A Revolutionary Act
It was George Orwell who said it: "During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."
posted by Morris Berman at 10:21 PM
184 Comments:
Our country certainly is in safe hands with leaders like this one. Ha!Ha!Ha!
Check out the video in the article. I’m pretty sure at about the 2 minute mark she gives the finger. Perhaps she should be Don’s running mate. Imagine this for our 2024 vice presidential debate: Boebert versus Kamala. LOL!
https://www.denverpost.com/2023/09/12/lauren-boebert-removed-beetlejuice-musical-denver/
https://www.denverpost.com/2020/08/27/lauren-boebert-arrests-colorado-3rd-mitsch-bush/
U.S.A.!, U.S.A.!, U.S.A.!
Dr. Berman and Wafers,
I bring to you three video clips of a recent "focus group" done with Republican voters in New Hampshire.
Where they get their news from, and their views on Trump: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7YEaqHvCr4
Their views on COVID and election rigging: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-_D8k1pb3g
Their views on the indictments of Trump and what they would do if he were found to be a criminal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbeGMVTtztk
Since seeing these videos I have not been sleeping well. I think they are the most terrifying thing I have seen since my initial post on this blog regarding the "reAwaken America Tour."
I hope I can get out of this country before the next election (the PhD schedule is not entirely within my control but I'm trying).
-- Torreblanca
The level of rage in the USA is very high and quite disturbing. When they can't access a firearm they use their cars or push people in front of trains. There's a sense of tension and violence in the USA that I don't feel in other countries. I don't think Americans even notice it.
Minor arrested in Huntington Beach rampage in which motorist targeted cyclists, killing one
https://www.aol.com/news/boy-arrested-huntington-beach-rampage-223343498.html
74-year-old man pushed onto Upper East Side subway tracks in unprovoked attack
https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/74-year-old-man-pushed-onto-upper-east-side-subway-tracks-in-unprovoked-attack-police/4675559/
Joe, Torre, Jason-
You look at all this stuff and you think: This is not merely a bad condition; this is full-on dementia. MLK said that the worst thing possible was the combination of anger and stupidity. That was in 1963. Sixty yrs later, were he still alive, he wd have had to amend that. Today, the worse thing possible is violence and buffoonery.
mb
Jason Tower commented: "There's a sense of tension and violence in the USA that I don't feel in other countries. I don't think Americans even notice it."
This is so exactly right. I finally made my Wafer pilgrimage out of that armed madhouse of a country to Ireland a couple of years back. I cannot tell you how dazzled I was by my first few months of life in a country where the constant threat of deadly violence and air of menace was not present. I felt like I had escaped an insane asylum. Walking through St. Stephen's Green in Dublin and seeing all these happy people and families strolling about, smiling, chatting, and enjoying their lives, was totally alien to my experience in America. I could have wept for joy and relief.
If you are still in the USA, do anything you have to do to get out.
Dr. Berman—
A startlingly revealing moment at the WH press conference. A reporter asked why Biden has been "lying", citing a list of recent incidents of Biden making bizarre claims that a person with dementia would make. Listen to the otherworldly response from WH Press Secretary Kirby (he seems to be responding to another question completely), but importantly, note that the press didn't make a fuss and played along.
At 1:00:10—an hour and 10 minutes in:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09_G5Ebh-vA
Seems like the Marines have officially set their sights on China. Have a look @ the apocalyptic title:
"U.S. Marines shifting focus to China, threat is "real"
Only threat I see is a dying empire that can't accept its time being up. Or the possibility of a multipolar world. Like so many other historical powers, it thinks it's invincible, but history showed otherwise
https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2023/09/95ade956128c-us-marines-shifting-focus-to-china-threat-is-real-top-general.html
Watching America kick its own ass on the world stage is, for me, fairly entertaining in a train wreck horror sorta way. On the bright side is seeing signs of the Rest Of World cooperating with each other now that murica's boot is losing its weight and impact. BRICS could be said to be the new power structure - Putin and Xi snubbing the G20 is interesting.
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/09/07/absence-presence-dominance-g20-0011454
Unknown-
Sorry, I don't post Unknowns.
Other folks-
Thank you for your observations. Here is my own summary: We are a shitpile, and we are going down the drain. Jesus, what cd be more obvious? As I said earlier, nothing can reverse this trajectory. Wafers cd go door to door, slapping Americans and peeing on their shoes, and it wdn't make a bit of difference.
mb
Good day all! So when we hear that we need more money for education here is what it can go towards. That's right, more brainwashing of the kiddies to be on the team, to support billionaire sports club owners by promoting for them, purchasing apparel, and all the other aspects of group think and believing they make the difference. What a great way to bring the kiddies up so they don't question anything and mindlessly follow orders. I almost don't want to post this due to it getting more views but it just says it all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcMKOt8jcRs
This blog truly helps me keep sane because when the rest of the world around you is into the nonsense above and too dumb to see the writing on the wall I realize my only option is the monastic version since I can't leave this place for various reasons. And Boebert represents Americans today- loud, ignorant, and uncouth morons.
Harv-
Buffoons in action! I love it. Give me a gd buffoon any day. They have made America what it is today.
mb
This op-ed piece here states why a conflict w/ China would b illogical. 1 of such reasons is that China is still Amerikkka's top trading partner. Hah! No doubt amerikkkans luv foreign-made shit 2 their own detriment. Hardly anything of consequence is made domestically anymore. Maybe the author knows Amerikkka would b pummeled if push came 2 shove. Plus a conflict may almost certainly require Amerikkka 2 utilize its overseas cannon fodder. I've never seen a nation so hell-bent on losing war after war. Must b a humiliation fetish
https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/4204113-we-should-not-choose-to-fight-a-war-with-china-if-they-invade-taiwan/
P.s, isn't Taiwan part of China? How can a country invade itself?
Satch-
No, it's just that contrary to all empirical evidence, the US keeps thinking it will win. Which it does, w/small countries like Iraq that it can unilaterally destroy. As for Taiwan, read up on yr history of Formosa.
mb
The kind of trash America generates:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/15/alex-jones-infowars-sandy-hook-damages
Here’s today’s special edition of the Ongoing Republican Comedy Show that was held in Washington, D.C. Who says women don’t like Trump, E. Jean Carroll, “Grab Them By the Pussy”, and Stormy Daniels notwithstanding? Check out these concerned “Christian” conservative womens’ love for the Don! And for the best part: Check out this woman “pastor” praying for our Don, that great loving “Christian” that he is, at the 59 minute mark! LOL! Because after all, in his own words, Don “is the Chosen One.” Look at that genuine solemn look on his face as the prayer is being said!
Please, Don. Win in 2024! We Wafers are with you all the way! And as one of your main goals, make this exceptional country not a de facto, but an official Christian theocracy once you’re back in there!
https://www.c-span.org/video/?530473-1/fmr-president-trump-speaks-concerned-women-america-summit
Is Don great or what? Or maybe one should ask, “How was he able to keep a straight face? Even better, the audience is the microcosm of our majority conservative/religious USAin general public. As the GSWH said: “These are your neighbors. They borrow sugar from you.”
U.S.A.!, U.S.A.!, U.S.A.!
Joe - That video is frightening. Presidents and presidential candidates (from both parties) in the US have to play this weird game where they pretend to be devout Christians in public despite the evidence of their private conduct. The sad part is most voters are so dumb they believe the charade. Jimmy Carter was the last president who was actually a believing Christian.
Jason-
In the best sense of the word. He also walked his talk. See my discussion of his presidency in WAF, also (if I remember correctly) in DAA.
mb
Food for thought dept.:
https://www.noemamag.com/passage/
A portrait of buffoons:
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/09/16/politics/trump-supporters-indictments-mug-shot/index.html
Meanwhile, Trump's polling numbers rise higher and higher.
Is a learning curve for buffoons on the same level of possibility as the proverbial Wafer metaphor of flying pigs? The latest post at Moon of Alabama thinks so with reference to the likelihood that US military will learn anything useful from the proxy war in Ukraine. Citing a recent article in the quarterly “Parameters” by the US Army War College, the upshot is that the US has neither the material nor the human reserves to sustain a conflict with a peer opponent such as Russia or China, and may lack the technological edge as well. Yet the buffoons in charge still talk of Russian military incompetence and Ukrainian resilience at the frontline, while itching to get on with a rumble with the Chinese over Taiwan.
Inherent in the buffoon outlook is their triumphalist belief in making their own reality, what we might call the “karlrovian syndrome” discussed many times on this blog. This is the point of Will Schryver’s latest commentary, looking at the Ukraine war; says Schryver, “the Russians have been much more deliberate and calculating than most observers believe or admit.” No way the Russians will accept the US notion of “frozen conflict” when they are winning at maskirovka, playing defense to bleed the enemy before an offensive to ensure complete destruction of their military opponent. The apparent objective: a complete Ukrainian military collapse that allows a Russian military advance unimpeded by significant opposition. Until that collapse occurs, continued attrition, a process beyond the ken of buffoons.
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/09/what-the-us-will -learn-and-not-learn-from-the-war-in-ukraine.html
https://imetatronink.substack.com/p/lightning-strikes-twice
Jack-
Gore Vidal once famously said, "Americans never learn. It's part of our charm." This can alternatively be stated as, "Americans are a collection of buffoons." It is interesting that this buffoonery is across the board, in the US. The US military, as cited in your post above, is clearly run by buffoons. Any American institution randomly selected--the media, universities, bowling alleys--are run by buffoons. And if you randomly stop an American in the street, and try to have a substantive conversation, you'll discover that in 9 out of 10 cases, he or she is a buffoon (or buffoonette).
We are so stupid, we are so bull-headed; all we can do is continue to self-destruct. Sotto voce, the whole world is laughing at us.
mb
I’m asking you to pray for me folks. After years of fruitlessly pining to escape, I now have a genuine chance of moving myself and family out of the USA. I’ve had to move mountains to get to this point; I won’t go into detail, but the stress levels involved have been stratospheric, and there are still substantial hurdles before us. But we have a good shot.
I could comment on Dr. B’s remarks concerning the political situation in the US, but really I prefer to bail on all that and forget about arguments concerning how best to rearrange deck chairs on the Titanic. Getting out of steerage and and off the ship is what really matters.
Kevin
Auto workers in Detoilet went on strike against the big 3 car makers for shafting them. Schmernie Sanders broke outta the nursing home 2 go flap his gums there.
https://www.mlive.com/public-interest/2023/09/whitmer-bernie-sanders-speak-in-support-of-striking-uaw-at-downtown-detroit-rally.html
Funny how @ this late stage, ppl wanna "stand up" against corporate greed. If Amerikkkan cities weren't so anti-pedestrian, these automakers may not have so much clout. Where's the ire over this ongoing water situation in Jackson MS, Flint MI & other places?
https://www.thenation.com/article/environment/jackson-water-crisis-accountability/
Or DC squandering $ to prop up a rotting empire? Or the exploitation of students, who're fed false promises & saddled w/ debt? How bout the extortionate sick-care system? Zilch.
Kev-
Well, no one here is suggesting rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Rather, we are charting the path of the Titanic as it sinks into the ocean, so to speak. But hey: we are all rooting for your escape. I left the ship in 2006. My only regret: wish I had done it earlier. Anyway, keep us posted.
mb
https://apnews.com/article/vatican-pius-holocaust-jews-pius-pope-poland-8c511a4b99345d98f54af69dda6d2a66
Gosh, what a surprise!
Regarding Bernie Sanders and the auto workers....
If Bernie were so great why doesn't he not just condemn corruption and good 'ol boyism in Washington but start naming names of the worst offenders? We all know why.
Kevin,
Wishing for your success! Please report back in.
-- Torreblanca
Wafers, the funniest thing I've Seen this week, the CPC spokesperson in an interview with an english journalist politely belittled the UK as a country, and he wasn't wrong about what he said. Now, it's just a matter of years until we hear them on CNN calling the US a powerless country.
https://youtu.be/8jZ0KTRUgpU?feature=shared
french-
The crucial question for me is this: Will the CPC refer to America not just as powerless, but also as a collection of buffoons? Really, I hafta hear that b4 I die.
mb
Sarah Boone attorney formally withdraws, won’t let her call him a ‘buffoon’
https://www.courttv.com/news/boone-attorney-formally-withdraws-wont-let-her-call-him-a-buffoon/
Sarah Boone is on trial for murdering her boyfried Jorge Torres (by zipping him into a suitcase and leaving him) but insulted her lawyer, Frank Bankowitz, by calling him a "buffoon" and a "dud". He responded by dropping her as a client.
"Boone told police that she and Torres had been drinking and played a game of hide-and-seek that went horribly wrong. Boone, who didn’t call 911 until the next afternoon, told investigators that she had gone to bed, passed out, and slept in. She found Torres unresponsive in the suitcase when she woke up."
Every person in this story is a buffoon.
Jason-
We're making progress on the buffoon front. But we need to see the word used in a political context, hopefully w/in the next few mos. *Someone* hasta call Kamala Schmamala, for example, a buffoonette.
mb
We gotta hand it to Don the Con. He certainly has energy, far more in fact than Biden. Look at Don here. He spoke for 8, that’s right, 8 hours straight at that wacky far right/Bible-thumping Family Research Council gathering playing these narrow-minded fools. And these idiotic Christian conservatives totally ate his bullshit up! LOL! Go, Don! Go! These millions of dumb religious evangelicals in this country are so laughingly pathetic. They make up a good percentage of the millions of buffoons in this comedic country. Long live “Family Values”, that big geographic Bible Belt, the Prosperity Gospel, Televangelists, the Moral Majority, Pro Lifers, the National Prayer Breakfast, the Faith and Freedom Coalition, our Ultra Conservative Roman Catholic Supreme Court, and most important of all, the “HUGE” ( in his own patented words) enormous Cult of Don Trump! May these imbeciles here who think the planet is 6,000 years old help bring him, as they did in 2016, another surprising victory.
TRUMP 2024! TRUMP FOR LIFE! TRUMP FOR 2030 during the year of Wafer enjoyable USAin reckoning!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIegWNSJ4IU
U.S.A.!, U.S.A.!, U.S.A.!
Joe-
It's certainly possible that the worst sort of buffoons are religious buffoons. But as for energy: Schmiden has none, because all he believes in is a cliched rerun of the Cold War. This is stale, and he comes across as stale--a senile doofus. Trumpi, on the other hand, is electrifying, in the way that fascists often are. He believes in himself, and if he's in office in 2025, he'll take revenge on his enemies, and resume his regime of kleptocracy. But unlike Schmiden, he's not a warmonger, and that's something. Still, I'd love to see Kamala at the helm.
mb
I have not posted here since my daughter was about 3. She is now 20 and I just got her a hard copy of Healing because this type of guidance is invaluable for someone her age. We need to work on the tools needed to protect ourselves from the buffoonery. That stuff is toxic.
Hi Minerva!
Welcome back! "Healing": there is no hard copy, only pb and Kindle. Start the process of sanity w/hr daughter early; gd idea. Wish I had it at age 20 myself. Meanwhile, tell her that the US gov't is filled w/buffoons, along w/the MSM, and that any American she is likely to randomly encounter in the street is probably a buffoon. (Acid test: try having a substantive conversation w/them.)
Also have her check out speeches and interviews w/Kamala; they are hilarious. Finally, I find that when I wake up in the morning and (1st thing) yell KAMALA SCHMAMALA!, I usually have a pretty gd day. If the spirit moves her, she might add BIDEN SCHMIDEN!, and TRUMPALUMPI!
mb
Now this man is a true American:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/edward-druzolowski-shoots-kills-neighbor-trimming-trees-property-line-florida/?intcid=CNI-00-10aaa3b
The only improvement I wd suggest here is if Edward took the guy out into the street and shot him like a dog.
mb
This looks gd:
https://www.amazon.com/Blood-Machine-Origins-Rebellion-Against/dp/0316487740/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3FQ26XIL207LE&keywords=brian+merchant&qid=1695088337&s=books&sprefix=brian+merchant%2Cstripbooks%2C2198&sr=1-1
Re: Edward shooting his neighbor: In the US, violence is now a likely option when there is a disagreement. Fifty years ago if two neighbors had a problem with overgrown trees they would have had a discussion over some beers or coffee and come to a rational solution, like splitting the cost of a tree trimming service 50/50.
Here's a story from D.C. where a restaurant owner asks to see the pickup code from a DoorDash driver who's there to pick up an order. Instead of pulling out his phone to show the code, the driver drew a handgun and attacked the owner.
https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/doordash-driver-gets-8-months-for-assault-on-dc-restaurant-owner-who-was-attacked-in-front-of-young-son/3419443/
Jason-
Unclear what this 'attack' consisted of, since he didn't actually use his gun. Not a true American, imo. A true American shoots.
mb
Haven't checked your website for a week or so.
Re Don the Con ranting to the psychotic bible-thumpers please check out the details of the all-all-encompassing intentions of the Project2025 movement which is supported by at least 72 deep pockets right-wing groups many/most of which are associated with these bible-thumpers.
See this Common Dreams posting www.commondreams.org/tag/project-2025
When fascism comes to Amerika -----
Taska-
We are more of a discussion forum than a bulletin board. Pls re-send your link, but add a paragraph of your own commentary. Thank you.
mb
Wafers-
Trumpi now has a slight edge over Schmiden in the latest polls. My guess is that once he is convicted of all his crimes, and goes to jail, that slight edge will turn into a hefty edge. Which means he'll be reelected.
So we'll avoid war with Russia and China, but on the home front, Trumpi will roll up his sleeves and proceed to dismantle the country, in the name of making America great again.
Honestly, when I think of the amount of slapping and urine needed to correct our political and cultural situation, I get so exhausted I hafta lie down for an hr or 2. But watching America completely fall apart is an exciting adventure.
mb
The election of 2024 is shaping up to be a real barn burner. Imagine if Trump gets convicted, wins the election, then pardons himself on inauguration day? Or Biden wins a second term and his physical and mental decline accelerates, leading to his leaving office? Scary scenarios.
The 2020s in the US are reminding me a lot of the 1850s- a polarized population that despises moderates; rising domestic unrest and violent rhetoric; and low quality national leadership from both parties. Trump and the MAGAs seem like a modern iteration of the Know-Nothings, and Biden is a Franklin Pierce, blithely bumbling around while the nation comes apart.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/immigrants-conspiracies-and-secret-society-launched-american-nativism-180961915/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_Pierce#Legacy
Dr. Berman,
I've turned my thoughts to what will happen after Trumpi is re-elected. I wonder how many Americans will try to leave. I'm desperately trying to finish my PhD before next November since I'd like to be abroad by then. I wonder if I could establish myself in another country and then come back to visit the U.S. for the defense if I hadn't finished it by then. Do you think that might be a good idea or am I overreacting?
-- Torreblanca
Torre-
Offhand, I'd say yr better off staying here until you get yr doctorate, but I'd consult w/yr thesis adviser to see what he thinks, i.e. if it wd be no problem to be abroad.
Jason-
Not sure, but I don't think it's constitutional for a president to pardon himself. It wd certainly trigger a major legalistic debate. As for Schmiden: as a declinist, I'd love to see Kamala at the helm. What a riot that wd be. Altho if Schmiden wins, and Trumpi claims that he stole the election from him (again), we cd have a civil war on our hands. Wh/never really ended anyway (see WAF ch. 4).
mb
Wafers-
Jack L. in Cascadia recently sent me this amazing link:
Nik Stankovic on X: "Finally we get a definition of the China Threat. Read carefully: China is a threat because one day US might not be a threat to it. People are going to get up in arms over this but I don't think they should. In fact, thank you @ElbridgeColby for the honesty and straight talk.… https://t.co/PW7RfTFq4M" / X (twitter.com)
This is what I've been saying all along, since the essays in QOV, that the US needs to have an enemy in order to function. The current 'wisdom' regarding China is as twisted as an Escher painting. It's the same logic we had in Vietnam, when we "destroyed a village in order to save it." Bottom line: the US gov't, and military, consist of morons. And the only future morons can create is a moronic one, wh/is what is happening rt now. Self-destruction is on the agenda, and abs. 0 can stop it.
mb
ps: Unfortunately, this link doesn't really come thru. The crucial lines from Colby's bk are as follows:
"China is a threat because it's on a trajectory where the US one day may not be a threat to it. The US shd retain the ability to kill China[!], and the prospect of China evading this is the 'China threat'."
Nik comments: "The US simply wants to remain a threat to everyone."
You want to yell, "Stop, morons, stop!" But they cannot stop.
Note to Jack L.-
Now more than ever, it is imperative that we hold that conference at Evergreen, reinventing it as the Buffoon Institute, and have Tulsi and Gisele Bundchen give the keynote addresses. America doesn't have a single institution dedicated to the study of its own buffoonery. This is long overdue.
Wafers-
Many yrs ago, we had a great journalist by the name of I.F. Stone. He once famously said: "Governments lie." If he were alive today, he might amend that, and say: "The US gov't is basically a collection of buffoons." Stone's antidote was to keep exposing the lies in his newsletter, "I.F. Stone's Weekly." Unfortunately, there is no antidote to buffoons. Which is why Jack L. and I are launching the Buffoon Institute at the former Evergreen College, w/Tulsi and Gisele. Be there or be square!
mb
BTW, buffoonery is not limited to the US. Consider Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak in England, two of the biggest buffoons in the history of the world. How the hell did the British public manage to vote for Tories, with their absurd, dysfunctional plans for the British economy? (Unclear if Labour is doing any better at this pt, however) Contemporary England, wh/is a has-been, totally irrelevant on the international scene, offers a foretaste of America in 2030, altho for certain historical reasons that I won't go into rt now, it will be much worse for us than it's been for the UK. But it's kinda fun to watch Truss and Sunak endlessly beating off.
There's an interesting sentence in this op-ed about the Camp David summit. The summit served the purpose of forming a trilateral alliance between Japan, S. Korea & Amerikkka.
"The Biden National Security strategy recognizes that the U.S. cannot unilaterally maintain its global dominance, and that doing so requires alliances that integrate military, technological, and economic resources."
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/trilateral-camp-david-summit
Say whaaaat? So a faction of the ruling class acknowledges (even if secretly) that Amerikkka's not the biggest baddest wolf anymore? The author implies that that's y such an alliance was formed. Amerikkka now needs its Asian vassals 2 do its bidding. How the mighty have fallen
Ursula-
Thanks for the ref. Yet another sign of decline, America trying to stave off the inevitable. Doubtful that this alliance will endure to 2030, the year of The End for the US. Meanwhile, if you keep in mind that Kamala (possibly our next pres) is a rancid bag of douche fluid, and a total moron, you can never go wrong.
mb
Dr. Berman - thanks for the Nik Stankovich tweet (the link worked for me when I removed the quotation marks at the end). At some point China will call the USA's bluff and the result will be embarrassment and loss of prestige for the US.
And I found this about presidential pardons:
"One unsettled legal question is whether a president can pardon himself. The Constitution says a president cannot pardon “in cases of impeachment.” Expert legal opinions on this question vary, and the U.S. Supreme Court has not weighed in on this issue."
https://www.americanbar.org/advocacy/governmental_legislative_work/publications/washingtonletter/dec-2020-wl/legal-fact-check-pardons-1220wl/
Jason-
Well, I look forward to that day, which might occur b4 2030, and it probably won't matter who's in office. A few mos. ago Bill Maher did a show called something like "Dumb-Merica," comparing the US to China: how it typically took us years to complete, and flub, a project, and how China cd get something similar done flawlessly, overnight. Plus, we think in terms of years, while the Chinese plan in terms of decades. He concluded that Americans were dumb, while the Chinese were very intelligent. A no-brainer, that. Who's gonna win, in the contest between a buffoon country and a non-buffoon country? Look at what America has become, w/practically everyone, gov't and military included, having shit for brains. We just bumble along, going from error to error, while the rest of the world knows the truth: America is a paper tiger on a downhill slide. Karma, at long last, comes home to roost.
mb
Wafers-
This is a very insightful essay on the Unabomber:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2000/06/harvard-and-the-making-of-the-unabomber/378239/
It makes the pt that for an educated elite, it was necessary to see him as insane, because if he were to be regarded as sane, then they wd have to come to terms with his "Manifesto," which was a threat to their cherished beliefs. In WAF, I pointed out that the reaction to Jimmy Carter's "spiritual malaise" speech (Annapolis, 15 July 1979) was, for a # of politicians, evidence that he had lost his mind. This is one way of protecting ourselves from uncomfortable truths or ideas, and the author of this article shows that the trial of Ted Kaczynski was a bit of a sham; that his lawyers railroaded him into an insanity defense (or that he was unaware of what they were doing).
This article was written in 2000, and at that pt, Kaczynski was making an appeal for a new trial. I don't know how that played out, but it turns out that he died 3 mos. ago, i.e. last June, from an apparent suicide.
mb
Mr Berman,
"Honestly, when I think of the amount of slapping and urine needed to correct our political and cultural situation, I get so exhausted I hafta lie down for an hr or 2. But watching America completely fall apart is an exciting adventure."
Yep, watching the show is cheap entertainment, that's for sure. Here's another great example of our problem resolution skills. Macro's just a bunch of micros harmonizing.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1686369330819407872
Never, never kick a man's truck.
Check out today’s mugshots. The first is of a callous couple involved in child sex exploitation. The second is your typical angry paranoid USAin who doesn’t want his neighbor to trim his trees near his property. So of course what does he do? He blows the neighbor away.
https://www.mysuncoast.com/2023/09/20/couple-arrested-charges-sex-abuse-child-pornography/
https://www.mysuncoast.com/2023/09/19/man-accused-killing-neighbor-who-was-trimming-trees-near-his-property-line/
p.s. Doctor, a few Wafers here in recent posts are focusing on a possible Trump victory. May I offer My personal prediction in numbered installments ( to abide by the rules since in total it is lengthy) how Don will win? If you do allow me, here is reason #1 of 6:
1) Trump will win Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, thus giving him the electoral college. With the Democrats being so focused on keeping Georgia blue, they’ll forget about these three very important swing states. In addition to these three states, Trump also very well may win Arizona if he picks Kari Lake as his running mate. He could win Arizona anyway even if he doesn’t pick her. An uber far right MAGA wacko, one Marl Lamb, is running for the Senate and may get the nod. He already is focusing his campaign on the highly contentious border issue. That being said, Don probably will pick as his vice presidential candidate Ron Johnson of Wisconsin.
Joe-
Shit, I was hoping for Gisele Bundchen. Or Lauren Boebert, at the very least.
comrade-
Cheap my ass. It's luxurious. But why was the guy kicking the other guy's truck? At least the victim gunned his attacker down in the street, like a dog. A true American.
mb
Another family grift, or, The elite are trash:
Cryptocurrency crook Sam Bankman-Fried’s parents are working the suckers for self-enrichment, and counseling Sam in tax avoidance.
Law professors at Stanford.
FTX sues Sam Bankman-Fried’s parents, claiming they received millions in gifts
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/sep/19/ftx-sues-sam-bankman-fried-parents?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
They failed to say 'buffoons', but otherwise a gd essay:
http://westviewnews.org/2023/09/21/survival-in-the-new-woke-order/westview-news/
One of the themes of this blog is that empires in the collapse stage do more of what caused them to collapse. We are seing this play out in real time with the debacle in Ukraine. The US is continuing to throw money and military hardware at the losing side in the war while insisting that victory is just around the corner and refusing to hold peace talks or any negotiations with Russia. Today the US pledged another $325 million. Our leaders should be required to wear red noses and floppy shoes, because they are all buffoons.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/21/biden-announces-325-million-military-aid-package-during-a-white-house-meeting-with-zelenskyy.html
Recent losses in my inner circle have prompted me to revisit some Buddhist writings. In the past, I've read stuff by a Vietnamese monk named Thich Nhat Hanh. He was known for talking about a Buddhist discourse known as the Five Remembrances. It's a series of things to ponder in regards to our fragility & impermanence
https://commongroundmeditation.org/teachings/five-remembrances/
One of the items reads:
'All that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature to change. There is no way to escape being separated from them".
One of Buddhism's tenets is to not become too attached to external things, because ultimately they're transitory. But is it possible to do this? Or are attachments hardwired in2 us?
With so many Wafers opting to emigrate—and congrats to the them—it's sometimes overlooked how many cannot take this option for any number of reasons. For them MB has suggested "the new monastic option": an inner migration to find or create a liveable space in an almost unliveable country. Saw this essay and it brought to mind both the NMO, as well as Professor Berman's 'The Soul of Russia'. Enjoy:
"Again, this woman was a Russian—a Russian Russian, not a Russian American—she'd flown from Russia to California only a few days before, and was here only to visit and go back, not to live.
This Russian Orthodox woman from Russia—who, as I say, was very, very Russian—stopped giving us instructions for a moment, looked around at the pine trees, swaying as they do in their stereotypical wind, and at the rust-colored pine needles beneath them, at the sunbleached depths of the forest, at the crappy little monks' shacks dotting this anachronistic Shangri-La in the mountains of California, then looked at me and said: “You know: When I want to come to a real monastery, I come here.”
https://sabbathempire.substack.com/p/essay-10-waving-farewell-to-byzantium
Dub-
Look up the work of John Bowlby: we are psychologically wired for attachment from birth. I also deal w/this a bit in my bk "Healing." But the equally bottom line is that everything comes to an end, including ourselves. Mono no aware, the Japanese say (bitter-sweet); life is like the sakura, the cherry blossom, whose season is 3 wks long. Also check out a marvelous film by Doris Doerrie, "Cherry Blossoms."
Jason-
This phenomenon is known as "imperial overstretch," and it certainly contributed to the fall of Rome. Regarding the Ukraine, it is certainly stunning to watch the daily American propaganda, as the NYT and other media fall into line.
mb
MB - I was watching an interview with Thomas Frank and he said something I certainly see with most Americans. “This country has gone absolutely nuts. We refuse to understand what’s happening, it’s right in front of our eyes…”. He’s mostly referencing the political insanity lately. At about 44:41 https://www.youtube.com/live/4xSz7mLi_SE?si=Ncq0gRuKEMIHXPRe
Reminded me of “the wool is the eyes.”
-Jim
Jim-
Scroll back, see the link from westview news. For declinists, it's all gd. The greater the stupidity, the faster the decline. Me, I love a gd buffoon. I can't get enuf of American buffoonery. We can't have too many Boeberts, Greenes, Palins, and Kamalas, imo. Put Tulsi and Gisele Bundchen in the W.H., and it fulfills my wildest dreams.
mb
Here are a couple from the comedic USAin buffoon department. First, this lady didn’t need to be slapped with urine. She voluntarily immersed herself in it! LOL! And an armed robber buffoon faces years in the big house over….a taco! LOL!
https://www.kake.com/story/49695072/woman-rescued-from-outhouse-toilet-after-climbing-in-to-retrieve-apple-watch
https://www.kmov.com/2023/09/20/man-charged-after-allegedly-stealing-taco-gunpoint/
p.s. Continuing numerically ( with the good Doctor’s permission and hoping the length isn’t too long) with how I think Trumpi may win next year:
2) To the Democrats’ surprise and dismay, Republicans cleverly will gather new voters in Nevada that will help Trump win the Silver State. The largest surprise will be in Clark County which encompasses Las Vegas. Sin City has gone downhill. Bed bugs are omnipresent and are a real problem at major strip casino hotels. The Republicans adroitly will convince the voters the economic downturn there is Biden’s fault. Also to the Democrats’ surprise, the new Biden voters from 2020 will stay home while the new Trump voters return to the voting booth.
3) Even if Trump doesn’t pick Johnson as his running mate, Wisconsin will go red anyway. The telltale sign of how the Badger State has turned more to the right was the Rittenhouse trial.
4) Democratic voter turnout in Pennsylvania will be less in the key urban areas than in 2020. The Republicans on the contrary will go out and vote, rain or shine, as they always do. Both candidates garnered between the two of them over 900,000 new voters in 2020. Like Nevada, Trump’s new voters will show up in the Keystone State; Biden’s won’t. That will be the difference. The Democrats’ complacency will be detrimental in this very important, mostly geographically rural ( read: conservative) state as Trumpi snatches it.
Joe-
The taco thief was probably hungry. Imprisonment for life w/o parole is the obvious remedy.
As for Trumpi: his victory is starting to look likely. Let's hope he selects Gisele Bundchen as his running mate.
mb
Just "accidentally" threatened nuclear war in front of the United Nations
Netanyahu tells UNGA there must be a "credible nuclear threat" against Iran. His office quickly clarifies he misread his speech which said "credible military threat."
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20230922-netanyahu-at-un-issues-nuclear-threat-to-iran-later-retracted
Boy oh boy.... I seriously think USA and our more idiotic allies might seriously get us into a nuclear war.....Read Ellsberg's "The Doomsday Machine" fellow Wafers!
Boom-
Our lives are in the hands of people who are extremely stupid. BTW, if you make a reference, such as Ellsberg, pls provide a link. Thank you.
mb
Such a great country America is:
https://www.theguardian.com/law/2023/may/11/abu-zubaydah-drawings-guantanamo-bay-us-torture-policy
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/22/september-11-defendant-declared-unfit-trial-cia-abuse-psychotic
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/sep/22/us-prison-labor-is-cruel-and-pointless-legalized-slavery-i-know-first-hand
ps: The 2nd link is cut off. Try this one:
https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/guantanamo-judge-rules-911-defendant-unfit-trial-after-103413955
Note how Biden reacted (at end of article).
I found this amusing clip with Ken Burns, which goes under the dual heading of "Smart dumb people" and also "Americanism as a secular religion." Notice what Burns says at 1:18. Pretty startling. At first, I thought he meant "important" in the sense of "having the most impact." If he had meant it that way, there is an argument to be made. But no.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zW-T7AoKxrI
Steve Schmidt is pretty spot-on in most of his "warning" videos, where he dissects Trump and the Maga movement. Most here would find most of what he says pretty true and unexceptionable. For example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8fKB4LaEaM (Russell Brand is such a creep. So astonishing that people look up to him as a "thinker"!)
But get these guys on the subject of "America itself" and then they are like the blind leading the blind! It is funny, how people tax fundamentalist Christians with believing in absurd doctrines. The faith that America is still a "great nation with a great mission in the world" is so absurd that even the most Kierkegaardian of leaps of faith is not enough to make it seem remotely plausible to any thinking person!
Megan-
Gd to see u here again! That's a great clip from Steve Schmidt, and a rather horrifying one from Ken Burns, on how the US is the greatest event since Jesus Christ. Fuckin' nuts, man. It validates my argument from yrs ago, that for Americans, America itself is the 'true' religion.
Meanwhile, you might enjoy this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fI61HrNXQaQ
mb
ps: I think I lost the comment from someone else. He or she probably sent message to a previous post, although I cdn't find it. If all this is true, I ask this person to re-send yr message, but to this most recent post. Thank you.
mb
Fly-
Sorry, cdn't run it (half pg rule). Please edit down and re-send. Thank you.
mb
Behold, Wafers, a case study in the degraded buffoonery that is the USian:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/20/michigan-woman-rescued-toilet-apple-watch
This story has it all...Oh, the allegory...
DTE
Dio-
There's no question in my mind that most Americans, if not all, wd do the same thing. And allegorically, that watch *is* America.
mb
Check it out:
https://thefloutist.substack.com/p/ukraine-before-and-after
Terrific lecture by Scott Ritter. Of course, the US, Europe, and NATO will pay no attn to it. Why? Buffoons!
mb
The newest hip thing here in the U.S.A.!, U.S.A.!, U.S.A.! : public baptisms! And the Auburn University students in Alabama love it! And for anyone who doesn’t love it, you tell ‘em, Republican Bible Belt Governor Kay Ivey! Christian theocracy here we come!
https://www.wsfa.com/2023/09/22/ivey-alabama-wont-be-intimidated-by-freedom-religion-foundation/
https://www.wvtm13.com/article/unite-auburn-hugh-freeze-religion-baptism/45251965
And wrapping up how Trumpi possibly can win:
5) Don also will use any economic slowdown—real or perceived—that may occur next year to his advantage. But here’s the real clincher: “Make America Great Again” will not be his Madison Avenue public relations slogan. It will be replaced by the clever, “He’ll End the War”. Perhaps even, “He’ll End the War and Bring World Peace”. Woodrow Wilson in 1916 during World War I won reelection by using the phrase, “He Kept Us Out of the War”. The Republicans ( justifiably) will continue to asseverate that government spending should go to the general public, not to the military-industrial complex supplying Ukraine with weapons. This is how Biden and the Democrats will shoot themselves in the feet. They’ll continue to aid the losing side in this latest proxy war of ours at the taxpayers’ expense. The conservative media likely also will portray this as our 21st century Vietnam quagmire. Ending the Russia-Ukraine war, not Trump’s criminal indictments, will be the main election topic that will be on voters’ minds. The Republicans cleverly will present themselves as the party of peace, the Dems the party of war. Public sentiment will be with the GOP bringing victory to THE DON!
https://time.com/6316386/tom-holland-roman-empire-obsession-essay/
why ARE american men obsessed by the Roman Empire? great british historian tom holland answers this. falling empires idolize former fallen empires, imho!
Why We Can't Get Over the Roman Empire -- TIME Magazine
This woman shd be in the White House:
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/09/23/entertainment/gisele-bndchen-suffocated-modeling/index.html
She said 'like' 4 times.
Preferred sentence: "Like I'm a douche baguette."
Wafers-
Check out recent remarks by Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, on how the West is using the Ukrainians as 'fodder' for a war against Russia. He also called the EU, US, and NATO an 'empire of lies." No shit, Sherlock. (this can be found on cnn)
mb
Some reflections on the American collapse, and after:
https://medium.com/@theo.seeds/how-america-will-collapse-94cdfade969a
I could almost feel my brain shrinking reading that Gisele Bündchen interview. She's worth over 400 million dollars but can't string a sentence together.
https://wealthygorilla.com/gisele-bundchen-net-worth/
Since I was in the mood for more stupidity, I found these Michele Bachmann quotes. It's a shame she retired from politics.
https://www.businessinsider.com/michele-bachmann-quotes-2011-6
Jason-
Millions worship her because like her, they are also buffoons. It is not easy to find a non-buffoon in contemporary America. A pity Michelle retired from politics. She once remarked that we were at war with the Soviet Union. I can't help myself; I love these people: Boebert and MT Greene and Palin--long list. They make our decline palpable; they are decline in the flesh.
mb
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdT9-cxryiA
Dear Dr. Berman,
-Believe you commented on these USAins with regard to their "analysis"/"review" of "A Man without Qualities." Predictably, it was over their dumb as stale dogshit american heads. It appears to be another Kakatuni "reviewer" moment--trash the book and its' author because they do not "like" the content.
What clowns. They embody the USAin. They cannot nor will not live in reality. They predictably cannot understand your work nor perform background research. Of course, the commenters resort to ad hominem remarks (e.g., "crank", "white" people, with the book "reviewers" giving "thumbs up icons to their cheerleaders.
However, it should excite Wafers as this is the typical USAin: walking jokes dressed up as humans trying to appear "smart" who lack self awareness and critical thinking.
Onward and downward.
Glans-
Yeah, there was some website called Terrible Book Review, or something like that. I cd only get thru the 1st 20 mins of their 'review', wh/failed to understand the bk completely. It was like listening to 2 magpies chattering nonsense to each other while being impressed by their supposed intellectual 'acumen'. My, look at how sophisticated we are! (True sophistry, in fact, was what they were offering.) But this too is part of our decline, so I can't really get all that angry abt it, and the magpies are typical products of the American educational system, wh/has little interest in critical thinking. This is even true of the NYT: Kakutani's idea of a review, as you pt out, was whether she liked the bk (any bk) or not; she cdn't imagine a bk she didn't like to be something of high quality, complete w/logical arguments and empirical evidence. What she provided in her review of DAA was basically a hatchet job--quite dishonest. (In the past, both Norman Mailer and Salmon Rushdie said she had no business reviewing bks.)
But for the most part, I'm completely off the radar screen in America, and that seems abt rt. If I ever managed to attract visibility, or a widespread following, it wd be very unsettling, inasmuch as we are drowning in buffoonery. Given the audience, or clowns like Kakutani, it wd mean I had done something terribly wrong. The Greeks also called Cassandra a 'crank', after all. In the past I've just responded, "The dogs bark, but the caravan moves on." This just abt sums it up; America is chock full of dogs. And in its own fucked up way, the audience reaction (mostly) is reassuring, even kinda fun, if yr a declinist.
On a more upbeat side, check out the Amazon customer revs for "Healing" and "The Soul of Russia."
mb
Japan will soon b increasing its defense budget big-time. Kishida's administration plans 2 allocate 43 trillion yen ($315 billion) between 2023 & 2027.
https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20221217/p2a/00m/0na/023000c
Japan might b on its way 2 becoming a bankrupt hegemon like amerikkka. Its new Nat'l Security Strategy has a statement about China that mirrors Amerikkka's own sentiments. Look @ the 2nd paragraph of pg 9.
https://www.cas.go.jp/jp/siryou/221216anzenhoshou/nss-e.pdf
The Japanese may soon get a taste of what brought Amerikkka 2 its knees. I imagine the blowback from being allied w/ a country in self-destruct mode will rear its ugly head @ some pt.
Shi,
I've always enjoyed the comparison made on this blog and in Mr Berman's books! Currently I'm reading this, and think often of the flawed leadership of dunces and war criminals that guide our country:
Evil Roman Emperors: The Shocking History of Ancient Rome's Most Wicked Rulers from Caligula to Nero and More
https://www.amazon.com/Evil-Roman-Emperors-Shocking-Caligula/dp/1633886905?_encoding=UTF8&crid=L7TFZFNM9M1O&keywords=Evil+Roman+Emperors+The+Shocking+History+of+Ancient+Rome%27s+Most+Wicked+Rulers+from+Caligula+to+Nero+and+More&qid=1695500011&sprefix=evil+roman+emperors+the+shocking+history+of+ancient+rome%27s+most+wicked+rulers+from+caligula+to+nero+and+more,aps,145&sr=8-1&linkCode=sl1&tag=romanhistor0b-20&linkId=37c31f3a8bf0a466144ddf25fbe4ffd3&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl&dplnkId=8035a531-6e58-4525-aff1-056ed077363d
- Brown
https://www.newstatesman.com/the-weekend-essay/2023/09/bronze-age-pervert-american-right
John Gray reads a rogue Romanian-American philosopher, Costin Alamariu, as a Randian - never a compliment - in his weekend essay for NewStatesman. If nothing else, Gray's comments on Homer & the pity of war are certainly justified. Note well how Gray concludes: "Whoever succeeds in lodging themselves in the White House in January 2025 will preside over a failing state & a country descending into civil warfare." By September 2023, this is almost a cliché: & that should be sobering!
Fly-
You might wanna check out my bk on Japan, "Neurotic Beauty."
Bicycle-
Gray is almost always on target, but I keep waiting for critics of America to develop a more precise focus, i.e., on the American people themselves. We need for words like 'douchebags' and 'buffoons' to enter our public vocabulary. After all, millions adore Boebert and Greene and Palin, and millions are woke.
mb
Wafers-
I think all of us need to create Wafer Business Cards (WBC), to make it clear how serious we are about our cause. I have developed the following dual language one:
I cannot, and I will not, tolerate horse manure!
No puedo tolerar, y ni toleraré, el excremento de caballo!
[my phone #]
Pretty classy, eh? I await your own suggestions.
mb
Dr. Berman,
Thank you for your advice!
Anonymous Flyingspaghettimonstr,
I skimmed through some of that document. It's interesting because I thought Japan used to stand somewhat for an "alternative approach" from the U.S.'s approach (for example, they started the Asian Development Bank which was supposed to work on somewhat different principles than the World Bank which is U.S.-dominated). Maybe things have changed.
-- Torreblanca
I know MB's a fan (among other Wafers) thought this was a nice line from Cormac McCarthy on Samuel Beckett:
"Beckett's a little too arch and a little too cute for me. I don't think Beckett's serious."
From Cormac's papers in the Witliff Archive a friend saw them and txtd me.
We don't have American intellects like this anymore. Not sure my writer friends really have much to say on McCarthy or Beckett these days....Never got the Beckett bag myself. Was more a Joyce guy.
Unity-
Do you have any links for this stuff? This is what we usually provide on this blog. Thanks.
mb
Doctor Berman, I've often heard you say that US support of Ukraine is a proxy war with Russia that should not continue.
While I agree that it may be such a proxy war, what course of action would you advise the US, indeed much of the Western world take in response to that incursion, especially in light of
what appears to be Putin's increasing level of derangement?
jmw-
Putin is no more deranged than JFK was during the Cuban missile crisis. He is fighting an existential threat, the American resurrection of the Cold War, and our desire to defeat Russia--a rather insane project. *We*, not Putin, created this war; a tactic we have used in the past. If NATO is going to be poised on the border of the Ukraine, this is something Russia cannot reasonably tolerate.
Of course, there is no pt in my--or really anyone--advising the US, because the US is not listening. It wanted this war, and it foolishly believes that pursuing it to the bitter end is the way to go. And since, historically, it always needs an enemy to be able to function (see essays in QOV), once it is defeated in the Ukraine, it will simply pick another target (China, if Biden is stupid enuf). Which is called 'imperial overstretch', and is a gd way to take the country into the toilet; as happened in Rome.
All of this is short-cut observation on my part, of course, so let me refer you to the real experts, who can be found on YouTube: Scott Ritter, John Mearsheimer, Douglas Macgregor, Jeffrey Sachs, John Pilger...these are people who are not fooled by the bullshit endlessly put out by the NYT and other MSM. It's not hard to educate yourself on the subject, amigo. Por favor, do it.
mb
Thank you Doctor Berman
For any still confused about the seeming crazy behaviour of the United States re: the war in Ukraine (or Afghanistan, or China, or Iraq, or anywhere else), Julian Assange explains it here in 30 seconds:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/_IGU_7alJ80
As soon as you see the US draw things to a close in Ukraine, you'll know the grift is moving on to China. This is not to say the United States is not also insane. Even if the US believes Putin will never attack NATO, sheer paranoia (remember, the US has long had a nuclear first-strike policy) could lead to a launch. As Putin has warned repeatedly (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russia-colossal-risks-f16-ukraine-b2342646.html), F-16s can carry nuclear weapons, Russia must therefore ASSUME they are so armed when Ukraine deploys them in the months ahead. The US is simply gambling with all our lives because there's so much land, money, power to be had if somehow Russia falls over.
jmw-
In the immortal words of I.F. Stone: "Governments lie." He shd also have added, "So do the media, which function as lackeys to those governments."
Pol-
There are a # of reasons why America is almost constantly involved in war--
https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/595752-the-us-has-been-at-war-225-out-of-243-years-since-1776
--I see the most fundamental one as psychological--but surely, picking Russia or China as targets hasta be *the* most stupid, and most dangerous, thing we cd do. Note that I discuss the psychological angle in QOV; see also Denis Duclos, "The Werewolf Complex," and Gore Vidal's bk, "Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace." And underneath it all, America's belief that it can, and shd, rule the world. Hard to think of a more insane foreign policy, eh wot?
mb
This story embodies what Amerikkka is & always has been about. A poker player faked cancer 2 get donations 2 enter a world tournament. The victims have since been refunded. Just business as usual, eh?
https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/gofundme-refunds-donations-poker-player-admits-lying-cancer-103388707
It reminds me of another scam involving 2 guys that duped churchgoers in2 giving them $ for luxury cars they didn't have. One of 'em claimed 2 have been adopted by an exec named John Bowers, who left a sizeable inheritance. But "John Bowers" didn't exist either. The church ppl bankrolled the gambling dreams of the alleged adoptee. But they sure made the perfect target. After all, these were folks who believed there was a magic sky daddy lookin' out 4 em. Amerikkkans r ignorant degenerates who deserve 2 b exploited by such fraudsters
https://www.caranddriver.com/features/columns/a15136411/john-phillips-you-may-have-missed-your-chance-to-buy-a-miracle-car-column/
Dub-
They also need to be severely beaten, waterboarded, peed on (shoes), and then thrown on a dung heap, no?
mb
“You don’t want to mess with me. I’ll mess you up.”
“I don’t care that you’re sorry.”
“I don’t care that you’re crying.”
Yeah. A perfect example of your typical angry violent compassionless USAin in his own words.
https://www.wthr.com/article/news/local/victim-of-road-rage-attack-describes-incident-that-left-her-injured-with-scrapes-and-bruises/531-bee8ebbb-4e1b-442d-b750-0d93b54d148a
MB
In regard to the business of the US always being at war, there's also the book The United States of War, by David Vine:
https://www.amazon.com/United-States-War-California-Anthropology/dp/0520300874
He makes the same points as in that article, but, of course with a lot more detail and background. This book has probably been mentioned on this blog previously. That's probably how I found out about it.
Oh yeah, I made the mistake of trying mention the existence of this book to a couple of academic colleagues of mine, and you guess the result: They were dismissive and couldn't be bothered. Well, it was an experiment that came out exactly as I expected it would. And these are the people who imagine themselves as having open minds.
ccg-
There's also this:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1620977915/ref=ox_sc_saved_image_5?smid=ASZYD5P53U3II&psc=1
I taught at a # of universities during my academic career, and never found my colleagues particularly flexible, mentally or intellectually speaking. However, they may not have been more rigid than wokes, bubbas, and other mainstream folks. Check out my bk "Healing" for an explanation of this phenomenon (section on Transitional Objects).
mb
Joe McIlnen-
That dude got hoodwinked by the Amerikkkan "dream", like many others. I'd b pissed too.
MB-
The Candace Owens YT clip u addressed 2 Megan was gr8; I enjoyed it very much. The woes she lists off r par 4 the course in a country/empire that's overstretched itself. Of course Amerikkkans don't care about their own backyard. Of course they can't mind their own business, either. Amerikkka tries 2 compensate 4 its inner void w/ CIA-backed coups & pointless wars. I disagree w/ her saying China was a "threat", tho. It's a "threat" 2 Amerikkka's hegemonic delusions cuz they're actually intelligent & can get things done. I doubt they have 100s of worldwide military bases. Amerikkkans r hopelessly stuck in the past w/ this us-vs-them mentality.
P.s: I read the West View News essay u posted last wk. Glad u got mentioned:)
Greetings Wafers everywhere from Cascadia, I have some updates to offer on the ever busy U.S. empire while preparations are underway for the first symposium of the Buffoon Institute at local Evergreen College. First on my morning reading list was a new post by Seymour Hersh, offering more background on the U.S. sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines. Hersh said the scheme was originally intended as an act to deter Russia from intervening in Ukraine, but the war happened too quickly, and the CIA orchestrated the follow-through as a deterrent to Germany and other NATO allies backsliding on support for Project Ukraine in order to get resumption of needed Russian energy supplies.
But Europe isn’t the only venue keeping the DC Blobsters occupied. A report in today’s Naked Capitalism provides an updated look on renewed imperial attention to the Western Hemisphere, highlighted by the activities of a relatively new U.S. Army brigade called the “U.S. Security Force Assistance Brigade”, already active in Honduras and Panama, and soon in Uruguay, Ecuador, Peru, Guyana – US SOUTHCOMM is busy busy busy. Finally, the GSWH might have warned about the coming WOC (War on Chad) in jest, but a recent post describes the situation in Chad as a “pressure cooker waiting to explode”.
https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/a-year-of-lying-about-nord-stream
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2023/09/the-us-empire-strikes-back-in-latin-america.html
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2023/09/23/under-french-backed-military-ruler-mahamat-deby-chad-is-a-pressure-cooker-waiting-to-explode/
Further evidence of the USA's slide into irrelevance. Students in the US ranked below thirty six other countries in math scores. I like this quote from Prof. Stigler where he politely says that American students are dumb:
“The advances in technology that are going to drive where the world goes in the next 50 years are going to come from other countries, because they have the intellectual capital and we don’t,” said Jim Stigler, a psychology professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, who studies the process of teaching and learning subjects including math.
https://apnews.com/article/math-scores-china-security-b60b740c480270d552d750c15ed287b6
https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/pisa/pisa2018/#/math/intlcompare
Jason-
Also crucial is the fact that American students have no interest in learning. They actually regard learning as dumb!
Jack-
Gd info, thanks. Neat, to see the self-destruction of the US going into high gear. Am excited abt the Buffoon Institute, esp. keynote speech from Gisele Bundchen. Be sure to be careful abt length.
Satch-
War, cell fones, opiods, alcohol, suicide...anything to hide from the emptiness at the center. By the time I was 8 yrs old, I understood that I was a stranger in a strange land. I did not, however, anticipate that when I wd be 80, 99% of the country wd consist of violent buffoons. The notion of lvg in such a society fills me w/great horror.
mb
Meanwhile, the truth abt the Ukraine situation occasionally (i.e. once in a blue moon) does poke thru, esp. when the reportage comes from outside the American MSM. The following excerpts are from CNN:
-On the sidelines at the UN General Assembly, Polish President Andrzej Duda compared Ukraine to “a drowning person clinging to anything available.”
-In The Times of London this week, there was a dramatic report of growing threats of desertion, even rebellion by scattered Ukrainian troops, apparently fed up with corruption spreading through the ranks. The report came just as Zelensky is grappling with allegations of corruption in the military and beyond — earlier this month he sacked the defense minister, followed by the dismissal last week of six deputies.
-In the US, more than half of voters oppose any more aid to Ukraine.
[Me, now: No mention of the facts that Ukraine is no democracy, by a long shot; that a good part of its military (the Azov regiments) are neo-Nazis; and that US propaganda (and that of some of Europe) is promoting a myth, that this whole war is part of a worldwide struggle to preserve democracy. A # of countries outside of this sphere have sided w/Russia, because they see what Russia's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said a few days ago at the UN: This is a proxy war against Russia, using Ukrainian troops as 'fodder'. No shit. Meanwhile, we can only hope that the American universities that cancelled courses in Russian lit (such enlightenment from the higher ed sector) will restore them, and that Russian restaurants in the US will remove 'Beef Zelensky' from the menu and bring back Beef Stroganoff.]
We live in very stupid times; and yet the truth rt there, in front of our noses shining thru the bullshit.
mb
Amerikkka's ambassador 2 Japan had been taunting China from behind a screen. The W.H told him off like an insolent brat. Perhaps some1 could assign Kamala 2 take over babysitting duties 4 the White House juvvies. Cuz Schmiden is senile & toddlers need supervision, dontcha know?
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/20/white-house-told-us-ambassador-to-japan-to-stop-taunting-china-on-social-media.html/
Remember that old saying about glass houses & stones? This childish keyboard warrior shit is somewhat amusing. He represents a nation w/ an angry, trigger-happy populace, sky-high nat'l debt, rampant illiteracy, obesity, etc. Mr smartass should take a magnifying glass 2 the situation in Amerikkka. Pride comes b4 a fall
Fly-
Clearly, the man needs a heavy application of slapping and urine. The problem is, it won't lead him to any serious reflection on his behavior, because he's an American. Still, doing this might be enjoyable, and if Schmiden were willing to pay my airfare to DC, I'd be glad to come up there and hose the man down. But then, both he and Kamala and his whole pathetic administration need this treatment, and I have only so much urine to spare.
mb
Cahokia Jazz by Francis Spufford review – a ‘what if’ classic | Francis Spufford | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/sep/25/cahokia-jazz-by-francis-spufford-review-a-what-if-classic
In the spirit of Bring the Jubilee by Ward Moore this alt history supposes what 1922 America would be like had smallpox not wiped out the Native Americans.
I suspect this will be quite the Wafer novel, and I am so excited to read it! Required Reading Dept.!
Almeida-
This review is cut off after 2 paragraphs, and is pretty much useless. I did enjoy the novel by Ward Moore, however, when I read it yrs ago, in the Devonian Era. Or maybe it was in the Cenozoic, i.e. a bit more recently. (The Cenozoic Era began about 66 million years ago and consists of three periods: the Quaternary, Neogene, and Paleogene.)
mb
Wafers-
I'm guessing all of you are familiar with a show called "Judge Judy." These are court mini-dramas presided over by a judge named Judith Scheindlin, who is very astute, and also quite witty. Anyway, for some unearthly reason, I decided to watch reruns of these court cases on line.
OMG. Sometimes Judy bursts out laughing; at other times, her facial expression is saying, "Are you fucking kidding me?" For the truth is that these folks, plaintiffs vs. defendants, are for the most part absurd. They don't know how to behave in a court of law, typically screaming at each other; they often can't understand what Judy is saying to them; they are preoccupied with trivia, going to court over $150 or whatever, for things like "She sold me bad shampoo"; they are extremely petty; and they are, above all, stupid beyond belief. Of course, I am enjoying all this, because in the immortal words of Gore Vidal, "Stupidity excites me." Truth be told, a more accurate title for the show might be "Morons On Parade."
My God, how pathetic the American people are. I do wish Judy had the power to assign them to be slapped, and have their shoes peed on. I'm guessing that secretly, she wishes the same thing.
mb
ps: There is an old sci-fi meme, or conceit, that goes like this: When God made the universe, he needed a place to put people who didn't know how to relate to one another, or get along w/other people; so he designated the earth for this purpose. Which is why the people of the earth are endlessly killing each other, making war on each other, and so on. This meme is sometimes called The Lint Trap, or The Filter, because the earth acts as a kind of meshed drain or sieve that captures and collects such folks from all over the universe.
Now if I were to write a sci-fi novel (unlikely), I would amend this as follows: When God created the earth, he needed a lint trap to catch such people--in effect, the dregs of humanity--and he chose America. When you see a show like Judge Judy, you realize that this is in fact what God did. This program is the validation of this amended sci-fi meme.
One might think this should be read by all Americans and perhaps they might realize we are in a whole lot of trouble-
https://scheerpost.com/2023/09/26/is-world-war-iii-about-to-start-part-ii-are-the-military-industrial-complex-and-deep-state-driving-us-to-war/
But no, as my previous video of the grade school doing a video to worship a professional sports, the woman is the superintendent of the wealthy school district no less, our news is primarily sports related and lately all the buzz has been sports and pop star relationships. Endless stories about this bs-
https://www.kansascity.com/sports/spt-columns-blogs/for-petes-sake/article279799934.html
I've run into a number of these wealthy types who are all about their kids playing sports. They want them to get scholarships to play tennis or whatnot for college, always working the angles to get out of paying for something.
The hustling culture as you so accurately defined it determine how everything in our communities run like schools, development, state and as much of the national scene as they can. And they are the most clueless, flag waving, bullshitters just speeding our decline.
Harv-
1st off, words such as 'realization' or 'awakening' cannot be used in the same sentence with 'Americans'. This is an oxymoron. There will never, ever come a time when Americans wake up.
2nd, altho Richard Cook is rt abt the financial motivation for war, I believe there is a deep psychological motivation that is equally deep; as I discussed many yrs ago in some of the essays in QOV.
Finally, as far as the wealthy and elite go, they are trash. No more and no less.
mb
Here’s an item that could be filed under “No Wakeup Call”: U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg in 2021 asseted that the Chinese do not deserve a better life than Americans. Talk about dripping with exceptionalism and the notion of a Chosen People:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/04/09/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-and-secretary-of-transportation-pete-buttigieg-april-9-2021/
Jack-
This is why slapping and urine won't work. However, I believe Wafers wd *enjoy* administering this treatment to folks like Buttigieg, despite its ineffectiveness; wh/is reason enuf for it 2b done.
mb
I saw this interview about declining Western support 4 Ukraine. The 4:37 mark has a clip of Biden's mumbling & grumbling about Russian aggression @ some U.N. event in NYC. A couple folks in the audience looked bored, as the camera showed.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4W0YZ6D-ABU
Then there was this gem in the comment section about Biden:
"He is just an old dog that barks a lot but does not bite"
Indeeeeed
About Jack's post: Amerikkkans have a lower quality of life than some other industrialized nations, esp. Scandinavian 1s. So if Buttigieg REALLY thought they "deserved" the best, he'd call 4 their so-called leaders 2 do somethin' about it. Amerikkka's decline proves that it's subject 2 the same historical rhythm, & is NOT exceptional.
P.s, do u think Amerikkkans could @ least find Russia on a map? It's kinda hard 2 miss, y'know
Sven-
On one level it might be easy to pity Schmiden and America in general for being so pathetic, in its death throes and giving meaningless, dogmatic speeches. But when one considers the enormous cruelty that the US has visited on the world, and the destructive values it has distributed and promoted--it also is an "evil empire"--then pity doesn't come so easily. As I've said b4, when America comes crashing down, 80% of the world's population will be dancing in the streets. As of now, most of the world understands that the country is little more than a paper tiger. In the Twilight bk of 2000, I pointed out that we were evolving into a shell of our former selves, and that prediction proved to be correct. You listen to Schmiden, with his mechanical, formulaic delivery, and you know he's just beating off.
mb
ps: At some pt, Schmiden will stand b4 the world w/egg on face. For declinists, that will be a great day: a sick, destructive nation gets stopped, and humiliated. But Schmiden will spin the Ukraine disaster as a victory; and since 99% of the American public have shit for brains, they will cheer him. Then, we'll go on to the next war; Chad, perhaps, and Americans will forget all abt the Ukraine and run around waving anti-Chad flags. And so on. And the Abyss will loom, and by 2030 there will be very little left of the US to worry abt.
Oh surely not:
Scientists on panel defending ultra-processed foods linked to food firms | Food science | The Guardian
How cd this be?
This is a PHENOMENAL discussion on the East Palestine train derailment & crumbling Amerikkkan infrastructure. It had toxic chemicals onboard that spilled afterward. No accountability 4 the railway company. There was hardly a peep about it from the media. A video clip @ 8:49 shows a train going slowly along some old tracks that looked warped. Unsurprising 2 me is the fact of Chinese railways being run better. But later on the lady mentions seeing discarded drug needles in Philly's train stations.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Bf5QTEAbciU
If u compare Amerikkka 2 China, or even Scandinavia, it already is the 3rd world. Most of all, the ruling classes put it there & Amerikkkans went along w/ it.
Satch-
And why do you think Americans went along w/it? Take a wild guess.
mb
MB,
Just thinking about your post on scientist shilling for processed food made me think about the physicist Frederick Seitz. He was an accomplished condensed matter theorist, but he was also a lobbyist for the tobacco industry, a global warming denier, a supporter of Reagan's SDI (star wars) project, a supporter of the war in Vietnam, and no doubt involved in many other bad causes. He's the credentialed scientist to quote if one is a global warming denier, as I found out
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Seitz
His is prominently mentioned in a book called Merchants of Doubt. A real crud in my estimation, but no doubt a real American.
ccg-
Pls provide link for bk. Meanwhile, I'm thinking that Wafers shd collectively sponsor an essay competition. Essay shd be at least 5pp. long, single-spaced, and have as its title: "The degradation and debasement of American citizens led directly to the collapse of the American empire." We'll need to decide on a prize for the winning essay.
mb
MB,
Here's link to the book if I can post it now:
https://www.amazon.com/Merchants-Doubt-Handful-Scientists-Obscured/dp/1608193942
I may forget by tomorrow night.
Here's a short video that summarizes America.
Two young punks harass a random guy in the mall so they could get youtube views and likes for their prank channel. The guy takes out a gun and shoots one of them (he recovered). All the hustling, greed, selfishness, materialism, violence, shallowness, combined into a small clip. We should thank these three for this crash course on American culture.
GSWH might find this clip underwhelming though as it's a bit less violent than the daily doses we're used to in the US. Maybe Americans are getting more civilized after all!
Cherith-
For many years now, I have argued for a close relationship between the microcosm and the macrocosm. Individual Americans are degraded and debased, so the whole country is degraded and debased. Which finally leads to the collapse of the entire nation--an inevitable historical development currently in process. How cd it be otherwise? Hence we have:
D&D (Degradation and Debasement), resulting in
O&D (Onward and Downward).
An impt equation to put on a post-it on yr bathrm mirror.
The other thing to keep in mind in terms of an analysis of our situation is 'Sch', wh/is shorthand for beating off. 10 yrs ago, everyone was excited abt Brexit. I knew it was a pile of crap, a tempest in a teapot. So I said: All u hafta know is 'Brexit, Schmexit'. And I was rt. It amounted to 0 more than theater. Similarly, when Biden got elected, I said 'Biden, Schmiden', and esp., 'Kamala, Schmamala'. Just consider these GOP debates, for example. What do they amt to but sound and fury (tales told by idiots)? Biden is a senile doofus, Kamala is an empty bozo, the two of them accomplish 0, and America is going nowhere. So I guess we hafta add now:
America, Schmamerica
The MSM keep reporting on this and that every day, just as the Times of London kept reporting on Brexit every day. But the truth is that it's all wind. There is only one real headline that the NYT shd put out every day, and it's this: America Is Finished. Now *that* wd not be beating off.
mb
Foreignpolicy.com is the leading Pentagon mouthpiece. So Amerikkka is now in a soft-power competition w/ China that it "can't afford" 2 lose? AND there's an upcoming gov't shutdown?? If it's losing a soft power war w/ any1, it's Korea. The K-pop phenomenon has taken every1 by storm, & got 'em interested in learning Korean. Seen it myself
https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/09/29/congress-shutdown-us-china-ccp-soft-power-competition-biden-xi-jinping-beijing/
3rd para has that hackneyed line about the Taiwan Strait. Amerikkka is totally obsessed over the Indo-Pacific region, as it continues 2 sink. Remember when that Pittsburgh bridge collapsed when Schmiden was there? Could b a sign, dontcha think?
https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/28/us/pittsburgh-bridge-collapse/index.html
Megan-
Pls edit down to half a pg and re-send. Thanks.
Dub-
Thanks for the refs. Understanding our situation is fairly easy: we are a moronic country filled w/morons. (Or else a douchebag country filled w/douchebags.) One doesn't need to know much else, really.
mb
Here is a book recommendation from my recent reading:
https://www.amazon.com/Legacy-Ashes-History-Tim-Weiner-ebook/dp/B0010SIPZ8/ref=sr_1_1?crid=25L7P135FJ8MO&keywords=legacy+of+ashes&qid=1696106857&sprefix=legacy+of+ashes%2Caps%2C90&sr=8-1
Very well written and seemingly comprehensive. A nice record of seven decades of stumbling, bumbling and fumbling.
Speaking of "merchants of doubt," something has been on my mind lately. As you know from my posts on climate change (I recently recommended "The Sixth Extinction" and another book on the topic, though I forget the title at the moment), I'm pretty convinced that it is real. That said, what do you make of this guy, Chris Field? He is the one climate change dissenter--though not a "denier" per se--whom I've listened to, who really seems to have his shit straight and to know what he is talking about. If he is wrong, what is he mistaken about?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZq1A8hDBbs&t=4s (Even though I'm not a Sam Harris fan, for stuff like this, he is pretty good at asking the relevant questions. And Sam typically has an attitude of "deference to the experts," such as with the Covid vaccine.) And here is one more Field talk:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VxHFXy8Sb4
Megan-
Also relevant is this, wh/I may have already cited:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1620977915/ref=ox_sc_saved_image_5?smid=ASZYD5P53U3II&psc=1
As for the CIA (OSS, earlier): as a crucial arm (or enforcer) of US foreign policy, there are many reasons for it being a horrible disaster, but a major one is that our foreign policy has been delusional, and badly misguided, since 1946.
mb
Megan,
I actually listened to part of that Sam Harris interview with Chris Field a few weeks ago. He seemed to be minimizing the consequences of what would happen if 2.0˚C of warming were to occur. There was a recent paper in Science that looked at tipping points (https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abn7950?cookieSet=1); the authors say that "exceeding 1.5˚C could trigger multiple climate tipping points" and that “these changes may lead to abrupt, irreversible, and dangerous impacts with serious implications for humanity.”
If you want concrete examples of the impacts of global heating, see here:
https://www.carbonbrief.org/in-depth-qa-the-ipccs-sixth-assessment-on-how-climate-change-impacts-the-world/
-- Torreblanca
MB, I'm currently reading ur bk Neurotic Beauty. So far it's confirming the "neurotic" part of the earlier links I sent. Also this 1 about the Fukushima nuclearwater dumping:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/29/japan-fukushima-nuclear-powerplant-wastewater-release-second-batch
So not only do they get a chance 2 b a bankrupt hegemon, its citizens & neighbors also get 2 chow down on radioactive seafood. The dumping of this water was/is much protested by the Japanese & its neighbors. China banned sea products from there following this decision. "Neurotic" indeed
Fly-
Glad yr 'enjoying' the bk. I think my speculative conclusion may still hold, after all these yrs.
mb
Maher was absolutely ruthless this past Friday.
https://youtu.be/k5Whdg-XLUQ?si=gWEwerBIcdU1NBqC
The American left SHOULD be terrified that Biden's narcissism supersedes his cognitive decline. The man may not be able to tie his own shoes, but he KNOWS he wants to be president. Again.
Maher's been spot on about the Trump Show since the jump. He's right about this as well.
We're going to get Trump again, which puts us right on track to achieve America's 2030 goal of 'Total Decimation' per Dr. Berman's thesis.
Broken-
The list of horrors that will be part of the Trump admin is very long, and I don't need to list them here. But let me pt out 4 pluses:
1. Trumpi won't be playing nuclear brinksmanship w/Russia and China, and he may well ring down the curtain on the whole Ukrainian farce. This might also include detente w/Russia. (Not that he will read my bk on Russia, because Trumpi doesn't read.)
2. His presidency will bring America closer to its end, wh/is what is needed at this time, historically speaking. I keep talking abt 2030, but I wd certainly have no objection to 2026.
3. Trumpi will hopefully put an end to wokism. What form this will take, I have no idea; but wokism needs to be crushed like a roach. Perhaps he will round up all the wokes and put them in a detention camp in Idaho, in cages. Then the rest of us can stand outside those cages and point and laugh at them.
4. Most impt: we will never hafta hear from Kamala again. No small thing, that.
Anyway, jus' sayin'.
mb
MB,
I think "America, Schmerica" has a nice simple patter to it.
In other news, our gal Tulsi is wet with rapture, methinks.
"When we feel the pressure to conform to the insanity of a God-less culture driven by a totalitarian power elite, we must ask ourselves: who are we trying to please? Whoever we are trying to please, that is who we serve. God gives us free will to choose - will we serve Him, or will we serve those who seek to undermine our relationship with Him? We can't serve both."
https://twitter.com/TulsiGabbard/status/1708045218371817788
simba-
Well, I'm feeling a bit pedantic rt now. I suggest we say, "America, Schmamerica." Better rhythm. (What ever happened to the Hoodoo Rhythm Devils, BTW?)
2nd, Tulsi doesn't know the difference between who and whom. She makes this mistake 3 times. Why, then, shd we listen to anything she says? Why shdn't she be slapped? Also, is she hoping for a theocracy? If so, she also needs the Wafer Urine Treatment (WUT).
The country is drowning in morons.
mb
ps: And speaking of douche baguettes:
https://edition.cnn.com/style/miss-usa-2023-noelia-voigt-utah/index.html
RFK Jr. has set October 9 in Philadelphia for his announcement of an "independent" run for the presidency. Not clear yet if he will be wasting his time and money trying to get on ballots as an indie, which is one way the parties kneecap these kinds of insurgent runs. More likely he will run on the Libertarian ticket, which has indicated it would nominate him as their candidate, and is already in possession of ballot access in every state. RFK Jr. has also said he'd like Tulsi as his Secretary of State.
The problem with RFK Jr. from a Wafer perspective is that he wants to save the country, which is both impossible and undesirable:
RFK Jr. "Save the Date. Save The Country": https://youtu.be/ny8edJJPSZI
Secretary of State Tulsi: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/rfk-jr-floats-tulsi-gabbard-as-potential-secretary-of-state/ar-AA1dhcMX#image=1
Budget-
I'm delighted that Tulsi might become Sec'y of State, altho it's clear that it's a long shot. This candidacy is just more theater, more beating off, part of the larger theater/masturbation that America has become. I do wonder if RFK jr. might be interested in my 5-vol. study of Tulsism, however. ("Foundations of Tulsaic Thought")
mb
While it is amusing to watch presidential candidates argue with each other about how they will "save the USA", I don't think it really matters which person or party is in the White House. Ever notice how both Republican and Democrat presidents always make huge arms deals with the Saudis? Or how the pharmaceutical lobby funds candidates from both sides, so no matter who wins the election, big pharma is the real winner? (Many other industries do this too).
"The long history of U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia"
https://archive.thinkprogress.org/the-long-history-of-u-s-arms-sales-to-saudi-arabia-13aaa614a543/
"Which Industry Spends the Most on Lobbying?"
https://www.investopedia.com/investing/which-industry-spends-most-lobbying-antm-so/
Jason-
I doubt there's ever been a difference between the 2 political parties. In "The Pickwick Papers" (1837), Samuel Pickwick goes to the US and travels around. It's an election year; he's out somewhere in the Midwest, and campaigning is going on between the 2 parties. Some American jackass (redundant, I know) comes up to him and says, "Who are you voting for, Camerfield or Mandiboy?" Pickwick says, "I can't see that there's much of a difference." Of course, the American goes into a rage as a result.
It's all theater, all shadow boxing. FDR a socialist? Ha! Most historians will tell you that his historical role was to save capitalism. But Americans are so stupid, they cannot grasp the fact that both parties have promoted the same wars, and the same value system (imperialism, hustling, consumerism, etc.). In 1964, Barry Goldwater said he was going to offer America "a choice, not an echo." Sounds gd, but the victorious LBJ quickly got us mired in the worst foreign policy decision in American history; and of course, the GOP fiercely backed the war in Vietnam. Some choice!
The only real choice that ever existed in America (excepting folks like Lewis Mumford, Jimmy Carter, et al.) was the worldview and social organization of Native Americans, and America made every effort to crush those people. But they are the skeleton in our closet, and now karma comes knocking at the door. Too late, too late! The US destroys reality in favor of beating off.
mb
Anon-
Sorry, I don't post Anons.
mb
Sorry, Doctor. Slapping and tossing urine on the many dumb USAins shall not do the trick. We need everyone here in the wasteland to own a gun; blowing each other away expedites things! This true conservative USAin hero just may lead the way. I tell ya: Don’t underestimate this young diamond-in-the-rough. He definitely is on to bigger and better things. Maybe he even can be a part of Don Trump’s cabinet in 2025.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Cx6xhFHuTCj/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/willskipworth/2023/08/16/kyle-rittenhouse-launches-foundation-aimed-at-fighting-gun-control/?sh=725639a8757c
And for folks that can’t afford to buy a gun, a machete is the next best thing!
https://www.local10.com/news/local/2023/10/02/video-man-swings-machete-in-miami-springs-road-rage-incident/
U.S.A.!, U.S.A.!, U.S.A.!
It's well-established by now the exploitative nature of Amerikkka's so-called "health" care system. A 2019 study by the Amerikkkan Journal of Public Health showed that 58.5% of debtors said medical bills contributed 2 their bankruptcies. It totaled about 530,000 annual medical bankruptcies.
http://www.pnhp.org/docs/AJPHBankruptcy2019.pdf
But there's been a proposal 2 do away w/ debt on credit reports. Doesn't address the elephant in the room, though.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/personalfinance/medical-debt-could-be-banned-from-credit-reports/ar-AA1hAXOX
Y can't Amerikkka as a country follow some examples of the Nordic nations? Or even Canada? This is some sad shit, 4 a place that's always bragging about being "great"
Well,
At long last I’ve given up hope of leaving the country as financially it’s too hard. I don’t see that changing soon. So I’ve got a front row seat to 2024, which I suspect will be a disaster. Loss in Ukraine will not be handled well here. Those hoping to move in to attacking China are going to be so dissatisfied when they figure out Taiwan has no appetite to be an arena for US v China. My guess is that is when the disaster turns internal.
https://drb.ie/articles/there-will-be-blood-2/
Satch, Flab-
The worse, the better.
Many yrs ago Paul Fussell and Ronald Dworkin wrote (separately) that there wasn't a single institution in America that was not coated w/fraud.
Respected writers. 20 or so yrs later, we wd hafta say: not coated w/fraud; *wallowing* in it.
mb
Paul Krugman has been writing inane stuff for quite some time, but this:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/02/opinion/columnists/maga-republicans-ukraine.html
is a real standout in that regard. He apparently he thinks Ukraine is winning. Of course he does. He gets his "news" from the Times. But especially galling is his nuance-free claim that those of us who oppose what the US is doing over there amounts to a betrayal of Ukraine. Hmm. I guess using Ukrainians as cannon fodder in our proxy way with Russia isn't a betrayal?
Maybe there is some nuance in this essay. Maybe it's the insinuation that anyone opposing our policy is with Trump (MAGA) and sides with Putin. This is the kind of reasoning that was bandied about during the 60's and 70's towards anyone opposing the war in Vietnam.
There's not enough urine in the world to pour on Krugman's shoes.
ccg-
Agree w/u on the urine, but I'm wondering abt the effectiveness of slapping. Krugman is little more than a lackey, a mouthpiece.
That whole op-ed crowd at the Times is full of shit, and the NYT is little more than a propaganda sheet. Its basic function is to reassure the professional classes that all is well w/the US. They buy it. When the Ukraine is defeated, the Times will follow the gov't in spinning it as a victory. The Times readership will buy that as well. Hi-IQ dummies.
I have a vision. Trumpi wins the 2024 election, and closes down the Times. Wafers will go to the Times' offices, and help the cops throw out furniture, computers, etc. thru the windows down onto Times Square. Krugman et al. will be led away in chains, and be put in a dungeon, along w/Kamala, who will be laughing. Millions will cheer. She and the op-ed morons will be required to read my 5-vol. study of the philosophy of Tulsi from cover to cover. (Some of the pages actually have text printed on them.) Then all of them will be shipped out to some South Sea island, never to return, and never to be heard from again.
mb
Here's another NYT opinion good for a laugh, just look at the headline: "Americans Deserve Better From the House of Representatives"
No, the idiot populace voted these buffoons into office, so they are getting exactly what they deserve.
Hans-
Jesus, the blindness of these people. Hope you'll join us when Trumpi closes it down, and Wafers go up to the Times offices and throw furniture and computers down onto Times Square, and put the staff into dungeons, hose their shoes down, and then send them off to some remote South Sea island.
mb
I mentioned Russell Brand in my last post. Since he is in the news these days, let me make a few more comments. First, even though he is a Brit, he has an outsize popularity here in America. Listen to this and tell me he isn't the most vapid and vacuous person you've ever encountered. So shallow. It is like if you had a "New Age Spirituality App" and just plugged in a question, this is what would come out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNrMBH5OYsU&t=1s
His sociopathy, or at least his being on the Malignant Narcissist to sociopath spectrum, is evident in this old clip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNrMBH5OYsU&t=1s
Notice the grandiosity and the word salad type of speech, as well as the hollow eyes. Also, notice at 5:20 how he takes a trivial thing like referring to him as "him" instead of "you," and how he uses it to make everyone feel uncomfortable. Sociopaths delight in violating other peoples' boundaries like this. They don't feel the normal empathy that makes us feel uncomfortable when other people are uncomfortable. In fact, he tries to amplify their discomfort and delights in the result. I saw this clip ten years ago, and that was all I needed to peg him as either a malignant narcissist or a sociopath.
Buffoonette demonstrates the welcoming attitude toward foreigners for which Americans are known worldwide:
Interpreting the German language conversation between two tourists on a train bound for New York as somehow directed toward her, an obviously inebriated woman begins cursing one of the visitors, demanding that he leave the country. Unencumbered by any foreign language knowledge, a hallmark of the typical American, she must be restrained by her “backward-ball-cap-wearing” boyfriend**. When her employer sees the video later, she’s fired.
Read in TMZ: https://apple.news/AArAyKf_DRqeXVS2oeBw76A
**See George Carlin on the subject: https://youtu.be/oIk4RkjEOAc?si=GzAYDTT0mZMkTN3f
Jas-
1st, let me say that I love a gd buffoonette.
2nd, the apple link didn't work.
mb
GSWH:
My apologies for the Fehlschlag with the Apple link on the buffoonette. I found the following NY Post item—complete with supporting video—that should serve the same purpose. I hope this email to rectify my error does not infringe the 24-hour rule. Feel free to chastise me if it does.
https://nypost.com/2023/10/04/drunk-woman-chews-out-german-tourists-on-nyc-bound-train/
Mit den besten Empfehlungen
Jas-
Thank you. What a baguette.
mb
The words on the victim’s shirt in the top example are incorrect. They instead should say, “Have ‘Anger’ “ or “Have ‘Callousness’ “. Here are three more examples of typical USAin anger and callousness in action here in the Big Apple.
https://abc7ny.com/brooklyn-murder-ryan-carson-brian-dowling-arriagnment-suspect-identified/13871005/
https://abc7ny.com/central-park-tourist-attacked-bike-path-attack/13870503/
https://abc7ny.com/13871387/
A great “exceptional” society we certainly have here! U.S.A.!, U.S.A.!, U.S.A.!
Megan - Thanks for the clip. I've listened to a few other clips of Russell Brand and he reminds me of the New Age-y people Oprah used to fawn over on her show. They take a vague idea like "we're all spiritual beings" or "align with the present moment" and repeat it with some fancy sounding words thrown in that impress simple people. I'm thinking of people like Deepak Choprah, Eckhart Tolle, Bruce Wilkinson, and Gary Zukav. Anyone who takes religon and spirituality seriously can spot the BS artists a mile away. And you are corrct, they tend to be narcissists.
In one of his books Dr. Berman analyzes Oprah's role in the decline of the U.S. (Twilight of Amer. Culture, I think).
Eckhart Tolle
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JZdecMzaWY
Jason-
Oprah's "philosophy" is basically classical American conservatism/individualism: you hafta do it on yr own, and if yr poor, it's yr fault; you didn't have the rt 'attitude' or positive frame of mind. (She herself didn't do it on her own.) The flaw in this reasoning is that the playing field is not level. Telling a child w/Down's Syndrome, for example, to make it on his own is simply a form of cruelty. As is telling some poor black mother living in the ghetto w/2 kids, that she needs to "pull herself up by her bootstraps," when in fact she has no boots, metaphorically (or even literally) speaking. As in the case of Werner Erhard's 'est', it all boils down to the American ideology of rugged individualism, and the goal of this New Age 'spirituality' is actually money. Americans lap this crap up, of course.
For more on Oprah, check this out:
https://www.amazon.com/Oprah-Media-Power-Janice-Peck/dp/1594514690/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3C51PFEU8H3GK&keywords=janice+peck&qid=1696663795&s=books&sprefix=janice+peck%2Cstripbooks%2C252&sr=1-1&ufe=app_do%3Aamzn1.fos.006c50ae-5d4c-4777-9bc0-4513d670b6bc
mb
Regarding Brand, sorry, but I posted the same clip twice. This second one is very instructive though, so check it out. Incidentally, I stole most of this analysis from a very smart and perceptive woman on a site devoted to sociopaths, close to ten years ago. I think she was spot on. And she picked it all up from this sole interview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDCtFTyw6fI&t=430s
First, notice Brand's overall grandiosity and vacuity, and how he has to dominate the conversation and even the physical space. Then at 5:20 notice how he takes "mock offense" over Mika referring to him in the third person. Actually, Mika was being overly deferential. He is a flaming douchebag! Yet read the comments, they love him! But the point that this woman made is that sociopaths (and people on the spectrum) always try to violate your boundaries. This is what Brand is doing. He makes her and everyone else very uncomfortable. Empathetic people will go out of their way to try and alleviate that. He amplifies it though, and then amplifies it some more, positively delighting in it. Though Mika might look "silly" her reaction is the reaction of a normal empathetic person in the face of a predator: Befuddlement. Her unconscious mind senses it at least.
Anyhow, I thought this woman was very insightful. Learning to see the subtle "pink" flags before the real red flags is crucial in America. Before it comes to this:
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/sep/16/russell-brand-accused-of-sexual-assault-and-emotional-abuse (Everyone deserves a fair trial. But this is a lot of smoke for there to be no fire.)
Food for thought dept.:
https://www.noemamag.com/what-comes-after-liberalism/
For a discussion of a better political organization than what we (or Russia, or China) have now, check out the 2nd story in my collection, "The Heart of the Matter."
mb
BH-
In general, we don't care to broadcast opinions. After all, anyone can have an opinion. So what? What *does* interest us is evidence: links, reliable refs, and so on, provided to substantiate an argument. Pls try to do this in future. Thank you.
mb
So we got the Palestinians giving the Israelis a fair beating... but of course some asshole Amerifoon has got to get his two cents in...
"Tourist Smashes ‘Blasphemous’ Roman Statues Citing Jerusalem Syndrome as Defense"
https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/roman-statues-israel-0019506
10 months 'till I get Social Security. Mexico is closer every day.
https://abc13.com/houston-janitor-urinates-in-water-bottles-employees-infected-with-stds-lucio-diaz-charged-civil-lawsuit-filed/12737788/
“Lucio Diaz is charged with indecent assault and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. The deadly weapon being his bodily fluids containing Herpes Simplex 1 Virus, according to law firm Abraham Watkins.”
This man has infected roughly 13 women with Herpes for what purpose other than to knowingly harm someone. Granted, a true American uses bullets and guns ‘em down in the street like dogs. But Lucio Diaz in Houston remarkably may have earned a place in Wafer hall of fame.
Now I do feel sorry for those innocent women. They did nothing to deserve this.
I tell you what, Fuck Israel. I am not in favour of harming civilians in any military operation, but, when israelis do everything they can to piss off arabs daily (such as https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97kZGloEsdc), you can't be surprised at this kind of response. In any case, guess what the beacon of liberty decided to do. Some more war mongering of course.
https://news.sky.com/story/israel-gaza-latest-hamas-fighters-on-the-ground-after-5-000-rockets-fired-jerusalem-attacks-gaza-strip-targets-and-calls-up-reserves-12978800?postid=6553121#liveblog-body
french-
Here's what no one except the Palestinians seem to understand: when you throw people off their land, they are not just going to quietly go away. Instead, you have sown the seeds of endless conflict. Who are the real terrorists here? If the Arabs had done something like this to the Jews, the Jews wd be involved in endless retaliation, w/whatever weapons they had at hand. And the MSM can be counted on to broadcast an upside down version of reality. CNN's headline has been: ISRAEL AT WAR. They wd never run a headline like: PALESTINIANS AT WAR.
Krak-
Wrong target for urine. Pity Sr. Diaz was not janitor at the W.H., or on Wall St.
mb
Blog participants & perhaps lurkers already know about Amerikkka's neglected infrastructure. Wanna c proof of it? In this vid, Amtrak workers take down icicles from a leaky underground train tunnel in NY. Other fun stuff include news clips covering delays, train electricity issues , & rotting bridges that need touching up.
From a declinist POV, this stuff makes 4 popcorn-worthy viewing
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EdvJSGc14xA
Wafers-
A headline in today's NYT:
NEWS ANALYSIS
"A Shaken Israel Is Forced Back to Its Eternal Dilemma.
The attack by Hamas forces Israel once again to confront the conflict that has haunted it since the creation of the modern state."
Can anyone access this article? (I cdn't) I'm curious as to what the NYT regards as the conflict that has haunted Israel. To my mind, the skeleton of displacing 700,000 people is rattling in the closet (the Native Americans are the skeleton rattling in the US closet; much more violent, of course). What the Jews did in 1948 was establish their own state-based identity by depriving an entire population of *its* identity. (See Ilan Pappe, "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine") This wd be an 'Eternal Dilemma' indeed. It makes Israel, imo, a state based on shaky--some wd say fraudulent--foundations. I can't imagine the NYT admitting this, quite frankly. Am I wrong?
mb
MB,
By putting the title of that article into a Google search I was able to come up with it:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/08/world/middleeast/israel-hamas-gaza-analysis.html
I could open this. If you have trouble opening it, just do what I did, and I think you'll be able to get it.
MB,
If what I just sent you fails, let me know your email address and I can do a copy and paste.
ccg
The U.S. military is sending navy ships closer to Israel. Are they going to skip Chad and Taiwan? And go to the Middle East again. I hope not. I would love to see Americans in the South China Sea fighting China. Like you said this would be good for declinist.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna119385
ccg-
Nope. All links led back to the NYT, wh/has a paywall that I don't care to pay. My email: mauricio@morrisberman.com.
The Guardian's 'analysis' of the uprising is that there was a failure of Israeli intelligence. Not what the Jews did to the Arabs in 1948; oh no, let's not factor that in. Meanwhile, there is worldwide condemnation of Hamas. This reminds me of worldwide condemnation of Russia, for defending its borders. Has the whole world gone nuts? Is everyone going to pt to superficial causes, and ignore the basic ones? Reality has been turned on its head.
mb
Wafers-
ccg sent me the NYT article, wh/came as a surprise. The Times article is not focused on the general b.s. that the uprising was the result of faulty Israeli intelligence. Instead, consider these excerpts:
“Israel has not…moved beyond the conflict that has haunted it since the creation of the modern state in 1948: the claims of two peoples, Jewish and Palestinian, to the same narrow strip of land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River.”
“Its wealth, vibrant start-up culture and increasing acceptance in the Middle East could not forever mask a fundamental Israeli instability.”
“The status quo was never really that. It incubated bloodshed by institutionalizing the steady advance of Israeli control over the more than 2.6 million Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Israel’s stranglehold on encircled Gaza, where another estimated 2.1 million Palestinians live.”
“If there is one lesson of this,” said Diana Buttu, a Palestinian lawyer living in Haifa, “it is not that this was a security failure. It was a failure on the part of the world to address the conflict.”
[No shit. How long is Israel, the US, and much of the rest of the world going to ignore the fundamental historical and existential conflict that will not go away until the core reality—the Jewish expulsion of 700,000 Palestinians from their homes in 1948—is not merely addressed, but atoned for in a meaningful way. The victors in a conflict of this sort conveniently tend to forget what really happened ; the losers never forget.]
mb
The difficulty in getting to the NYT article was ultimately resolved.
Some time back, one of the Wafers pointed out a method for getting behind paywalls. Go to the website spaywall.com. Insert the address you want to get to in the search box you see. If that gets you to where you want to go, you’re set.
If it doesn’t/can’t, click on the GOOGLE CACHE button you see; that will use the address you inserted in the search box to go to Google storage (cache) and give you the story you’re after.
I just tried this with the NYT story. It worked.
Dr. B and others: Is the Hamas war, maybe along with Ukraine, a sign that nations, militias, etc are starting to smell blood in terms of weakness of the US, as in its problems at home are starting to greatly limit its ability to project force around the world?
I feel like the response would have been more drastic 20 years ago:
https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2023/10/us-moves-ford-carrier-strike-group-to-eastern-mediterranean/
Flabster - you are correct, the US military is getting weaker. The USA is like Sears and Roebuck was in 1990- a former powerhouse that's past its prime but stubbornly refuses to acknowledge that the world has changed.
"Nearly 2 decades of conflict has degraded U.S. military readiness. To adapt to growing threats posed by major powers (such as China and Russia) and other adversaries, the Department of Defense (DOD) and the individual military services must make some urgent changes."
https://www.gao.gov/military-readiness
"The service has failed to meet its recruiting goals two fiscal years in a row, resulting in the smallest active-duty force since 1940. The number of active-duty troops has dropped from 485,000 in 2021 to around 452,000."
https://news.yahoo.com/army-revamps-recruiting-face-enlistment-181706891.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sears#Decline
Queen of the warmongering neoliberals Hillary Clinton—who like a bad case of herpes just never goes away—is confronted and asked to condemn Genocide Joe Biden's flirtations with armageddon via his $106 billion Israel/Ukraine/Taiwan MIC Christmas bonus budget request. Needless to say it gets very testy, to the point where Hillary says (threatens?) "I'll meet you outside... You're done!"
Personally, I'm not sure how comfortable I'd be starting my car in the morning after Hillary tells me I'm done:
https://rumble.com/v3rhoxa-sit-down-and-shut-up.html
Budget-
I agree that Hillary needs to be beaten severely and then thrown on a dung heap. But in future, pls send messages to most recent post; no one reads the old stuff. Thank you.
mb
Post a Comment
<< Home