of DeSantis in the polls, and below DeSantis are a string of clowns—Pence, Haley, et al.—who don’t stand a chance. Furthermore, political and legal setbacks for Trumpi ironically translate into higher poll #s for him. He’s now marketing his mugshot, for example. I think we can assume he will be the Republican nominee, by a long shot.
Which means that the ‘choices’ available to the American voter are ghastly. Biden is not merely a senile doofus; he is also a warmonger. I’m guessing that by Nov. 2024, if not before, the whole Ukrainian caper will be exposed as a flop, w/Russia the clear victor. If Biden is still in office, the caper will be spun as an American/NATO victory, and the American public will believe it. But in fact, the DoD is already drawing up plans on how to confront, or even defeat(!), China. If Biden wins the election, we will be facing years of nuclear brinksmanship—if not actual nuclear war. This will not happen if Trumpi wins; he’s not interested in war, and he will certainly pursue détente with Russia. His is the sane choice; Schmiden is the insane choice. Schmiden is literally too stupid to stop doing what he is doing, namely follow the oppositional logic that has defined our country for 400 years now. (See essays in QOV.)
The problem is that the alternative is almost equally horrific, involving the complete inversion of reality. Here’s an example: Tulsi was recently interviewed by Sean Hannity, and fell into the camp of claiming that Biden and Fani Willis were corrupt, abusing their power to ‘weaponize’ the DOJ and effectively crucify Trumpi. (This is also known as the ‘witch hunt’ argument. Many millions believe it.) But Biden is simply letting the wheels of justice roll out, and Fani is simply following the letter of the law. A 2nd example: Pence was recently campaigning somewhere in the Midwest, and a Trumpite came up to him and said, “Mike, why didn’t you uphold the Constitution?” And Pence replied, “I *did* uphold it; that’s exactly what I did.” Which is, of course, true.
But if Trumpi wins the election, reality will be turned upside down. Namely, Biden stole the election from him in 2020; the attackers of the Capitol on 6 Jan 2021 were heroes, and will be pardoned by Trump; Trump was the victim of a failed witch hunt; Pence betrayed the Constitution; and so on. America will be living in an alternative reality that is completely false, yet there will be 0 anyone can do abt it. And whatever Trumpi declares to be real, will be real by fiat. Empirical evidence to the contrary won’t faze him at all (it never has), and he’ll have the majority of the country agreeing with him. The name for this is Orwellian Hell. (“Here in Lake Wobegon,” wrote Garrison Keillor some yrs ago, “we have the ability to look reality right in the eye and deny it.”) It’s also possible that people who don’t go along w/the new ‘reality’ cd be prosecuted, or imprisoned. W/Trump in control, anything wd be possible.
Either way, we’re fucked. The only ‘positive’ take on any of this is a declinist one: both of these paths have this in common: they are hurrying America down the road to oblivion. It all depends on how you want the country to wink out. But not winking out: sorry, kiddies; that’s not an option.
mb
For the last month, I’ve been trying to convince the people I care about to leave the country or find a place they can easily blend in with or be ignored by Trump supporters. 2024 is going to be crazy, threats, clashes, etc. Even driving through blue states this year I’ve seen pro trump protests on highway overpasses.
More and more people, not less, think the election was stolen.
https://www.kcra.com/amp/article/get-the-facts-poll-2020-election-fraud/44727949
However this ends, it ends badly. My guess is that even if Trump and Biden were totally sidelined by health, there is still movement towards conflict with China. When the entire Pacific fleet is defeated, very bad things will happen. This country is in no position to handle that level of reality.
Will somebody tell me how we are *not* going down the drain?:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/multiple-people-dead-incident-jacksonville-dollar-general-mayor-says-rcna101977
"There have been at least 470 mass shootings in the United States so far in 2023, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which defines a mass shooting in which four or more people are injured and or killed, not including the shooter. The nation surpassed the 400 mark in July, – the earliest month such a high number has been recorded since 2013, the group said.
"The gun violence in Jacksonville marked one of several reported shooting incidents in the US over two days, including in Massachusetts and Oklahoma. Shots rang out across several cities, bringing a startling halt to normal summertime activities like high school football games and weekend shopping.
"In Boston, at least seven people were injured Saturday morning in a shooting that interrupted a popular parade, police said. A high school football game in Choctaw, Oklahoma, took a deadly turn Friday night after a possible argument led to three people being shot, authorities say. One of them – a 16-year-old boy – died. And four people, including a 17-year-old, were killed at an apartment in Joppatown, Maryland, Saturday morning, officials said."
mb
Flab-
I've got 2 things to say 2u:
1. These people you care abt are not going to listen 2u. I guarantee this, 100%. Save yr vocal chords.
2. KAMALA SCHMAMALA!
mb
Wafers-
Check out the most recent issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. An article by Marvin J. Fuckface, M.D., reports on a major scientific study done of the American population, to the effect that 95% of them are degraded, and of those, 90% are debased. The editor of the journal, Julius V. Meathead,M.D., had this to say:
"Look, I'm not stupid. I know the country is going down the drain, and as a declinist, I keep in touch with Morris Berman's blog. I mean, what intelligent person doesn't? But these figures: hell, I had no idea that things were collapsing that fast. Time to move to the south of France, no doubt about it."
mb
Dr. Berman,
Indeed, it would be interesting if the developer suddenly reversed his plans and instead required Americans to read _A Question of Values_ and attend a book discussion group in order to move in.
Thanks for your recent thoughts on the current state of affairs. The issue of something like at least 40 million American voters (judging from others' posts, possibly many more) not recognizing basic facts about the past election is of course very scary. What a messed up place this is.
-- Torreblanca
Wafers-
In "Eminent Post-Victorians," I characterized Alan Turing and Arthur Koestler in Hegelian terms, i.e., as "world historical individuals." These are people who bend History to their will because they epitomize the spirit of the times. (Frank Manuel, in his biography of Newton, made the same argument about Sir Isaac.) And this is how I interpret Trumpaloni. Trumpi has been sent by History to polish off the US, and he represents millions whose unwitting goal is the same. If he is indeed reelected, we can expect that he will roll up his sleeves and get down to the business of Ending America. Many, of course, will be horrified; but as Hegel warned us, there's no fighting History.
Of course, if Schmiden is reelected, he will also take us down the path to complete self-destruction. But no one wd ever call him a world historical individual; world historical turkey wd be more like it.
mb
Finally, somebody has defined exactly what the rules are in the Rules Based International Order (RBIO), indispensable for understanding the basis for the future WOC (War On Chad) after the U.S. is finished with China. In case you were wondering, there are only 10 rules to remember, so easy that even a buffoon could get it. As a public service to Wafers, I include the handy list in the link below from John Menadue’s post:
https://johnmenadue.com/the-10-rules-of-the-rules-based-international-order-rbio/
ps: But I wd like to share with y'all my preferred post-election scenario. I admit, it's pretty unlikely; but man, I'd love it to see it. It goes something like this:
In Oct. 2023, Trumpi and the 18 co-defendants are tried and convicted. Trumpi is sentenced to 186 years behind bars, and is hauled off to the Fulton County Jail. He is kept on a strict diet of water and fried rodent meat. However, he can still run for office; but is somehow defeated by Schmiden by a wide margin. Of course there is a bubba uprising, claiming Trumpi was the true victor; but Schmiden has the Army round all these folks up and ship them out to remote South Sea islands. They are never heard from after that.
In Jan. of 2024, Schmiden is re-inaugurated. But b4 he can give his inauguration speech, he has a heart attack on dies. Kamala is quickly inaugurated, and is our new president. She makes a speech that is incoherent, and laughs a lot during it.
The next day, a contingent of Wafers shows up outside the White House, carrying a large banner that says KAMALA SCHMAMALA. In addition, in the style of Gregorian chant, they repeatedly murmur
KAMALA SCHMAMALA
SCHMAMALA KAMALA
KAMALA KAMALA
SCHMAMALA SCHMAMALA
It sounds like the buzzing of cicadas on a warm summer night in Georgia, outside Trumpi's prison cell.
Both the sign, and the chanting, begin to drive Kamala round the bend. She can't stand it. She tries to achieve some relief by banging her head against a wall in the Oval Office, to no avail. After 4 days of this, she goes completely batty, and her staff calls the local lunatic asylum, which sends a small wagon to take her away. Wafers jump into a caravan of cars and follow the wagon, now shouting KAMALA SCHMAMALA etc. At the Happy Valley Lunatic Asylum, Kamala is put in a special room, where she continues to bang her head against a wall. Outside, Wafers stand there with the banner, and continue their chanting. 4 days later, Kamala has effectively left the planet. She thinks she is a zucchini, and sits in a corner chair, imitating this vegetable. The staff let her alone. The Wafers depart: their mission has been accomplished.
Back in D.C., Tulsi has been sworn in as the new president, w/Lorenzo Riggins as VP. Within a year, the US folds up. All institutions close down. China buys the US (fairly cheaply, as it turns out), and renames the country Deep Fried Egg Roll. Searching thru the wreckage of the NY Public Library, Chinese historians come across my work. "This guy Belman," one of them says to the others; "he had it rt all along. Why didn't the rest of the country listen to him?"
Gd question! I ask myself that every day.
Zàijiàn (Mandarin for Goodbye)
mb
ps2: Who cares what Biden thinks?
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/aug/27/florida-jacksonville-shooting-biden-desantis
Dr. Berman:
Still stopping in from time to time but probably not as much as the authentic Wafers. I saw this article recently:
https://dissidentvoice.org/2023/08/mexico-should-be-our-example-of-what-is-possible/#more-143528
Excerpt:
Rick Sterling: How did you wind up living in Mexico City?
Teri Mattson: I went to Mexico City in September of 2020 in response to how the Covid pandemic was being managed in Washington DC, where I was living at the time. I was walking every day outside to get moderate exercise, fresh air and sunshine to stay healthy during covid. And on two of my outings, I was stopped by the DC Metropolitan Police. They wanted to know what I was doing outside and where I was going. I told them I was out trying to stay healthy, and they asked for my papers, my id, and the address of my destination. After the second time that happened, I thought the writing’s on the wall, the direction the US is going, and I just can’t live here any more.
Ed-
Thanks so much for this. The handwriting is indeed on the wall for the US. But let me add a bit regarding Mexico, and AMLO. Here is what he has done since taking office in 2016:
-Between 2020 and 2022, 9 million people were lifted out of poverty.
-He's provided schools and hospitals in Chiapas and Oaxaca.
-He himself lives a very simple, honest life. Every president of Mexico since Miguel Aleman (1946-52) has looted the treasury for his own personal benefit (Carlos Salinas being the abs. worst). AMLO doesn't do that.
-He has told America to fuck off, and stay out of Mexican affairs, in no uncertain terms. In one speech he gave several wks ago, he said to America that it was hardly a democracy, w/rich people running the show, and that Mexico was far more democratic than the US.
-His approval rating is 70%; most Mexicans love him. His likely successor, next yr, will probably be the mayor of Mexico City, Claudia Sheinbaum, who has a similar approval rating.
Thanks again, amigo. Why not become an authentic Wafer?
mb
Ahhhh! Remedios Varo is indeed a wonderful painter - yet another important artist whom, inexplicably enough, I never encountered in my 15 years of formal study and needed to... In any case, while in her place and time she was not obliged to grapple with buffoonery, right here in Hudson NY we have our own highly qualified surrealist who has unflinchingly taken on that task - and more! Enjoy...
https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=560664892&sxsrf=AB5stBjabxZoRNtx67U7tPpxYtp0M40ZFg:1693230211870&q=tim+slowinski+images&tbm=isch&source=univ&fir=700tIIhJo_To0M%252CLnLA9rW115CNoM%252C_%253BfaIlAmAb4Q3YtM%252CHvdk-i56RSkQXM%252C_%253BwPFHROqc8bqdkM%252CeJHCIROIY8fL_M%252C_%253BGfXokc-D5zHY1M%252CDRijfG1zkYtTnM%252C_%253B2QBB0PM4u47RZM%252Ch8dHy6HL2jG69M%252C_%253BycWIR8pLxKVObM%252CxUBXw5f2DWEJFM%252C_%253B9Vh7sqDvK90E2M%252CyDKUtWSNGQEgCM%252C_%253Bom22v1vukqHcnM%252Ct14P2qqd9xXkDM%252C_%253BETeti4RNUF9prM%252CO74DCf_U5wUhZM%252C_%253B5DGc9GhJTeBcbM%252CAgKErnwcmWFi0M%252C_&usg=AI4_-kTWPTYVDprwL7XsZqE63InitDvEzg&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwicmLSKvv-AAxUTkYkEHW6NCN8Q7Al6BAgOEDM&biw=1517&bih=687&dpr=0.9
Heidi-
Thanks. I love the Hudson Valley. But note that in the US, the buffoons are likely to win. There seems to be no stopping them.
mb
http://www.studio-online.com/gallery/slowinski0109/phpslideshow.php?directory=.¤tPic=1
Here's the link to a slideshow of Tim Slowinski's monumental tribute to American Bufoonery. It's way better than the link I sent previously as you can really see the paintings.
Note the dimensions though - they're BIG!
Heidi-
Read my new bk: "Bozo Nation: How Buffoons Brought America to Its Knees."
mb
A team of researchers from the University of Rochester has completed an important study. "A recent study in The American Journal of Emergency Medicine has revealed that on average, approximately 4,000 individuals are admitted to hospital annually due to the presence of foreign bodies in their rectum, with a significant proportion of these cases involving sexually related objects. The study was initiated by a team of researchers at the University of Rochester in New York, who noticed a lack of epidemiologic information on this particular medical condition." https://thethaiger.com/world/news/1669/
And an argument between two sixteen year olds over sweet and sour sauce in D.C. turned deadly over the weekend: https://www.kolotv.com/2023/08/29/teen-killed-outside-mcdonalds-over-sauce-dispute-police-say/
Jason-
Interesting study. I spent 1st 18 yrs of my life in Rochester, and found it oppressive. Yrs later, I realized that almost all Rochesterians had their heads in their recta. However, it never occurred to me that this activity was sexual in nature. Makes sense, tho. As for the girl killed over the sauce: I'm frankly surprised that the killer didn't have a gun.
mb
MB,
About Rochester: I spent fair amount time there some years back. I spent a sabbatical leave in the physics dept. at the U of R. And I can say that although some of what I did there was valuable, the atmosphere was oppressive for sure. There were a few bright lights there, but very few. People with heads in their rectums certainly describes many of the people I encountered during my time there. Enormous egos abound.
Currently, a former student of mine is on the faculty another school in the area, the engineering school RIT. I regularly get emails from him about the awful conditions he has to deal with. The place has become a bastion for DEI--diversity, equity, and inclusion . Identity politics is being pushed massively by the administration with almost no resistance on the part of faculty. Indeed, most of the faculty seem to aggressively buy into it, from what I can tell.
Also being pushed is total support for what we're doing in Ukraine. Of course that would be the case. I'm told that in the wealthy suburb of Pittsford, Ukrainian flag are everywhere.
ccg-
Sounds abt rt. It's a very conservative, backward looking place, and of course they wd be supporting identity politics, the Ukraine, and so on. Rochesterians are sheep, not rebels, and intellectually speaking they are outstanding in their mediocrity. I do recall a great ice cream parlor in Pittsford, however.
mb
https://nypost.com/2023/08/29/boy-2-beaten-to-death-by-moms-boyfriend-in-nyc-cops/
(This American Life)
Apparently the guy was upset because the toddler woke him up. Killing the kid: American response.
Wafers-
This (moving) tribute to Kamala is to be sung to the tune of "O Danny Boy":
O Kamala Schmamala
The lunatic asylum is calling.
From laugh to laugh
You’ll fall into a toilet bowl.
Your tenure’s up
And you’re a total turkey;
You will go, and we all will say goodbye.
But don’t come back
When summer’s in the meadow;
Or when you’re locked up
In the nuthouse white with snow;
We won’t be here
In sunshine or in shadow;
O Kamala Schmamala
You need to snort some blow.
So everyone is excited abt Luis Rubiales kissing Jenni Hermoso w/o her permission. And of course, he shdn't have done it, claro. But why aren't Spaniards equally upset abt this?:
"In 2021, the most affluent one percent of Spanish population held nearly a fourth of the total personal wealth in the country, while the bottom 50 percent accounted for merely 6.7 percent of it."
Isn't this just a wee bit more impt? When the dust eventually settles on the kiss scandal, this social and economic inequality will still be there. Will Spaniards be as furious abt this, as they were abt the kiss? Wafers are invited to say why not.
Pope Francis recently said this to Russian youth:
“Never forget your heritage. You are the descendants of great Russia: the great Russia of saints, rulers, the great Russia of Peter I, Catherine II, that empire – educated, great culture and great humanity. Never give up on this heritage.”
Hmm...Did Francis happen to read my bk on Russia? To my knowledge, it hasn't been translated into Latin...
The poor bastards @ the DoD have a hard time coming 2 terms w/ Amerikkka's descent in2 irrelevance. It launched a drone swarm program for "countering" China, since Amerikkka would b VASTLY outnumbered were it ever stupid enough 2 fight it.
https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2023/08/hellscape-dod-launches-massive-drone-swarm-program-counter-china/389797
Amerikkka's demise is rite on schedule, full steam ahead towards the direction of Rome. All the bullets, bombs & drones in the world won't beat back the tide of multipolarity or change the fate of hostile empires.
Satch-
In my bk "Healing," I quote Gandhi on this subject: "A warrior lives on his wars…And he suffers a collapse if he finds that his warring capacity is no longer wanted.”
This is what the dudes at the DoD are up against. If they had no one to fight, who and what wd they be? 0. As I show in QOV, crucial to American identity has always been opposition. W/o it, we wd be staring into the Void. Wh/is really what the entire country is facing, at this pt. Spiritually speaking, it has always been trying to cover up its inner emptiness. No such luck, any more; karmic punishment is now upon us. Let's hope we don't launch a nuclear war, to a-Void the Abyss.
mb
Dr. B,
Isn’t the point of all the spinning up of the Jenni Hermoso story meant as part of permanent distraction from the stuff that matters? Things like the gross inequality of Spain or the U.S.?
Flab-
Scroll back a bit; this is the pt I was making. My question is, why are Spaniards upset abt the kiss, and not abt socioeconomic inequality?
mb
ps: Here's a hint:
Christopher Lasch, "The Culture of Narcissism."
Liberals Are Shits Dept.:
https://headtopics.com/us/on-their-high-horse-too-many-liberals-disdain-oliver-anthony-43241025
Only 2 years? Why not beat him w/in an inch of his life, then throw him on a dung heap?
https://www.justice.gov/usao-ma/pr/former-north-shore-pizzeria-owner-sentenced-two-years-prison-covid-fraud
Dr. Berman - The story about the pizza parlor owner who committed Covid relief fraud is infuriating. He'll probably serve six months, get out, declare bankruptcy, then open another business. Our government (both parties) issued and then forgave billions in Covid "loans" but when people with student loans asked for the same forgiveness they were told to grow up, be responsible and "pay your own way". Then there are all the corporations and underwater mortgages that were bailed out by the government through the TARP program and the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. Somehow they didn't have to pay their own way...
Every society has some level of fraud and corruption, but when fraud and corrruption go largely unpunished a society is on its downward slope. I've noticed how no American politicians ever talk about cleaning up corruption. Maybe because they benfit from it?
https://projects.propublica.org/bailout/list
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/22/insider-trading-and-congress-how-lawmakers-get-rich-from-stock-market.html
Jason-
As I argue in WAF, from the first, America has been abt hustling. There really isn't any moral curb or brake on it, and not much of a sense in the US of right vs. wrong. We are pretty much a nation w/o a rudder, or a compass. So in a sense, the pizzeria owner was simply following the norm.
mb
ps: Here's a gd example: Patrisse Cullors, co-founder of Black Lives Matter, used some (millions) of the $ that poured in to purchase upscale real estate for herself. There's even a song out entitled "Patrisse Cullors Stole My Lunch Money"--!
I checked out the link Jack Latteman posted some time ago, about Bill Schryver's response 2 Karl Rove. There was another great piece @ the bottom entitled "The Jig is Up", on Amerikkka's latest blunder. Schryver lays out the truth of Amerikkka's supposed "military might":
"The myth of overwhelming US armaments supremacy has been exposed as little more than a modestly scaled boutique enterprise ill-suited and ill-prepared to prosecute industrial warfare against a peer adversary"
The Jig is indeed up 4 Amerikkka. It had nothing 2 show 4 Vietnam but death, destruction & damaged vets.
https://imetatronink.substack.com/p/the-jig-is-up
P.s, I don't remember who it was, but I recall some st8 official calling Amerikkka an "indispensable nation". Rome mighta said the same. But it's now dust in the pgs of history
Fly-
It was Madeleine Albright who said that. She was a war criminal, of course honored by the establishment when she died. A # of folks have been interviewed, like Col. Douglas Macgregor, who say that the US military is pretty much in the toilet. We are basically drowning in bullshit regarding the Ukraine, the military, and just abt everything else.
mb
More 2nd Civil War infighting here in the U.S.A.!, U.S.A.! U.S.A.! on its road to implosion.
Texas Island….oops, I meant to say “Staten” Island…..that 5th borough conservative bastion enclave of Metropolitan NYC wants to secede because of migrants.
“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” Yeah, right. Not in Staten Island which sits not too far from Miss Liberty herself.
Check out the picture. That “loving” Christian woman in front is wearing a cross. The woman in back of her is wearing a shirt with an American flag and a cross on it. They obviously heeded those gospel words “I was a stranger and you let me in.”
“These are your neighbors. They borrow sugar from you.” -GSWH
https://www.audacy.com/1010wins/news/local/staten-island-renews-calls-for-secession-amid-migrant-crisis
Wafers-
I guess Jimmy Carter doesn't have much longer to live. What a great man he was. I discuss his presidency in WAF, and I think also in DAA. Because he was a man of vision, and integrity, he was out of sync with the American people, who have neither vision nor integrity. A Teflon, empty-headed, superficial piece of trash like Reagan was obviously much more their style. What did Carter in? On 15 July 1979, in Annapolis, he gave his famous "spiritual malaise" speech, in which he made 2 crucial pts:
1. We can't keep blaming the Soviet Union for our problems. They are *our* problems.
2. American consumerist values are all wrong. In a word, we are a collection of shallow buffoons.
Both of these pts broke w/the belief system of every president since FDR. There hasn't been a president like Jimmy before or since. As I said, a great man.
But the buffoons didn't like this truth-telling, so they turned Jimmy out of office in favor of one of their own: a colossal buffoon and an unalloyed scumbag. What did this buffoon tell the people? 1, that Russia was "the evil empire," while we were "the city on the hill," and 2, that consumerism and hustling and making $ was what life was all abt. They lapped it up.
Jimmy was really our only chance to become a fine nation, a spiritual nation, a nation of integrity. Too late, amigos! We are what we are, and it ain't exactly pretty.
mb
Anon-
Sorry, I don't post Anons.
mb
Dear MB,
Have been reading a lot of Michel Houellebecq recently (intro for anyone who doesn't know his work: https://youtu.be/DSH4sfS5uag). The same decadence he writes about afflicts the US even more than France, of course, though the US doesn't have too many writers able to see it. It's all leading me to reading and thinking about Schopenhauer, which is leading me to want to ask you to weigh in with thoughts/opinions on Schopenhauer (and Houellebecq, if you wish).
Good Q&A with Houellebecq here from a couple of years back (you may need to turn on YouTube closed captions):
https://youtu.be/8IyJEFbBhXo
I would mention Jimmy Carter’s long involvement with Habitat for Humanity, working with others to build homes for the disadvantaged. The organization was founded in Americus, Georgia and his participation dates to 1984; he continued his involvement, working alongside his wife Rosalynn into his 90s. Something to be proud of, though he would reject any praise for doing what his Christian teachings told him he ought to do.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jimmy-carter-habitat-for-humanity-history-the-carter-work-project/
Pol-
I did read a couple of Houellebecq's novels some yrs ago. I cd see how talented he was, but the bks got me so depressed that I stopped rdg him. I also read Schop's major work; similar reaction. But really, they're all not v. different from Fellini's "La dolce vita."
Jas-
After he lost the election, Gerald Ford devoted himself to golf. Reagan I can't remember; Bush Jr. to painting himself in his bathtub; Obama to living the high life in the Kalorama Triangle; etc. Never forget it: the elites are trash.
mb
Wafers-
Exciting news. The word 'buffoon' has finally broken into media reporting. Check it out:
https://sonar21.com/just-when-you-thought-retired-u-s-generals-are-the-biggest-buffoons-a-retired-aussie-takes-the-cake/
Of course, I'm a tad miffed that I didn't get a ftnote here, but this is definitely a start! The truth is that there is no more accurate analysis of the American decline than the fact that 99% of the population consists of buffoons. The president is a buffoon; any random homeless person in the street is a buffoon. And everyone in between is a buffoon. Why did America collapse? Just one little word.
I'm waiting for the Chinese political establishment to announce that Belman had the answer all along.
mb
ps: And the US has no shortage of buffoons:
https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2023-08-31/vivek-ramaswamy-idiotic-play-for-airtime-working
Today I read this:
https://www.ipr.northwestern.edu/documents/working-papers/2023/wp-23-26.pdf
Though I have to state I was disappointed that there was no comment on people have a smooth, yogurt like substance between their ears instead of a brain….
On a more serious note, the cause is clearly hustling and getting “mine” at all costs.
Re: Houellebecq and Schopenhauer being unbearably depressing. If I'm reading stuff that even the notoriously gloomy MB eschews I should probably worry. Fools go where wise men fear to tread, after all. I'll have to monitor myself for any uptick in suicidal ideation. Great call on 'La Dolce Vita'! That seems exactly right as the epilogue (the bloated sea monster) exposes the lurking horrors ignored during the hedonistic pursuits of the characters. Speaking of Houellebecq and horror, for anyone willing to gaze into the abyss, this is a very interesting interview:
'Michel Houellebecq and Materialist Horror with Louis Betty':
https://youtu.be/4PSOP2lM8UY
“Pessimism isn’t popular with governments, since disillusion can lead to disaffection. So this won’t be Rishi Sunak’s book of the year, not least because it pushes pessimism unnervingly close to nihilism. All the same, it confronts the truth that no politician dares utter: that things are very bad with a world in which, in Gray’s words, either market forces are directed by the state or the state has been captured by corporate power.
The myth of a benevolent state of nature was shattered a long time ago. More recently, a version of it known as childhood innocence was challenged by the psychoanalysts. Infantile sexuality had been known about for some time, not least by infants. But we had not been prepared for the work of Freud’s disciple, Melanie Klein, who writes of the baby’s murderous fantasies of pounding the mother’s breast to pieces.”
https://unherd.com/2023/09/beware-john-grays-new-leviathans/
The great Terry Eagleton reviews the newest John Gray 👍 Has anyone read Gray's last book on cats and philosophy? It looks great too but I've been trying to get to the book he wrote on atheism(s) a few yrs ago...it's very good but lots to think about+
Bicycle-
Personally, I don't think Klein proved her pt; it was all speculation, and said more abt her than abt the infants, imo. As for Gray: always terrific.
Pol-
I'm actually not that gloomy. If yr a declinist in a collapsing society, there is actually much to enjoy. (Buffoonage, for example.) As for Fellini, check out ch. on him in my bk "Genio".
mb
Re: “clearly hustling and getting ‘mine’ at all costs” → [Comment quoted verbatim and in full, all errors in the original] “I really can empathize with the indigenous people not wanting mining in their sacred site.But the reality is that green power and vehicles require millions of tonnes of lithium and other minerals to produce.So even more than before we are relying on different and varied mining locations.We have to go where the minerals are.This creates much more conflict with tribal people and upsets them greatly.The greatest good for the planet here is the mining because without it we can't curb greenhouse emissions.Itzs basically competing environmental ideals and one is going to come off second best.And it will enviably be the indigenous people.Thats because if this gets EPA certification and is said to be a low impact mine then the indigenous people want have any leverage in court so the greatest need case will win.Its an unfortunate situation and one that's been seen many times before and will become an even bigger issue into the future.We have gotta have those minerals there isn't any substitute.”
Again: “And it will enviably [sic] be the indigenous people.”
[E]nvy is enmity prompted by covetousness: late 13c., from Old French envie "envy, jealousy, rivalry" (10c.), from Latin invidia "envy, jealousy" (source also of Spanish envidia, Portuguese inveja), from invidus "envious, having hatred or ill-will," from invidere "to envy, hate," earlier "look at (with malice), cast an evil eye upon," from in- "upon" (from PIE root *en "in") + videre "to see" (from PIE root *weid- "to see").
ps: I see myself in the lineage of Mencken, Vidal, and Carlin. None of these guys were gloomy. Gore even said, "Stupidity excites me." Personally, I love a gd buffoon. Consider Vivek Swamalami. He's actually hilarious. I fantasize beating his head against Obama's for 20 uninterrupted minutes, and the feeling is one of bliss. Or holding Kamala's head under water. What cd be more divine?
Here’s some more from the Back the Blue Department.
First: Here in the U.S.A.!, U.S.A.!, U.S.A.!, this de facto police state’s unwritten rule is “Shoot to kill first. Claim that qualified immunity/life in danger canard second.”
https://www.dispatch.com/story/opinion/columns/2023/09/02/video-takiya-young-shooting-black-pregnant-woman-shot-by-police-in-ohio-kroger-blendon-township/70743378007/
Next: When not in uniform show what a macho sex object you are. Expose yourself to ladies. It’s all the more funny because one of the two exposures occurred outside one of those anti-LGBTQ, “Christian family values” Hobby Lobby stores in good old conservative Texas. LOL!
https://www.khou.com/article/news/crime/houston-police-officer-exposed-himself-to-women-hit-killed-pedestrian/285-6008dea2-1aa5-4906-bbc0-c279f19c1057
https://www.khou.com/article/news/crime/hpd-officer-accused-of-exposing-himself-to-women/285-061bd530-ed59-47a5-a889-ed7e387865ea
And after having given some DUI tickets in your patrol car, have a few beers beyond the legal limit yourself when off duty. While you’re at it, either injure a few or kill a couple in the process.
https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/police/fairfax-county-police-officer-justin-faison-arrested-dui/65-30092406-1f79-4788-afc4-323cc6209e95
https://www.audacy.com/1010wins/news/nj-cop-charged-in-drunken-crash-that-killed-2-people
k-
Earlier, someone here quoted some expert saying that all green solutions were useless, and that we were systemically wired into oil-based fuel. I'm thinking that's probably true. To save the environment, we wd need a whole new economy, and a very different type of society. Which may get forced upon us as time goes on.
mb
CNN did a list of the top train systems in the world. The same Amerikkkan city (NYC) I saw on other lists showed up @ #7. And it was above Tokyo??? No way in hell. But not surprising 2 me that Amerikkka wasn't in the top 5. BAHAHAHAHAHA
https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/world-best-metro-systems/index.html
Now here's a list of countries that export the best train/rail tech. The subtitle reads: "While the UK and the US dominated the train technology market for decades, their prestige is now declining as new leaders emerge"
https://www.railway-technology.com/features/best-train-technologies/?cf-view&cf-closed
Amerikkka's prestige especially is declining. 4 all this bragging about being "the greatest", it apparently isn't "great" enough 2 provide a decent transit system 4 it's moron populace. Amerikkka is the most disgusting joke of a nation in history
Note to Dan-
Here's a bk you'll enjoy:
https://www.amazon.com/Lover-B-Yehoshua/dp/0156539128/ref=sr_1_1?crid=6ONQG5OVIJAI&keywords=the+lover+yehoshua&qid=1693698920&s=books&sprefix=The+lover+ye%2Cstripbooks%2C1306&sr=1-1
How's yr 2nd bk coming along, BTW?
mb
Satch-
There was a sign posted near some tracks that had a high-voltage 3rd rail. It said: "Mind the voltage." A Wafer came along and scribbled this graffito next to it: "Forget the voltage; mind the doltage!"
mb
Satchmo - Obama had a plan for a nationwide high speed rail network in 2009. So far the only result has been to waste billions on a planned route from LA to San Francisco. No trains are running on the route.
Contrast that with what another country did when it wanted a high speed rail network. In the mid-2000s China announced plans for a high speed rail network. They now have over 42,000 km of track and thousands of trains running daily between cities.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/05/17/why-californias-high-speed-rail-is-taking-so-long-to-complete.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_China#History
The USA is all hype and no follow through.
Jason-
Bill Maher actually pointed that out in a program he did a while back called "Dumb-merica." He compared the US and China in a # of ways; what the US managed not to accomplish, or to accomplish in many years, the Chinese were able to do practically overnight. Now why wd that be? Here's a thought: the Chinese are very smart, and we are very dumb. They are efficient; we are buffoons.
mb
Hello Wafers, I am going back to a topic that has been discussed several times here. Here is an interview of Kavita Krishnan, whom most of you may not know. She was a spokesperson, and a leader of the women's wing of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) (CPIML). She quite (or was rather thrown out) due to differences with the party line on the Ukraine war. That is not important, important is her analysis of the whole situation in Ukraine, the project of the global right-wing, and the interconnectedness of the right in the US, China, Russia, India etc. with references and links. Note, she is definitely not an apologist for the liberals.
https://newpol.org/issue_post/ukraine-and-the-indian-left/?fbclid=IwAR3mR2Q3hctfJIdZNwESl8IwZpBDsSYvCPZ0fsIhqgfTKcQvpiy35bDkEFk
I recommend that you read the second reference.
Indian-
2nd ref is abt fbclid, not abt India. I don't understand.
mb
Jason/MB:
China very concerned about “overstretching the concept of security”.
https://www.ft.com/content/8c1bbbf5-921e-4263-bf10-04b7e10b6b75?shareType=nongift
The way national security is eating up every other realm in both the US and China is extremely hilarious. Even more that, though each recognizes a serious problem on the other side, they think their own militarist transformation is completely justified and even beneficial!
Get a load of this! Increasing #s of Amerikkkans distrust the empire's institution of glorified murderers??
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202308/1295758.shtml
I found that article from a YT vid. Here's some of what's written in the description box, slightly altered by urs truly.
"The US military continues to decline as it is used, abused, and exploited in pursuit of US hegemony around the globe. As the pursuit of hegemony drains America back home, fewer back home are qualified to [be cannon fodder] abroad, thus a vicious, inescapable cycle is created."
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XA07par3SfA
Gee, who woulda thought there'd b limits 2 empire? So much 4 "exceptionalism". Most Amerikkkans will have nothing 2 psychologically stand on when it all crashes & burns.
Fly-
This is, of course, gd news for declinists, but I can't help wondering what % of Americans see the American military for what it really is. Or even what % see the nation as an empire, and our wars as imperial wars. Or see the Ukraine conflict as a proxy war. Or understand that the US is in decline. Just wondering.
mb
Better late than never on this holiday weekend. A mass shooting just had to occur here in this violent hateful shithole country.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/birmingham-shooting-deaths-injuries-labor-day-alabama/
In addition to chicken places, shopping malls, etc. check out the newest place to get shot where hustling occurs: a garage sale.
https://kdvr.com/news/local/northglenn-shooting-kennedy-drive/
But don’t let it get you down. Life here in the U.S.A.!, U.S.A.!, U.S.A.! isn’t all about hate. Read here about this gentle soul with his spiritual awakening. Read also how he “spread the love”. It only can happen here. But then again, this comedy show/laughing stock of a country certainly is the “Land of Exceptionalism”. LOL!
https://www.kark.com/news/court-docs-indiana-man-spread-love-by-waving-at-cars-while-fully-nude/
Sorry MB, it is ref 3 that I meant.
Ex-CIA analyst Larry Johnson in his latest commentary provides a handy chart of all the U.S. spook agencies. At the top of the heap is the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). Established ostensibly to coordinate the myriad of “intelligence” bureaucracies, the DNI actually functions as a filter to ensure a consistent narrative in reports going to Team Biden on Project Ukraine. Johnson describes how the DNI promotes a meme of a feckless Russia with a corrupt, incompetent military and the myth of a “frozen conflict” in Ukraine. We could call this fantasy a clown world, but Johnson says assumptions like these carry a large risk of miscalculation in considering desperate measures like use of “tactical” nuclear weapons to forestall a Ukrainian military collapse:
https://sonar21.com/u-s-intelligence-community-sending-mixed-messages-on-ukraine
Indian-
?
There is no ref 3.
mb
Jack - The information from the legacy western media about Ukraine is almost all propaganda. In addition to the DNI there is the Institute for the Study of War, a pro-war think tank that puts out a lot of slanted information that is cited by CNN, the New York Times, and the rest of the establishment media.
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2022/06/12/a-case-study-in-american-propaganda/
I knew something was fishy about the war in Ukraine when I wondered about the casualty count was, which is widely reported (often updated daily) in most major wars. I did some web searching but I could only find rough estimates which varied greatly. It turns out the casualty figures are being hidden for "state security reasons" and all the Ukrainian gov't will say is that they've killed thousands of Russians. The western media just goes along with this like it's normal. This is the same media that's been reporting for years that Putin has a terminal illnes and only has weeks or months to live.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11602373/Putin-terminally-ill-cancer-death-coming-fast-says-Ukraines-spy-chief.html
MB, there was some mistake on my part. Let me try to re-post the link to the interview.
https://newpol.org/issue_post/ukraine-and-the-indian-left/
This has 26 references, and suggest ref 3.
Please, see if this works.
Sorry for the confusion.
The NYT interviewed Richard Haass shortly b4 he left the Council on Foreign Relations. A rare moment of self-transparency occurs when asked what he thinks the biggest threat 2 world security is. There's also this remark:
"Instead of being the most reliable anchor in a volatile world, Mr. Haass said, the United States has become the most profound source of instability."
RITE ON!! I imagine this made his former cohorts red w/ fury. Rudderless ships always crash in2 the rocks & sink. Amerikkka is no different.
The archived link bypasses the regular site's paywall
https://web.archive.org/web/20230701092107/https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/01/us/politics/richard-haass-biden-trump-foreign-policy.html
Wafers-
I've been offline for 2 days because of 'suspicious activity' on this blog account, possibly involving malware. It's possible someone was trying to hack it, I dunno. Anyway, the message I got was that this new link wd be gd for 7 days. What that means in terms of blog operation beyond that, I have no idea. I guess we'll hafta play it by ear.
Satch-
If he had connected this to buffoonage, he wd have hit a home run. (I wd have settled for "collection of destructive morons," however.)
Indian-
OK, got it.
Some time ago a bk by Ailton Krenak, "Life Is Not Useful," was mentioned here. I just began rdg it. So far, so gd. He talks abt the need to "awaken from the coma of modernity," by which he means the regime of capitalism and consumerism." No kidding.
mb
Go, Claudia!:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/mexico-moves-closer-electing-first-female-president-claudia-sheinbaum-rcna103802
Claudia was a sharer in a Nobel Prize, in 2007. A female academic and scientist; also a Jew. Can you imagine for one second, a female Jewish academic and Nobel Prize winner being nominated for president in the US? John Kerry had to hide the fact that he spoke French when he was running for president, so as not to alienate the American voter.
Why the difference? Well, for one thing, Americans are buffoons, and Mexicans are not. That Claudia holds a Ph.D. is a plus, in Mexican eyes; it wd be a great detriment in the US. The average American voter is a shmuck, a meathead, and a douchebag. Jesus, I'm so glad I live south of the border.
mb
Dr. Berman,
I'd recommend setting up a WordPress site (https://wordpress.com/) in advance, in case this blog actually does fail.
You could even import all the content of this Blogger (blogspot.com) blog into the WordPress site, while you can still log in to Blogger: https://wordpress.com/support/import/coming-from-blogger/
-- Torreblanca
I am not sure this is directly relevant to the theme of this blog. But thought of sharing it anyway. Here is a review of ‘Travelers in the third reich’ by Julia Boyd in which she has analysed how contemporary ppl visiting Germany saw and perceived the rise of the Nazis. I thought it would be relevant in today’s time when democratic principles are in decline in many countries. Even the brief review gives me a feeling that things are very similar in India today.
https://epaper.telegraphindia.com/imageview/445259/185637616/71.html
Wafers-
It's interesting to think abt what's happening on the national political level. Trumpi may well wind up in jail. For the bubbas, this will make him the victim of a 'witch hunt', and his corresponding rise in the polls cd result in his being elected president, from jail! Precedent: Eugene Debs ran for pres in 1920, from jail, and got 3.4% of the vote. Trumpi wd get much more. Very likely, he wd win. What then? The craziness of all this is something declinists can appreciate, because such a scenario can only mean further decline for America; it certainly can't mean recovery, or any type of stability. Most nations of the world probably regard the US as a toxic nuthouse, tho they can't say it out loud.
(An average of 5 polls has Trumpi ahead by 1%, i.e. 45% to Biden's 44%. If he goes to jail, I think we can predict a martyr's victory.)
My favorite scenario remains a Biden victory, followed by a Biden heart attack, followed by a Kamala presidency. Man, wd I like to see that--Kamala laughing uncontrollably during her inauguration, then giving a completely incoherent speech.
Then Wafers outside the White House, holding aloft a banner:
KAMALA SCHMAMALA
mb
Some wise words regarding cell fones:
"What is there to be celebrated about the fact that we can talk to 3,000 or 4,000 people on a little device which is the product of a civilization that is consuming the Earth to make toys?"
--Ailton Krenak, "The Thing-Making Machine"
U.S.A.!, U.S.A.!, U.S.A.!
A fight with Russia over in Ukraine? Nah. The next USAin war to “defend freedom” instead may be underway in Africa. Of course this country’s “greatest military in the world” would like to stick to taking on small underdeveloped countries.
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2023/09/08/niger-US-troops-repositioned/1691694143988/
And for another example of USAin callousness, check out some “compassionate conservatism” in action from the Republican North Carolina state legislature. It involves “the greatest healthcare system in the world” and a sick man’s life.
https://www.wral.com/story/man-can-t-get-life-saving-surgery-due-to-nc-lawmakers-delaying-medicaid-expansion/21037660/
Joe-
America is constantly making war, or threatening it, because it has no deeper purpose. It has no spiritual purpose; no social or cultural purpose; and certainly no intellectual purpose. What, then, is it doing? Beating off.
mb
Greetings MB and Wafers!
Sorry for my long absence from this blog, as I've just returned from a wks long holiday throughout the American south. I visited Tennessee, Virginia, North and South Carolina, Alabama, and Georgia. Unfortunately, this holiday was linked w/a family funeral I attended in Chattanooga, Tenn. In any case, I had a terrific time taking in the slow and gracious pace of the south. A big change from the charnel house that is LA. I even managed to visit numerous Civil War battlefields throughout these areas, in preparation for the next one, I suppose.
Meanwhile, I graciously agree w/MB that the oven of 2024 is preheated for chaos and possible breakdown, and any sense of a return to normalcy is pipe dream and tenuous at best. I feel that we are caught in the "bardo-realm" (a Bowie phrase ;-)) between two election cycles. The disruptions of Trumpi, Covid, QAnon, the insurrectionists, the bubbas, and Kamala Schmamala continue to frame our everyday lives and wreak havoc upon our collective psyche. I tell ya, I'm at a loss for words about the insanity that is the US.
Good to be back,
Miles
Jeff-
In terms of a new civil war, or insurrection: this cd occur if Trumpalumpi is convicted and sent to jail; or if Schmiden is elected in 2024, and Trump and the Trumpites claim, once again, that Schmiden stole the election. As for jail: in that case, since the Trumpites believe that Trumpi is innocent of all charges, and that he is a martyr, the victim of a witch hunt, communist plot, etc., some sort of insurrection is more than likely. Yr rt, America has gone insane, and this is an impt factor in our continuing, and inevitable, decline.
mb
Kudos for a great American:
https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-66714923
This was published around the anniversary of amerikkka's retreat from Afghanistan. It sez how past mistakes r likely 2 b repeated w/ amerikkka's current folly if they aren't heeded. Said mistakes WILL b repeated.
"Washington's mistakes and failures reflected wider and deeper patterns — and pathologies — in U.S. policymaking and political culture. If left unaddressed, these will lead to more disasters in future."
Ya think ancient Rome & other empires addressed their own follies @ the 11th hr? Amerikkka is incapable of learning from defeat. It needs endless conflicts 2 try & fill the existential void. Too late @ this stage now 2 "address" anything. Dowwwwn goes the ship
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/afghanistan-war/
Fly-
I believe Toynbee wrote that in the final phase of an empire, the empire accelerated precisely those factors that were contributing to its death. We can see this now in the case of the US: increasing stupidity, esp.
mb
Wafers-
The West is being stalked by the East, as Mao Zedong predicted yrs ago:
https://www.noemamag.com/from-bandung-to-brics/
Of course, this new constellation is very likely to treat the West the same way we treated the East: badly, selfishly, and exploitatively. However, in historical terms, it's their turn, so to speak.
For a future vision that avoids competing hegemonic powers (empires), check out the 2nd story in my collection, "The Heart of the Matter."
mb
Wall Street Journal columnist Walter Mead thinks the way to “wear down” Russia is to attack it everywhere in the world, seen by Mead as a “target-rich environment.” This sounds like a true believer in Karl Rove’s pipedream “We create our own reality”, as well as DC neocon thinktanker Robert Kagan’s 2021 assertion in the journal Foreign Affairs that “Americans must accept their global role.” What’s really at stake is using the “rules-based international order” on behalf of global hustling, as shown last week by a U.S. judge ruling that Argentina must cough up $16 billion to pay off Burford Capital, a “legal finance corporation” (aka vulture lawyers) who brought suit on behalf of two bankrupt hedgies, Eton Park Capital and Petersen Energia Invesora, who were minority investors in the Argentine oil company YPF that was nationalized back in 2012. Apparently, U.S. law trumps other national sovereignties around the world on behalf of rentiers of the global hegemon. Will anyone outside the West shed a tear when this conglomeration of rackets called the U.S. shrinks in decline from the global scene?
https://www.responsiblestatecraft.org/biden-russia-wagner/
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2021-02-16/superpower-it-or-not
https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-judge-rules-against-argentina-following-ypf-payout-trial-2023-09-08/
Hello Professor. I don't know if you remember my previous posts, but some time ago, I told you about my friend from Russia who hated the films of Tarkovsky and the best of Russian culture in general. You advised me to view her as if she were possessed, as in demonic possession.
How right you were. How I should have listened. As it turned out, she is what is apparently called a covert narcissus, which can be more difficult to recognize but just as dangerous as their more overt counterpart. This description of the covert narcissus fit her to a T:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/making-the-whole-beautiful/202304/understanding-covert-narcissism
Unfortunately, I let her into my head. The experience was deeply hurtful. If there's any consolation, I suppose it's that I've learned a great deal about human psychology from my investigations into narcissistic personality disorder (NPD).
I discovered this expert on NPD, for example, who is really quite interesting -- Sam Vaknin. He has a lot of interesting videos on Youtube about NPD, such as this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgnuHBF8inU
But getting back to me -- I've got to heal from this experience somehow. What a world we live in. A world run by narcissists.
Laika-
This sounds like a job for the Wafer Swat Team (WST). We swoop in, take the target (in this case, your 'friend') to an undisclosed location, where we slap her until her head is 2x its normal size, then pee on her shoes. In this case, however, inasmuch as it involves hatred of Tarkovsky and Russian culture, stronger measures are needed. For no extra charge, we will beat her to w/in an inch of her life, and then throw her in a dumpster. How does that sound?
Seriously, if a Russian person hates Russian culture, it's a sure thing they are mentally ill. Too bad you were victimized by this. Let me suggest something that might help:
https://www.amazon.com/Healing-Defining-Root-Our-Existence/dp/B0C47YQXYQ/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=morris+berman&qid=1694305131&s=books&sprefix=morri%2Cstripbooks&sr=1-1
Also check out the customer review for "The Soul of Russia."
Gd luck, and let us know how it all turns out.
mb
Jack - The hubris of the USA is its defining characteristic in foreign policy. One example that comes to mind is when the US illegally invaded Grenada in 1983 to rescue some American students at a medical school.
"The United Nations General Assembly adopted General Assembly Resolution 38/7 on 2 November 1983 by a vote of 108 to 9 which "deeply deplores the armed intervention in Grenada, which constitutes a flagrant violation of international law and of the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of that State".
"President Ronald Reagan was asked if he was concerned by the lopsided 108–9 vote in the UN General Assembly. He said, "it didn't upset my breakfast at all".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Grenada#
San Fran's retail district seems to be on the rocks, much like the rest of it. The decay is there for all to see in the video @ the top. The 1:32 mark shows 1 of the tents in the downtown area, and from there it goes downhill. The piece mentions tourism as a big part of the city's economy. And foreigners visiting Amerikkka in general have been declining
"Tourism is the largest generator of outside revenue for San Francisco, and tourism from Asia is an integral part of San Francisco’s overall economy"
https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/30/business/san-francisco-union-square-retail-closures/index.html
Amerikkka's decline is out in the open. I'd imagine San Fran's woes would scare off ANY potential tourists. But perhaps an economy built on buying unnecessary junk can't be sustained long-term?
Ursula-
California has always been the canary in a coal mine for the US, the vanguard or frontier. This is now showing up in America's collapse. We have widespread homelessness, and also looting. The cops just look the other way. Soon other major cities will follow suit. Degradation and debasement.
mb
Greetings MB and Wafers,
Just look at the demented eyes and face on this guy. He was arrested for pelting workers w/Snickers candy bars at Walgreens:
https://meaww.com/florida-man-arrested-for-attacking-2-walgreens-employees-with-snickers-bars-on-september-4
Also, I stumbled across this great and witty tune, Banana Republics, written by Steve Goodman back in the seventies. It describes precisely how and why Americans (MB excepted) head down to Mexico!:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXgpAkn7PCM
I believe Jimmy Buffett recorded a version of it.
Enjoy,
Miles
Jeff-
Abt the Snickers attack: not clear to me why this guy, who was refused cigarettes, didn't just take out a gun and blow the Walgreens personnel out of the water. Not much of an American, really.
He does look like a douchebag, however.
mb
Phone addiction is worse than smoking or cocaineThe Rise and Impact of Phone Addiction
“This constant stream of new content, likes, and social validation triggers the release of dopamine, the brain's reward chemical, reinforcing the user's behaviour.” — Julie M. Albright argues that smart phone use is just as harmful as the drugs we ban.
https://iai.tv/articles/phone-addiction-is-worse-than-smoking-or-cocaine-auid-2596
Ewan-
Duh! No kidding. I've been saying this for years. In addition to causing increasing rates of depression, anxiety, alienation, lowering of empathy, etc. etc., it's actually killing children in the Congo, who mine for the rare metals. The lit on all of this is by now quite extensive. Someone--Jonathan Franzen?--once called cell fones "capitalism on steroids." The real fact is that every time one uses their smartfone, Congolese children are closer to death. This is real, not hyperbole.
For the powerful role tech addiction has played in American history, check out WAF ch. 3. Technology has, in fact, been America's hidden religion.
mb
Wafers-
D&D = Degradation and Debasement
O&D = Onward and Downward
The relation between these 2 shd be obvious.
mb
Another 9/11. Let us not forget the day when Amerikka bombed out a democratically elected government bcoz it didn't suit their interests.
The day Allende government was removed in a coup.
https://thewire.in/world/the-day-chileans-and-the-rest-of-latin-america-remember-their-911
Indian-
I'm assuming the US never paid compensation to Chile for what we did to them. Meanwhile, I'm guessing 90% of Americans can't locate Chile on a world map, and that 98% have no idea who Salvador Allende was.
mb
Declinists' Delight!
U.S. Marines shifting focus to China, threat is "real": top general (kyodonews.net)
What cd be more self-destructive than provoking 2 nuclear powers at the same time? Go for it, morons.
Plus check out the face of Eric Smith: Is this a zombie, or what?
What jackasses populate the American gov't! I love it. I can't get enuf of it.
mb
First day on the job in America, you get an AK-47 shoved in your face because a customer wants their Little Caesar's pizza NOW:
https://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/stupid/pepperoni-pistolero-678302
Pol-
Shades of Shaneka Torres, altho she actually used her gun. I can't help myself: I love this stuff.
mb
Thanks for the Kyodo news article. Gen. Smith's strategy doesn't make much sense. First he says the Marines' goal in Asia is to "prevent a conflict from happening", then he issues a thinly-veiled threat to China by announcing new reconnaissance (i.e spy) units that are "able to deter a peer competitor." And yes, his face is zombie-like, he has that blank expression with dead eyes that a lot of U.S politicians and celebrities have. A few other examples:
Hillary Clinton:
https://www.bravotv.com/sites/bravo/files/field_blog_image/2017/04/the-feast-hillary-whiskey.jpg
Mitch McConnell:
https://compote.slate.com/images/7d384ec0-ae60-436b-992b-35ed13e4d986.jpeg?width=2200&rect=5390x3593&offset=0x0
Kanye West:
https://networthfigure.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/333-18-1024x683.jpg
Meghan Markle:
https://stylecaster.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Meghan-Markle-1.jpg
Jason-
Like most US gov't and military personnel, he has warm dog feces in his head.
mb
https://apnews.com/article/susanna-gibson-virginia-house-of-delegates-sex-acts-9e0fa844a3ba176f79109f7393073454
A true American. Why have sex for free when you can live stream it for $$$? If I lived in Virginia she would get my vote.
Thanks Wafers and GSWH for your continued contributions in documenting the decline of this trash can of a nation.
I finally got to read your book “Healing”and very much enjoyed it. Looking forward to reading about the great Russian thinkers you highlighted.
Dr. Berman—
The degradation continues. After his walk-off from a military honors ceremony the other day, the quickly-declining declinist's dream, Joe Biden, was ushered off mid-sentence by smooth jazz. Maybe it's a new WH policy, but when Joe started to go off the rails to the press in Vietnam, he was cut off by his handlers like an Oscar winner with an overlong speech. Note in the video below that Biden actually ended a comment on negotiating with China saying,"...You know what? I'm going to bed."
How many more face palms will it take?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4SY9C5GKHc
Oops-
It's starting to look like Trumpi will win the 2024 election, altho anything can happen during the next 14 mos. But increasingly, Joe will be perceived (correctly) as a senile doofus. I look forward to him sending billions more to the Ukraine, so that Zelensky can buy more property in Florida and Tuscany, while feeding us kaka abt the 'successful' counteroffensive (my ass) and encouraging his neo-Nazi military (Azov regiment) to fight on. Some Jew, eh?
Krak-
You think we've scraped the bottom of the barrel, and then--we go a few inches deeper. Only in America! As for this blog: there are no others worth paying attn to. We go for reality; they are beating off. Regarding "Healing" and the Russia bk: check out the great customer revs on Amazon, for both. And if you'd like to add to them, I promise not to get in yr way. :-)
mb
Dr. B. and Wafers,
I bring you an example of U.S. hypocrisy: "The US accounts for more than a third of the expansion of global oil and gas production planned by mid-century, despite its claims of climate leadership, research has found." (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/sep/12/us-behind-more-than-a-third-of-global-oil-and-gas-expansion-plans-report-finds)
One major reason of course is that barely half of Americans believe that climate change is "human-caused" (https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/visualizations-data/americans-climate-views/).
On a related note, I am constantly amazed by the number of Americans who seem to fully accept lives requiring car ownership. 28% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions are caused by transportation which of course includes Americans' personal transportation mechanisms (https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions).
-- Torreblanca
Torre-
What shd be obvious by now is that we are on a trajectory that cannot be reversed. Not much more can be said abt this situation, wh/is really structural in nature.
mb
I read your book Healing recently and found it very relatable. I've taken the first step of writing out "YOU DON'T KNOW SHIT" (baby steps at first!). But I'm also looking into learning more about bioenergetics and joining a narcissistic abuse support group.
I guess I'm a bit obsessed with learning as much as possible about narcissism, so I've been watching a lot of Sam Vaknin's videos on Youtube (he himself is a recovering narcissist and an expert that coined a lot of the contemporary terminology on narcissism). I thought his videos on social media were very interesting:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o58mFU004hg&pp=ygUXc2FtIHZha25pbiBzb2NpYWwgbWVkaWE%3D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9XV8oLLZxk&pp=ygUXc2FtIHZha25pbiBzb2NpYWwgbWVkaWE%3D
He also recently posted a video about toxic masculinity (and its relationship to capitalism), which is so pervasive nowadays in no small part due to social media:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4Npwu12OAE
If there's any consolation to my recent experiences, it's that it's given me a very visceral hatred to all the garbage you see on social media and much of our junk pop culture in general, so I feel like I've been almost immunized to being addicted/conditioned by it.
Laika-
Glad you enjoyed the bk; hope it helps. Also keep in mind that you are living in one of the most degraded and debased cultures in the history of the world. It's bound to be narcissistic, but also, scummy to the max. Wafers bring in evidence of this to the blog almost every day. It's a profoundly immoral culture, and an empty one.
mb
Greetings MB and Wafers,
Former Secret Service agent Paul Landis, who was riding on the rear bumper of a Secret Service car following Kennedy the day he was shot and killed, is calling the magic bullet story, on which the entire 1964 Warren Report rests, a fabrication. Landis was so close to the tragic scene in Dallas, that he had to duck to avoid being splattered by Kennedy's skull fragments and brain matter. It's a long story, but suffice it to say that Landis says *he* was the one who actually found the so-called magic bullet, not in the hospital near Governor John Connally, as indicated in the Warren Report. According to Landis, he found the bullet in Kennedy's limousine lodged in the back of the seat behind where Kennedy was sitting. This means that a second shooter possibly fired from the front or at least from off to the side that day in Dallas. Jesus, WTF really happened that day? In any case, this is very interesting:
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/09/new-jfk-assassination-revelation-upend-lone-gunman
Also, The NY Times's Chief White House correspondent Peter Baker found the story newsworthy, and wrote a piece on it this past past weekend:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/09/us/politics/jfk-assassination-witness-paul-landis.html
Miles
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