479
Wafers-
posted by Morris Berman at 7:11 AM
183 Comments:
U can get a sense of the sorry state of things from posters on walls, lampposts, etc. I saw one that said:
“Overdose deaths are a policy failure”
I doubt “policy” is forcing Amerikkkans to OD. Seems more like a character failure 2 me. There's also conflicting reports about whether or not Oregon's drug decriminalization led 2 more overdoses.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/03/oregon-drug-decriminalization-failed/677678/
https://www.opb.org/article/2023/09/27/oregon-drug-decriminalization-measure-110-overdose-deaths/
Hello Dr. Berman,
No comment today, just a question. Would you visit DC today?
It is up for discussion as a vacation destination.
Vince-
? Where is it up for discussion? Do u have a link?
mb
And the scumbag is Jewish (and much more relevant, American):
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/19/jared-kushner-gaza-waterfront-property-israel-negev
In regards to Oregon overdose article - it's sad that some dismiss drug-users as people without character; it sounds like a 1950s sound bite, before there was any medical or societal understanding of addiction. Statistics point to the fact that overdoses are going up everywhere, which causes people to conflate the rise in overdoses to drug legalization, although facts don't necessarily bear it out. The Oregon article also notes the extremely harmful impact of arrest and incarceration on drug use -- without a doubt arrest exacerbates addition. Still, legalization not a panacea.
It may be more useful to look at drug use/abuse as a symptom of living in a sick and decaying society. Jobs without meaning, people treated like disposable commodities, lack of social safety net or health care, stagnant wages/soaring costs, failing democracy, lack of hope for the future, the worship of technology-- a soulless, disconnected society being fed lies and garbage 24/7, i.e. a toxic culture. It would be a shock if overdoses weren't rampant.
Not condoning reliance on drugs; I just think it is more useful to look at the larger perspective. Article below regarding stigmatism. Food for thought.
https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2014/study-public-feels-more-negative-toward-people-with-drug-addiction-than-those-with-mental-illness
Molly, Satch-
My own take on this issue is that the core problem is the American Dream and the American Way of Life. Our culture puts enormous pressure on Americans to succeed, to be special/outstanding, to be rich, to have celebrity status, and so on (check out a Ben Stiller movie called "Brad's Status", e.g.). At its core, it's an empty culture, and drugs become a way of blowing off steam, and/or of filling the void. Crime in Mexico, for example, is mostly the result of rival narcotraficante gangs, but such gangs wdn't exist down here if the American demand for these drugs weren't so great. (Ditto, the Colombian manufacture of the drugs) And then, let's expand the word 'drugs' to include alcohol, TV, cell fones, opioids, religious fundamentalism, workaholism, etc. and etc. Not unrelated is an escalating suicide rate. The entire culture is a "character flaw," in other words; it is based on competition, not on community or mutual support (what has been called the "kinship worldview"). For more on the subject, check out my bk "Healing," wh/might possibly provide a remedy on the individual level, at least. (My "Crisis" book tries to tackle the issue on the social level.)
Anyway, important discussion.
mb
Hello Mr. Berman,
“An Ohio woman whose toddler died after she left her alone for more than a week while she went on vacation was sentenced to life in prison”
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/ohio-mother-left-toddler-alone-went-vacation-sentenced-childs-murder-rcna143983
How disgusting is this.. no words to describe such evil act..
Can you expect anything like this anywhere else except the great USA.
Nam-
America is chock full of wonderful people. Check out Crystal Walraven.
mb
Russia isn't lying down how the head morons in charge want. It's “dodging sanctions”.
https://www.politico.eu/article/russia-find-way-around-sanctions-battlefield-tech-report/
From what I read, sanctions just make a nation turn inwards & become more self-reliant. Amerikkka has bigger fish 2 fry, like its RAGGEDY bridges
https://turnto10.com/news/washington-bridge-closure/leaked-washington-bridge-report-explores-possibility-collapse-transportation-department-ridot-engineering-beams-westbound-february-23-2024
But instead it's clinging 2 a unipolar order that's long gone
Wafers-
Let's talk abt "Dual Process," then:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/mar/20/a-mecca-for-rewilders-the-community-led-project-restoring-scotlands-southern-uplands
mb
ps: And here's a shock:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/20/world-happiness-report-happiest-countries
https://www.kxan.com/news/local/austin/round-rock-mother-arrested-for-child-abandonment/
Here is the Crystal Walraven link. Also left her baby to die because she wanted to spend a week at the beach with her boyfriend. Must be trending, not much more I can say than that.
However, I bring this up because: the reason the authorities were able to intervene while the baby was still (barely) alive was because of a TEACHER. Yes, a teacher took an offhand comment from the 10 yr old brother seriously and reported it to the police, who went to the home. It seems that teachers, in addition to teaching and raising kids that parents can't be bothered with raising, are also responsible for keeping the little babies at home alive as well. It's heartening that a teacher cared, but sad that it's come to this. (Yet, you will notice that when teachers ask for a cost of living raise to keep a roof over their heads, there is such moral outrage.)
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/u-s-share-of-global-economy-over-time/
Since 1975 the US has maintained its share of global GDP at about 25%. The drop in share previous to that was due to the inevitable recovery of European and Japanese industrial production after WW2. I wish it weren't so, but I do not see anything interrupting this level of economic power, and without it, there’s little hope for a near-term dramatic collapse that might open the way for an alternative system with better values.
Sadly, most of the events that you and your commenters list as evidence of decline (guns, drugs, wars), our capitalist overlords see as profit-producing victories. They are signs that their system is working not failing. All true capitalists celebrate and embrace human degradation as profit-making opportunities. I believe that this attitude (inherent to capitalism) was and is behind the criminal delay in taking action to reduce the catastrophic heating of this planet, which they own.
Gloucon-
You cd be rt; only time will tell. I cd give you a list of factors "interrupting this level of economic power," but I'm going to leave it to other Wafers to do that, for now.
(However, check this out, for starters: https://tass.com/world/1561887)
mb
Hello Dr. B,
I would like to respond to Gloucon's comment. A lot of what Americans spend money on, both on the micro and macro levels, are feel-good trinkets to maintain the illusion of status quo. To prop up this failing scheme, we are in debt to the tune of $34 trillion dollars. Note that this figure does not include state, local and individual debt. This debt costs every single American $100,000. Considering that most US citizens don't have enough in the bank to pay for a car repair, don't look for America to stand good on its debt. I have a little money in the bank, but I don't want to donate what little I have to a corrupt, warmongering empire. An economist in one of the articles below notes: "the bottom line is there is no free lunch, and I think the outlook is pretty grim.”
https://fortune.com/2024/01/02/us-national-debt-hits-record-34-trillion-congress-funding-fight/
https://www.fool.com/the-ascent/research/average-savings-account-balance/
That story about the little baby being left behind while mom went on vacation breaks my heart. My grandfather was abandoned by his biological parents when he was five. He and his brother survived but their little sister died. A few years before his death my grandfather suffered dementia but when he came over for Saturday dinner (he was in the nursing home now) he would always ask to take some food home to give to his little sister who was starving.
Aljazeera is doing a documentary on the influence of evangilical Christians on the US policy in the mid east. Two episods are out and it's pretty good.
https://youtu.be/IhT7oyDlBIk?si=MltqSmWn469nLu5Y
https://youtu.be/_iQhbcOgfqw?feature=shared.
I'd like to also comment on the fact that Americains cannot see the décline. I recently remembered an anecdote that happened to me before Reading any of Dr. Berman's Books, or any declinist book. About a decade ago I was in a meeting with some friends and their friends, at one point we were talking politics and I made a comment about how the US is done for, which was ridiculed. But it was so obvious to me even thought I didn't have the argument for it. I believe that people come to the declinist position not because of an argument, but because of a felt sense that for which books represente the verbal articulation. Americans have no feelings, thus they cannot see what is obvious. Or like the proverb Ininvented, "A blind man can't see even if you light a flashlight straight into his eyeballs"
french-
I hope the documentary will be called "The Degradation of the Buffoons." This title also applies to the friends you mention.
mb
Biden Schmiden just had a live event where he talks about plans 2 build semiconductor chip plants in Arizona, Ohio & other places. He wants 2 “invest in Amerikkka”. And King Tut shall rise from his tomb
https://thehill.com/video-clips/4544750-biden-delivers-remarks-on-investment-in-america-watch-live/
Amerikkka is far too broken 4 anybody to “invest” in it. Some1 on an old post commented about how it cooks up a grandiose plan that usually gets abandoned @ some pt. Stick a fork in that pig
Rancid bag of douche fluid:
https://www.spaywall.com/news/https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/21/kyle-rittenhouse-speech-memphis-university-protests
Hey dub alchemist- I read about the Arizona chip plant Biden is touting. It’s a joke jut like the Foxconn LCD plant that trump promised to be built in Wisconsin when he was president. It’s not going to go anywhere but the government cronies will get rich. Foxconn promised $10 billion in investment and 13 thousand jobs created . But only invested $672 million and created 1400 jobs. But they received billions in subsidies.This is just another example of welfare for the rich. When this happens In third world countries the media calls it kleptocracy.
https://reason.com/2021/04/21/foxconn-finally-admits-it-wont-create-13000-jobs-in-wisconsin/
Mo-
Check out a clip Bill Maher did abt a yr ago, called "Dumb-merica." It deals w/stuff like this, compares it to the efficiency of the Chinese. Unfortunately, he failed to use the word 'buffoons', wh/explains a lot of American fuckups. Americans are not able to see that the country is a joke, because *they* are the jokes!
mb
One of the greatest scumbags in the history of the world:
https://edition.cnn.com/videos/politics/2024/03/22/gerry-connelly-jared-kushner-gaza-waterfront-max-vpx.cnn
Truly horrifying footage from an Israeli drone, attacking four civilians, willing two and then hunting the survivors.
https://youtu.be/26PXnP054XA?feature=shared
Other drone footage shows Israel spying on Al Jazeera journalists moments before bombing them (they killed one and injured another, claimed it a mistake)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/03/19/gaza-journalists-killed-israel-al-jazeera-footage/
But I guess these are not proofs of anything, pretty much like every other footage and report. Because it's not from a western news outlet, and non-western journalists are unable of reporting objective news and can't be trusted, like always.
There's all kinds of stories now of crooked docs getting nabbed for underhandedly prescribing opiates. A Tennessee practitioner got a hefty sentence 4 handing out opiates for his gain. He should b applauded for helping 2 put Amerikkka out of its misery. Hooray for crooked pill peddlers!
https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/rock-doc-sentenced-tennessee-nurse-practitioner-gets-20-years-for-illegally-prescribing-opioids
On March 8, a US court convicted former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández of drug trafficking—but while in office, he was treated as a steadfast US ally in the war on drugs. We are such a detrimental presence to the Global South.. I wonder why Honduras has had such a tough time? Hmmm
Juan David Rojas latest:
https://www.compactmag.com/article/how-america-propped-up-a-narco-state/
Further:
https://theintercept.com/2017/08/29/honduras-coup-us-defense-departmetnt-center-hemispheric-defense-studies-chds/
Georgia-
Assessing the US situation is not very difficult. Pls post these 3 rules on a post-it on yr bathrm mirror:
1. The US gov't is completely full of shit.
2. Americans are clueless buffoons.
3. The country does not have a viable future, but it does have a dark one.
In terms of political analysis, that's really all u need to know.
mb
A Fish Called Wanda was one of the greatest takedowns of the Ugly American in cinematic history, IMO.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2j3adcbEwSM
I doubt many Americans understand this, but the Otto character's obsession with Friedrich Nietzsche is only matched by his complete misunderstanding of Nietzsche's writing. Otto is a moron moving 100 mph. with no intellect 'behind the wheel'.
Y'know, kind of like the average American who sees himself as the ubermensch, but doesn't realize that the rest of the world is laughing at his aggressive ignorance.
Such a great country, Israel:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/23/israel-killing-children-west-bank
mb
I read a book a while back called "The Flip," by the well-known scholar, Jeffrey Kripal. As an intro to one of its chapters, it had a quote from the following essay, which I found amusing and clever:
https://www.bing.com/search?pglt=41&q=sam+kriss+village+atheists&cvid=f6377227050d47a99111c7b665c38243&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIGCAEQABhAMgYIAhAAGEAyBggDEAAYQNIBCDUyOTBqMGoxqAIAsAIA&FORM=ANNTA1&DAF1=1&PC=HCTS&daf1=1&ntref=1
The writer compares the dogmatic and belligerent New Atheists with the Hegelians of the 19th century, in that they are both apologists for the status quo. There is something to that, I think. At any rate, The Flip is a good book for those interested in things like psychedelic and mystical experiences, NDEs, and so forth. Kripal throws several names of current thinkers, such as the Neo-Idealist philosopher, Bernardo Kastrup and Federico Faggin (For those interested, Bernardo has a lot of good talks on YouTube. He is a very stimulating thinker.) But mainly I just wanted to pass on the essay, which I thought was a pretty clever and well-done takedown of Neoliberalism and its outspoken proponents!
Someone was caught trying 2 smuggle fentanyl in a ride-sharing car driving from Mexico. Amerikkkans are risking all to access those sweet, sweet opiates that's now harder 2 get @ home. Gotta suppress their inner void somehow;)
https://abcnews.go.com/US/us-citizen-arrested-crossing-border-back-america-mexico/story?id=107709358
This is gd:
https://www.theguardian.com/global/2024/mar/24/we-think-loneliness-is-in-our-heads-but-its-source-lies-in-the-ruin-of-civil-society
Also see Jonathan Haidt's new bk on smartfones badly hurting American children.
Everywhere ya look, we're fucked.
mb
Updated world happiness stats now has Amerikkka & Germany knocked outta the top 20 for happiest countries.
“Taking their place were Costa Rica and Kuwait at 12 and 13 respectively, while Serbia, Bulgaria and Latvia reported the biggest increases in happiness”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/finland-ranked-world-s-happiest-country-for-seventh-year/ar-BB1kcX6I
These surveys are evaluated by such factors like GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom, generosity, etc. Amerikkka sure as hell isn't big on generosity OR social support. No surprise that the happiness of its ppl would b in the dumpster
Dub-
How the heck did it manage to get into the top 50?
m
Wafers-
Here's a breakthru: apparently Israel is trying to destroy the Palestinians. Gee, who woulda thunk it?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/25/israel-gaza-un-rights-expert-arms-embargo-genocide
Meanwhile, take note of the fact that the courts are trying to make things easier for Trump:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/25/trump-fraud-bond-deadline
Standing up for democracy, eh wot?
mb
ps: UK courts, different. Here's a temporary blockage of American buffoonage/violence:
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/26/uk/julian-assange-us-extradition-appeal-intl-gbr/index.html
ps2: Baltimore bridge collapses, sending people and cars into the water. American infrastructure is for shit, and its sad condition can be seen as symbolic of the larger national collapse, w/o too much of a stretch. Name of bridge: Francis Scott Key. Name of composer of our national anthem: you guessed it.
Why spend $ on infrastructure when we can send it to assist in the Israeli genocide of the Pals, and the futile efforts of the corrupt, Nazi-infested Ukraine?
Go, Boebert!
The bridge collapsed because it was hit by a giant ship - let's not spread fake news.
Young Americans voted their happiness to 62nd place: The United States fell from 15th in 2023 to 23rd in this year’s World Happiness Report, which was released Wednesday to mark the United Nations’ International Day of Happiness. The country’s results varied dramatically among different age groups, however, with young people under age 30 ranking 62nd out of 143 countries for happiness, while U.S. adults age 60 and above ranked 10th. https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2024/03/20/us-world-happiness-report-youth/ Young are totally unhappy and they have no clue this is just the beginning. My neighbor in the village is American and she has a 17-year-old daughter who is going to study High School in Flagstaff, Arizona. Her dream is to become a politician. She believes America is still the land of opportunity and you can achieve anything in America. Her parents left the US when she was 4 years old and they lived in Turkey, Japan, and Bali. But they learned nothing and still brainwashed their daughter into believing America is the land of opportunity. Despite Americans living abroad, they don't learn a thing. American propaganda is strong. Oh, and she hates everything about Spain's culture, education, and government. America is still better for them. Especially, they cannot stand the education in Spain because they teach them facts and know the facts. America is so much better with just essay writing and BS through the school, who needs to learn or memorize anything when you can just google it. And why in Spain kids are writing cursive if they can just type? When I tell them American education is no education at all, they laugh at me. I just don't understand anything. How AMericans can be so stupid and ignorant?
MB,
Some morons are asking WHY it collapsed how it did, as if they don't already know;) This the "wonder" of Amerikkkan infrastructure now. A severe case of head-up-rump syndrome
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/why-did-francis-scott-key-bridge-collapse-so-catastrophically-it-didnt-stand-a-chance/ar-BB1kz6Eh
Palinka-
Wd a better-built bridge have been able to withstand the collision? Not entirely clear. Also, what I said abt decaying infrastructure across the country is well-known.
Liv-
In addition to a Happiness Index, we need a World Buffoon Index (WBI). How wd the US rank on that, do ya think? Why don't yr neighbors return to America?
mb
"the spiritual warfare worldview carries with it the potential to warp a person’s understanding of our shared existence, providing a free pass to ignore observable evidence, which has become a real problem in the age of gaslighting, alternative facts, and “doing your own research.” https://religiondispatches.org/new-research-suggests-that-belief-in-demons-may-help-explain-christian-support-of-trump/
Perhaps the manichean worldview that is at the heart of Americans' relations w the rest of the planet colors our strange affinity (in love and hate) for Mr Trumpi. What a weird spiritual emptiness exists in such a religious country!
Greene-
I take it you are not the Marjorie Taylor Greene of Jewish space-laser fame. The problem w/the article you cite is that the author fails to use the words 'douchebags' or 'buffoons', wh/I think wd be crucial for this discussion. After all, Americans will believe literally anything.
mb
ps: Here is an excellent example of douchebags/buffoons in action:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/26/biden-gaza-strategy-criticised-israel
What cd be more stupid, or more destructive?
ps2: Meanwhile, this is the sort of thing Americans are concerned about (they too, not just the gov't, are douchebags and buffoons):
https://www.spaywall.com/news/https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/26/gwyneth-paltrow-letting-her-hair-down-a-lot-to-learn
Why would anyone give a shit as to the smell of her vagina, or who was at the Met Gala, or--(etc.)?
If you have yet to put a post-it on yr bathrm mirror, try this one:
HEADS RAMMED IN RUMPS
Doctor,
There's only one way to fix our crumbling infrastructure, cure the opioid crisis, eradicate homelessness, and reduce crime-send more money to Israel.
Dan-
Yes, an obvious solution, wh/I think Schmiden will do while condemning Netanyahu, who doesn't give a Hebrew turd what Schmiden says. Another equally valid possibility wd be to develop an anti-buffoon vaccine. Wafers wd then go door to door, inoculating the American public.
By the way, the Hebrew word for turd is tzoah.
mb
More information on the Baltimore bridge collapse, and the status of US infrastructure:
https://www.spaywall.com/news/https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/26/baltimore-bridge-condition-up-to-code-supersized-ships
Could that “Palinka” moron from yesterday have been a disgruntled Wafer or a troll w/ no reading comprehension? Idk how your comment on Amerikkka's shitty infrastructure was “fake news”. It's well documented, & it's not just the bridges that r done for
https://wsvn.com/news/local/broward/crews-work-to-repair-water-main-break-in-fort-lauderdale-2/
Satch-
Not really a moron. S/he just wanted to point out that the bridge was struck by a ship. However, s/he overlooked the possibility of structural problems w/the bridge, wh/are now being investigated. An honest mistake, really.
mb
On the matter of the bridge. We often draw analogies between the decline of the US and the decline of Rome, but I see it unfair for Rome. I live in a place where are some Roman ruins, and I've been around the mediterranean where there are plenty of Roman building, roads, etc. Most are in a good condition, some are still working or workable: roads, some aqueducts... And they all were operating centuries after Rome has fallen. The US infrastructure however have been in shambles for decads, and there is some soul in the US still.
Moreover, Greece and Rome, after a thousand years of their ruin, served as the seed of the renaisssance. The only thing the US can be the seed of is Armageddon.
Freud knew “The present cultural state of America would give us a good opportunity for studying the damage to civilization which is thus to be feared.”
Amidst a barbaric, genocidal admin, and a war criminal president, there are only a very few folks who wd qualify for Bill Maher's "cojones" awards. Here's one of them:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/27/state-department-resignation-gaza-biden-policy
Schmiden, the gutless wonder, wants to have it both ways: semi-condemn Israel in the UN, while supplying arms to Israel under the radar. The bottom line is that the US, and Israel, are the epitome of evil.
Mass shootings may now have competition here in the U.S.A.!, U.S.A.!, U.S.A.! Perhaps the newest thing is mass stabbings.
https://apnews.com/article/rockford-stabbing-mutiple-fatal-wounded-5d454ca27b95d6567e6ec4b6b04e20ea
And on a local level, here in the Big Apple deadly shovings onto subway tracks are the newest thing in vogue by murderous criminals. (Oops. I forgot. They aren’t evil; they have mental health issues.)
https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/nyc-subway-rider-pushed-tracks-killed-latest-series-108505762
What pathetic society this U.S.A.!, U.S.A.!, U.S.A.! certainly is.
Hello Mr. Berman,
I don’t think even Rome had such level of stupidity and collection of buffoon’s during their decline. This woman is the definition of stupid.
“Kamala Harris unknowingly claps to song in Spanish protesting her during Puerto Rico visit”
https://youtu.be/NTyx7kfGI-I?si=JR2XQwj6V-wZlG0j
https://nypost.com/2024/03/24/us-news/kamala-harris-cluelessly-claps-and-nods-along-to-spanish-song-protesting-her-during-visit-to-puerto-rico/
Nam-
KAMALA SCHMAMALA
SCHMAMALA KAMALA
KAMALA KAMALA SCHMAMALA!
Well, if you wish, call me moronessa. As far as I'm concerned, I don't care about randos calling me names online for no apparent reason. I do, however, care about the quality of discussion and I think jumping to conclusions without evidence is not very productive at a time when the news cycle is full of semi-literate nonsense. I am not disgruntled, and in fact I read the whole trilogy by Dr Berman, which was quite impactful for my outlook on life and America. I was not born and did not grow up in the States, which perhaps explains why I hesitate calling people names online under the protection of anonymity. Dr Berman's warning about negative identity and Messianism, I think, applies to people who criticize America, imo. Pointing out that there might be other things that led to the destruction of the bridge does not make me a "moron". But it might suggest something about a person who is throwing such epithets around just because someone pointed out that things happen in the world not exclusively because *America is Collapsing!
Palinka-
Well, I did say you weren't a moron, but I shd have called Satchmo out on it, because we try to avoid name-calling here, and it proves 0 anyway. So, my apologies. As for the rest of yr argument, I confess I wasn't clear abt what you were saying, but I think we can move on at this pt. If we just keep Tulsi in mind, everything will work out for the best, I'm sure of it.
On an unrelated matter, here's an interesting anecdote that highlights the diff between the US and Mexico. Abt a month ago I was having lunch w/a friend in Mexico City, and at the next table was a couple w/a girl of abt 4 yrs of age. I looked at the mother and gestured to the girl, and said, "Adorable!" Gracias, she replied. Her husband gestured w/his head toward me, while looking at the girl, in effect telling her to go to me. She came over and hugged me. I put my arms around her and said, "Hija," which in this context was an affectionate form of "Daughter," or "My child." Then she went back to her parents.
My friends, this exchg cd never happen in the US; you know it. Americans are paranoid; Mexicans are open to friendliness. Just today, I was shopping in a supermarket, and at the checkout line was a woman holding an infant. The child's head was bare; I reached out and mussed her/his hair, and the mother laughed. In the US, the mother wd have become hysterical, and I wd have been arrested.
Why is this? Here's a possibility: most Americans are haters; most Mexicans are lovers. Just a thought. As for me, I can't tell you how happy I am to be lvg south of the border. Plus, I also enjoy the fact that AMLO is telling Schmiden to kiss his ass. (In so many words; he is too courteous to actually say "besame el culo.")
mb
Kill, kill, kill: America is abt death, period:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/rockford-illinois-violence-stabbing-dead-rcna145388
Events like this now happen on a daily basis; it's hardly news anymore. Americans are haters.
Dr. Berman,
Your stories about life in Mexico really resonate with me. I have a lot of trouble sleeping these days and am constantly on edge, and have realized that a lot of it is due to being mistreated during this PhD process in the United States. It's like a microcosm of some of the things you bring up in _A Question of Values_. Going through this has really messed up my emotions and even physical body (re. _Healing_). Thinking through the issues has not really helped, probably in the long run getting away from here is the only solution. I'll try to find something in the meantime that can tide me over but I sense it will be difficult. Thank you as always for your blog.
-- Torreblanca
Torre-
At least you have the consolation of knowing that the current shit pile won't last forever. The only problem is that even post-PhD, if you remain in America, there will always be a shit pile because the core of American psychology is one-upsmanship. (See my discussion of Adler in "Healing.") It's all about competition. In "The Crisis of Our Time," I briefly talk about the opposite, the "kinship worldview," and say there ain't much chance of that gaining any traction in the US. Ontologically speaking, Americans are stupid beyond belief. They live in misery while calling it the best way of life. Plus, it's the only way of life most of them know. The stats are that their idea of 'travel abroad' is to do a holiday in Canada or Mexico. The % of Americans who actually venture out of North America is quite small. To live in the US is to live in an echo chamber, or hall of mirrors.
mb
Containers of stuff like the ship that hit the Francis Scott Key bridge have gotten larger as buffons need ever more stuff to haul from Walmart to their container homes. Cf. Carlin's stuff routine on YouTube.
Kel-
Link for Carlin?
mb
To repeat, knives perhaps also are in vogue here in the world’s angry violent Land of Shit. In this instance a machete. But it doesn’t hold up against a gun. LOL!
https://nypost.com/2024/03/28/us-news/tense-video-shows-retired-nypd-cop-shooting-machete-wielding-man-in-staten-island-road-rage-feud/
Our latest angry passenger/airplane fight up in the skies where, contrary to what you see in the imaginary world of television and Hollywood, not all travelers are cordial, happy-go-lucky, and make friendly conversations to the persons seated next to them.
https://www.yourbasin.com/news/watch-tampa-man-removed-from-flight-after-threatening-passengers/
https://6abc.com/shail-patel-tampa-international-airport-florida-flight-to-philadelphia/14557720/
And it’s getting even more dangerous for women here in the Big Apple. But of course the explanation is that they have “mental health issues”. Yeah right. LOL!
https://www.audacy.com/1010wins/news/local/chilling-video-stalker-chases-woman-down-nyc-street
https://www.audacy.com/1010wins/news/local/man-gropes-2-women-in-10-minutes-in-chelsea-police
https://www.audacy.com/1010wins/news/local/woman-24-is-sucker-punched-on-chelsea-street
p.s. Unlike the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur, the Stock Market, Congress, and many businesses are closed today, Good Friday. But I guess it’s just another example of Christians being “persecuted”. LOL!
Joe-
I imagine it's possible that sooner or later, Americans will dispense w/knives and guns and just start strangling one another.
Watch length, por favor.
mb
Sorry. Here's the link to the Carlin stuff routine which he riffed on over the years.
https://youtu.be/MvgN5gCuLac?feature=shared
Dr. Berman,
Thank you for your thoughts on my situation. Indeed it will be over eventually, and I can try to make the best of it until then. I do plan on getting out of this country as soon as I graduate, for the reasons you describe above and elsewhere. Mexico looks pretty good these days. I recently re-watched your talk "The Way We Live Today" that you gave at University of British Columbia and your discussion in the Q&A period of some of the early experiences you had in Mexico sound wonderful, especially when contrasted with the United States. I know you've discussed that elsewhere, but this version in particular resonated with me.
-- Torreblanca
Torre-
Just keep in mind that psychologically speaking, America is an aberration, hardly the norm, in global terms. Check this out:
https://www.amazon.com/Crazy-Like-Us-Globalization-American/dp/1416587098
mb
MB, Torre-
Wow! This "Crazy Like Us" book looks great! This is my favorite part of the blog, when our resident author recommends books, films, articles and philosophies that have been on his mind. Whatcha reading these days, MB?
I just started this:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1642832693/?coliid=I125N2KHN1UEQK&colid=3CXKTWKYBMQBS&psc=1&ref_=list_c_wl_ys_dp_it
Cooper-
I just finished a biography of one of my heroes, Mark Rothko:
https://www.amazon.com/Mark-Rothko-Toward-Chapel-Jewish/dp/030018204X/ref=sr_1_3?crid=H5MQFD4RF7DQ&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.tMJrH9BipiJb9ok1klyNb82-Edaj_P9HLP20k3coBTW0e7LffdGc33j0iFnoSvSTUQkWDfOHQTWQIVGICmiWXGExaRwXgJjaNj2nEtPgTDGa69g2uaI_QZ0R1QpRMBh309bXbyq1Y23sJwHpXLYNLKoB0bxl4DZJmPkG7FcKSMChWrYbIaAdsdx6PlqS7cTho7KvmMwM42f7I_SjmoAMi_2bXCFJSiUlCPbrSvhJEKE.pxJ1MF0UdETWeg8gKQt8fMgNG1_bQoqx9vgQ0LucAMc&dib_tag=se&keywords=mark+rothko+biography&qid=1711844913&s=books&sprefix=mark+rothko+bio%2Cstripbooks%2C201&sr=1-3
A fabulous artist who led a deeply spiritual life.
mb
ps:Torre:
https://edition.cnn.com/travel/how-this-us-woman-moved-to-mexico-and-ended-up-opening-a-music-school/index.html
It only is a minor holiday weekend here in the Land of Shit. But the gun violence rolls on.
https://apnews.com/article/indianapolis-indiana-youths-shot-wounded-bdab82870ecb83dda6ede987c7521afe
https://abc7chicago.com/chicago-shootings-this-weekend-violence-police-news/14598040/
And on this religious holiday weekend for the many Christian pseudo thinkers here, what better examples of that “Christian love” here in the U.S.A.!, U.S.A.!, U.S.A.! than their many reactions to having the most persecuted and disliked minority’s Day of Visibility this year fall on the same day that they celebrate their imaginary god/carpenter ( who probably never existed in the first place) arising from a tomb and moving, all by himself, a gigantic 2 ton rock to step outside. Check them out. The first comes from the son of that sour puss surly Christian preacher who helped bring us “In God We Trust” on currency and “Under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance. The second (on Facebook) comes from his many “loving” sheepish Bible-thumping Christians who follow him.
https://twitter.com/Franklin_Graham/status/1774231985747026264
https://www.facebook.com/FranklinGraham/
Here is a description of the orange menace:
https://coming42.livejournal.com/479179.html?
Interesting to replace his name with USians...
DTE
Dio-
Yes, a gd pt. The crucial thing is that the man is a piece of garbage, and millions of Americans think he's fabulous. He may well win in November; wh/wd mean, most Americans are garbage.
But really, America is fucked no matter who wins. Trumpi will end support for NATO and the Ukraine, wh/will be a huge relief. What he'll do w/Israel is anyone's guess. But it's no guess what he'll do to America: he'll wreak havoc on it, wh/will accelerate our descent into the abyss. But how much better is Schmiden? A senile doofus; a warmonger and a war criminal; a military and economic supporter of genocide; and one of the greatest scumbags to have ever inhabited the W.H. Suicidal brinksmanship against Russia and China--a foolish and ridiculous cold warrior.
Come November, kiddies, Choose your buffoon! It's death either way.
mb
ps: And then, by contrast, we have the speech of a sober and intelligent statesman:
https://x.com/stillgray/status/1773838404037591175?s=46
But then, there is the declinist motto: Bad Is Good!
ps2: What America is finally all abt:
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/31/politics/tim-walberg-gaza-nagasaki-hiroshima/index.html
What cd be sicker?
Yrs ago John Berger wrote that the only thing the US knew how to do was transfer money and drop bombs.
ps3: And this:
https://www.spaywall.com/news/https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-03-29/noah-cuatro-mother-court-hearing
Marilynne Robinson says her essays are “contrarian in method and spirit. They assert, in one way or another, that the prevailing view of things can be assumed to be wrong, and that its opposite, being its image or shadow, can also be assumed to be wrong.” (p. 1)
J. M. Coetzee, in a letter to Paul Auster on 04/17/2010, wrote: “I have no qualms about hoping fervently for the downfall of Netanyahu and his cohort, and the arrival of a new leadership with the cojones to stand up to the Jewish Right. But …I have Jewish friends to whom the fate of the state of Israel means a great deal. If I have to choose between my friends and the principle of historical justice, I am afraid to say I choose my friends—not just because they are my friends but because I believe their commitment to Israel (which is not necessarily support for any particular Israeli government) is deeply thought out and deeply felt and at certain times quite anguished. I don’t share in that commitment, but as in love, where the beloved is right even when she is wrong, so too in friendship.” (146-7)
Assuming that the Wafer perspective is contrarian in spirit but also, when forced to choose, also seems to come down on the side of “historical justice,” my question is: How can Wafers assert the declinist perspective in most situations without being torn apart and/or forced to defend what would seem to most people (even their own friends ) to be an untenable position? Thank you for your time.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0312425325/
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0143124919/
Recent vid about the Baltimore bridge disaster. The lady being interviewed mentioned that a lot of the workers doing the overnight shift that day were from Latin Amerikkka. She mentions how they took the brunt of the backlash over this, due to Amerikkka's odd distaste for those folks. Also discussed is the economic impact on Baltimore, since it IS a port city. A complete mess
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FDZv2sZt53U
contraire-
Myself, I'm not torn apart. I feel no connection/affinity w/Jews who support Israel, wh/is to me an apartheid, genocidal state. I believe Netanyahu is clinically insane, and fascistic as well. As for yr question, other Wafers will undoubtedly weigh in. As for Marilynne, I always regarded her as a New Age douchebag--much like Oprah, in fact. Simplistic, and really quite stupid. Other than that: pls watch length: half pg maximum, thank you.
mb
Wafers-
Again, symbolic of the country at large:
https://edition.cnn.com/travel/california-highway-1-damage-big-sur/index.html
Au contraire and Dr. Berman
Here's a video (in french if any one speaks it) where the 102 years old jewish french intellectual, and a critic of Israel, Edgar Morin was in a debates regarding the current Israel-Palestine war. In it the Zionist guest tried to humiliate Morin, calling him self-hating, traitor etc. (He called him a Nazi a year ago. You can also sense his condescending attitude in the video). In a fit of rage Morin said that every time he tried to be objective he's been called a traitor and terrorist, and that it is his right to not be from the chosen people.
https://youtu.be/AQdPBeXfIIo?feature=shared
Morin was also dragged to court over a decade ago, for an essay in which he tried to analyse the Jewish question, over claims of antisemitisme.
Two remarks here: First, Zionism has made it impossible to critically analyse any issue in which there is a Jewish element, or take a stance against an obvious crime in which there are Jews involved. Second, Zionist Jews in western countries are often more committed to Israel than their own nations. They'll even betray their nations for the sake of Israel. And I have no idea why are they being tolerated for that.
french-
Is there anything more disgusting than the Schmiden administration?:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/01/flow-of-arms-from-us-to-israel-continues-despite-ceasefire-abstention
Genocidal hypocrisy, we need to call it.
mb
Duh Dept.:
https://www.spaywall.com/news/https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/04/01/millennials-capitalism-security-retirement/
Hi not-so French. I agree. I think it’s tolerated because allot of white and western people feel guilty about the holocaust and thousand of years of anti-semitism. There is a book on this by Norman Finkelstein .
Also your post reminded me of a story I read a few years ago about Jonathan Pollard. He was an American Jew who spent 30 years in prison for spying for Israel . When he got out an American Jewish billionaire Sheldon Adelson got him a private jet and he flew to Israel where he got a citizenship. He received a hero’s welcome and nobody said
Anything. Now imagine if it was a Muslim American that was caught spying for Iran. Do you think the us government would release him so he can go live in peace in Tehran. They would have executed him.
https://www.npr.org/2020/12/30/951334047/jonathan-pollard-cold-war-spy-who-spent-30-years-in-u-s-prison-arrives-in-israel
And also senator chuck shumer calls himself guardian of Israel even though he was elected by New Yorkers to represent their interests not Israel’s. But nobody says anything. Again imagine if a Hispanic lawmaker said he was the guardian of Mexico. Americans would lose it. Since shumer is Jewish nothing is said .
https://youtu.be/G1ltFrG39q0?si=fVCKh1Me7NQYj3a1
here is a link for the finklstein book
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust_Industry
Mo-
Check this out:
https://www.amazon.com/Israel-Lobby-U-S-Foreign-Policy/dp/0374531501/ref=sr_1_4?crid=2P5UPIXGWT6IM&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.yIq11Wd09fzUrFVQrOHMnToF9VL3G5Yb1z8UrO6dEX3K3eSJ0AQZUFeU0myeictK6Z1-PREgdz7HCaIPkeHor87_Yjnht0qPEMkQLmCt3QTSvgo8OY-dw9eSqSBA8tZE9WkKhnoJ9NQOv_GNfu33m0zDUQv-m6U_PVyL3PmAxMLqKrwaV_AIAivnhUcotqX8kVgkn2Clz4k6PZe1velEPWDDrb2wRlF9Q2vc6wKvF-o.sRMe6xQYTpqVcv6IDmiITDw5yz6zNxAfZj3H3JdyUII&dib_tag=se&keywords=john+mearsheimer+books&qid=1712047551&s=books&sprefix=mear%2Cstripbooks%2C190&sr=1-4
Note that you are a bit over the half-pg limit. In future, watch length. Thank you.
mb
ps:
https://edition.cnn.com/videos/world/2024/04/02/israelis-choose-jail-over-military-service-bell-vpx.cnn
https://edition.cnn.com/videos/world/2024/03/30/gaza-idf-kills-2-palestinians-buries-bodies-bulldozer-coren-vpx.cnn
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/01/politics/biden-administration-f15-fighter-jets-israel/index.html
ps2: https://www.nybooks.com/online/2024/03/30/the-road-to-famine-in-gaza/
On an unrelated topic, I discuss this growing trend in my new bk, "The Crisis of Our Time":
https://www.spaywall.com/news/https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/apr/02/soft-life-why-millennials-are-quitting-the-rat-race
Dr. Berman,
Thanks for the heads up on Marilynne Robinson. You’re right: Robinson’s four novels in her Gilead series were all picked by Oprah Winfrey’s book club. Damn! :( Now I know. Meanwhile, I’ll try to fInd a better writer to quote than Robinson and resubmit my question about f I can find the time.
https://magazine.foriowa.org/story.php?ed=true&storyid=2089
But you did recommend her essay in the NYRB here:
http://morrisberman.blogspot.com/2020/06/bupkis.html?m=1
Which you called “an extremely Waferish essay by Marilynne Robinson, author of a collection of essays entitled "What Are We Doing Here?" Her title echoes my own collection, "Are We There Yet?", and her bk echoes many of the themes I advance in the Twilight bk.“
Maybe the name is similar to Marianne Williamson? If so, perhaps a “normal cognitive glitch” related to how the brain categorizes and stores names, according to various web sources. But the burden of proof is on me not you.
contraire-
Sorry, yr rt, I was confusing her w/Marianne Williamson, who, like Oprah, is a total douchebag. I barf vigorously on both of them.
mb
Contraire- thanks i was confused too.. MB recommended this great book by Robinison which is how I got into her writing:
https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/absence-of-mind-the-dispelling-of-inwardness-from-the-modern-myth-of-the-self_marilynne-robinson/387723/item/63827544/
Dun-
Thanks, I just checked it out (again). Odd, that there are 0 customer reviews.
mb
Sickest person on the planet:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2024/apr/02/martin-rowson-on-benjamin-netanyahu-on-top-of-the-world-cartoon
I stumbled on the following video last night:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REId8lfmmhI&t=708s
I actually found the talk itself uninteresting and his theory rather unconvincing. But I recommend the comments section for you to check out. (I muted the video so I wouldn't be distracted while reading) found the comments quite fascinating and kept reading them for close to two hours. The video is about how the world today feels "unreal" as well as the stuff we talk about here, loneliness, how everyone in America seems to be on a hair trigger, etc. Well, there are hundreds and hundreds of comments where everyone pretty much adds their confirmation to this. The majority of them are heartfelt, and pretty insightful, with a few inane comments here and there. Of course, there is a bit of "selection bias" at work, since people who already feel that way would be more likely to click on this particular video. Still, it is striking to me just how many people are feeling precisely the same thing.
Megan-
Gd comments, yes. Clearly, we have descended into total buffoonage. We are degraded and debased, and there really is no way out. Only Gisele Bundchen can save us.
Wafers-
Here's an anti-hustling video. Extremely un-American.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_p0bIw2vH2Q
mb
Currently re-screening this biodoc of Gore Vidal:
https://www.google.com/search?q=the+united+states+of+amnesia&sca_esv=866cd16b376a5508&hl=en&source=hp&ei=4xIOZouLCIrKkPIP-bSnUA&iflsig=ANes7DEAAAAAZg4g87-Fs2AFjIL0xeFsoNpjlwP6wj-f&gs_ssp=eJzj4tLP1TcoNywxT84zYPSSKclIVSjNyyxJTVEoLkksSS1WyE9TSMzNSy3OTAQAIocOXA&oq=the+united+states+of+amnesia&gs_lp=Egdnd3Mtd2l6Ihx0aGUgdW5pdGVkIHN0YXRlcyBvZiBhbW5lc2lhKgIIADIFEC4YgAQyBRAAGIAEMgYQABgWGB4yBhAAGBYYHjIGEAAYFhgeMgYQABgWGB4yBhAAGBYYHjILEAAYgAQYigUYhgMyCxAAGIAEGIoFGIYDMgsQABiABBiKBRiGA0ixU1AAWKEwcAB4AJABAZgBrAegAZlSqgELMi0xLjMuNi4zLja4AQHIAQD4AQGYAhKgAo9PwgILEC4YgAQYxwEY0QPCAgsQLhiABBjHARivAcICCBAuGBYYHhgKmAMAkgcJMy0zLjkuNC4yoAeQrgI&sclient=gws-wiz
God, he got so much right, so early.
ps: Some time ago I did a post called "The Great Charade." I've been trying to call it up, and I can't find it. Can any of you guys help me out? Thanks.
"The Great Charade":
https://morrisberman.blogspot.com/2023_10_08_archive.html
Hello Dr. Berman I think this is it
https://morrisberman.blogspot.com/search?q=the+great+charade
Is this what you were looking for?
https://morrisberman.blogspot.com/2023/10/the-great-charade.html?m=0
Bud et al.-
Got it! Many thanks.
mb
Note to O-
Sorry, O is not a legitimate handle. Try Julius V. Scheisskopf, for example.
mb
The Israelis have such big hearts:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/rPa2clbCOkw
As for the murder of the 7 aid workers: who cd believe this was, as Israel claims, unintentional?
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/jose-andres-israel-deliberately-killed-aid-workers-gaza_n_660dc335e4b09f580bc67b9a
mb
Wafers-
Some of you may have read, many years ago, the book by Carlos Castaneda called "The Teachings of Don Juan." Don Juan was supposedly a Yaqui shaman living in Sonora, Mexico (in reality he was not Yaqui, and he was living on the outskirts of LA; but no matter; Castaneda, then a grad student in anthropology at UCLA, used to visit him on weekends, to get his mind blown). In this book, he quotes Don Juan as follows:
"In my own life I could say I have traversed long long paths, but I am not anywhere. Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn't, it is of no use. Both paths lead nowhere; but one has a heart, the other doesn't."
I was trying to guess how many Israelis, or Americans, are on a path with a heart. 50? 60? What do you guys think?
mb
It took the death of 33,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, for Schmiden to finally call for a ceasefire in Gaza. What a scumbag. I'd like to fly to Washington and hurt him. Does that make me a bad person? Wafers are encouraged to weigh in.
ps:
https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/
I’m not a Wafer but I hate Schmiden and Trumpi and this whole stupid country and everything it stands for. I’m currently reading Goliath, which is a book you recommended, and I’m just disgusted with the human race.
It makes me not want to be on this earth anymore and certainly not in this country that funds and supports the killing of children. And celebrates materialism and willful ignorance.
With an asteroid would hit us.
If wanting to hurt Biden makes you a bad person, then I guess that would make me a bad person, too. I want to hurt not only him, but clowns like Antony Blinken, John Kirby, and a host of others who still support this idiot and sell him as our "savior" from the horrors of Donald Trump.
In the print version of the New York Times, there are, almost daily, sappy letters from readers gushing over the alleged wisdom and maturity of Joe Biden. I quote the ending of one such letter that was published Wednesday this week:
"So, yes, the president will sometimes misspeak or forget. But he will also benefit from the maturity that enables his navigating the (quoting Biden) 'battle between our better angels and our darkest impulses'."
Barf inducing. The moron who wrote that, one David Myers, is a social psychologist at a place called Hope College, which is somewhere in Michigan. I wish I could have him teleported to Gaza.
The article below should go under the heading of Duh...
Expounding on the intentional and "mandated from above" pro-Israeli bias in CNN and the vast majority of media outlets. I'm still looking for the other article I read with insider media leeks identifying pressure from US Govt/White House, specifically disallowing Palestinian voices, opinions, interviews, etc. and quoting Israeli voices as fact. When I find that one, I will also post it under the category of Duh...
And, responding to Dr. Berman....Biden is not calling for cease fire because of 33,000 dead, he is calling for cease fire because the media really grabbed ahold of the aid-truck incident [now that Gaza is laid to waste and population starving-- mission accomplished] and it's embarrassing for him with elections coming up. Also to be filed under Duh....
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/feb/04/cnn-staff-pro-israel-bias
Pristine-
Well, I know how you feel, man, but I do think you shd consider becoming a Wafer. It's a very elite group; the exam for membership is quite rigorous, but I suspect you will pass. If chopped liver is a regular part of yr diet, yr already halfway there. As for an asteroid: long shot, I fear. In the meantime, you might meditate on a picture of Boebert. She cd represent the American future, I'm thinking.
ccg-
Clearly, David Myers needs to be slapped, and then have his shoes peed on. This, b4 we send him to Gaza. Do you realize the % of Americans that are living in one fantasy or another? Also be sure to look up the meaning of verkakte schmegegge.
mb
Article below should be posted under the heading of Duh.....
Regarding "mandates from above" for CNN and most media outlets to present verbatim pro-Israeli news. Was looking for another article I read with insider media leaks confirming that the US Govt/White house applying specific pressure to media-- no Palestinian viewpoints or interviews. Also to be filed under Duh...
In response to Dr. Berman -- Biden did not call for cease fire because of 33,000 dead, but because the media have gotten ahold of the aid-truck killings and won't let go [now that Gaza is basically destroyed and mass starvation it's essentially too little too late anyway] and it's EMBARRASSING to Biden with elections coming up. Also to be filed under "Duh..."
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/feb/04/cnn-staff-pro-israel-bias
Molly-
True, but it's sick that he waited for 33,000 Pals to get murdered b4 calling for a ceasefire. He's just playing a game. Backing Israel is costing him potential votes among Muslims, black people, and young people. Calling for a ceasefire cd cost him the Jewish vote, or a large part of it. So he calls for a ceasefire while preparing to send billions in arms to Israel, sub rosa (sotto voce). Why shd Netanyahu pay attn to anything he says, as long as the $ and materiel keeps flowing into Tel Aviv?
mb
One of the things I've noticed lately is that people are under the delusion that the 'anger' of the average American is somehow a new phenomenon. It takes many different forms in headlines:
"We're more divided than ever."
"America polarized in ways it never has been."
I don't know what they're talking about. Malice and bitterness are more central to the cultural fabric of America than the Disney-esque beliefs that we're all about "baseball and apple pie". I'm nearing 50, and as long as I've been alive, Americans have always been a miserable, detestable lot convinced that everything 'wrong' in the world is the result of "someone else" making huge mistakes.
This clip is almost 25 years old. This was when Michael Savage (an AM radio whackjob) was given a live show on MSNBC. A prank caller made a joke at Savage's expense, and Savage literally told the prank caller to "Get AIDS and die!".
Americans are a wretched, hopeless people and they wouldn't have it any other way.
https://youtu.be/IAA2KxgqVvk?si=g2SVz0t2hhFwf8jo
Dr. Berman :
Agreed. Anything coming out of Biden's mouth is pure theatrics, politicking, and pulpit-thumping. He should win an academy award for best actor. All with a wink-wink to Netanyahu who knows not to pay attention to anything Biden says, just keep the bombs, planes, and money flowing. And to think I believed that Trump was the compulsive liar (well he is, too).
Meanwhile, our military-industrial complex is rolling happily in the dough, and I'm sure Biden and his cronies will all get a cut, legally, through "campaign contributions" and also through dark money. There you have it, folks. USA, USA, USA!!! How long can we go on like this before the whole system implodes...are we there yet? Almost! I'm afraid it won't be pretty.
Molly-
How long: deadline is 2030. During our destruction of Iraq, $6b disappeared, was never accounted for. Ukraine and Israel capers will probably 'lose' even more. Universities that cancelled courses in Dostoevsky won't see any of it. All we can do at this pt is put our faith in Tulsi. And of course, Gisele Bundchen.
Pen-
Maybe. I think the short-fuse syndrome took a quantum leap in the last 20 yrs. Only Boebert can save us.
mb
ps: I hope all of us are on TEAM BOEBERT!
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/05/politics/lauren-boebert-congress-reelection/index.html
An Israeli spy chief leaked his own identity in the most stupid way. When you get a complete idiot to design the AI strategy of the Gaza war, you end up with a tragedy.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/05/top-israeli-spy-chief-exposes-his-true-identity-in-online-security-lapse
And Tulsi has a new book, hope is restored. (Every single American I've ever met thinks he or she has an idea to worth publishing, thus the astronomical number of rubbish published in the US)
https://www.amazon.com/Love-Country-left-Democratic-Party/dp/1684514851/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.Y3j5RZlFshtrN3NopU-2dFf0GIJewHhUziM9qXgRre3GjHj071QN20LucGBJIEps.9l830jCSBTVhKPGZQivYEesZ0d6255SVCw1003O8A2E&dib_tag=se&qid=1712330156&refinements=p_27%3ATulsi+Gabbard&s=books&sr=1-1
french-
Can't wait to read it. Hopefully she lays out the basic tenets of Tulsism.
mb
I want to be a Wafer! Tell me how to sign up. I am reading your trilogy and definitely trying to educate myself as much as possible on foreign and domestic affairs. Your books do a wonderful job of that.
As for Boebert, isn’t she and her hubby just amazing wonderful people who represent the best of American values—like giving handjobs in theaters and posing with guns while bragging you just have a GED? Can’t wait for her children to get into politics, they’ll be exactly what this country needs.
That was sarcasm just in case anyone thought I was being serious.
These fast food joints are becoming battlegrounds now. A Wendy's drive-thru worker was randomly shot in the Midwestern shithole of CHICAGO while on their shift. Anybody eating in these places should probably wear armor
https://www.yahoo.com/news/wendy-customer-shoots-worker-drive-144129648.html
Sven-
The doyenne of these events is Shaneka Torres, who responded w/firearms when the bacon was left off her cheeseburger, I think it was. (Jeff/Miles can fill u in on the details.) I don't know if she's still in prison. However, events like this are now happening w/great frequency. Myself, I find it exciting. Eventually, folks like Shaneka will be given presidential medals.
Pristine-
Steps to Waferdom:
1. Read all of my bks.
2. Give copies to yr friends.
3. Go on a chopped liver diet.
4. Put the following on a post-it, and stick it on yr bathrm mirror:
KAMALA SCHMAMALA
BIDEN SCHMIDEN
BLINKEN SCHMINKEN
TRUMPI SCHMUMPI
BOEBERT SCHMOEBERT
GREENE SCHMEENE
TULSI SCHMULSI
BUNDCHEN SCHMUNDCHEN
5. Fone 5 friends, and yell the following into the fone:
KAMALA IS A RANCID BAG OF DOUCHE FLUID!
Congratulations, yr a Wafer!
mb
Jeff-
Can u help Sven out re: status of Shaneka? Also:
1. Is Freddy Wadsworth still fucking goats?
2. Whatever happened to P. Snoots?
3. Ditto, Schmendrick, the bozo who pans bks he's never read.
4. Is Crystal Walraven in jail?
ps: Lorenzo Riggins?
American universities are completely full of shit:
https://www.spaywall.com/news/https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/05/opinion/free-speech-academic-freedom.html
Some of them cancelled courses in Dostoevsky and Russian lit in general--!
Disgusting, hypocritical, and cowardly. But: solid contributions to the American decline.
mb
Dr. Berman,
I'm not really familiar with Kieth Olbermann, but I was listening to this, and heard Twilight of American Culture mentioned a bit after 9:45. I thought you might find that amusing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFO-j058V-I&t=687s
Megan-
Thanks for the ref. I'm actually quite surprised when I learn that some visible political commentator has read my work.
mb
The U.S.A.!, U.S.A.!, U.S.A.! mass shooting train is leaving Chicago. Next stop, Florida.
https://www.nbc-2.com/article/2-dead-7-injured-mass-shooting-miami-dade-county-mall/60416779
It was supposed to stop in Las Vegas. However, the idiot who wanted to blow up a popular shooting spot, a restaurant, dialed the wrong number in attempting to carry it out and was thwarted.
https://www.8newsnow.com/investigators/las-vegas-police-man-threatened-mass-shooting-at-restaurant-over-wrong-order/
But for the angry violent USAins who don’t happen to have a firearm on them, they just try to run someone over to take out their anger while on the roads.
https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/hopkinton-ma-crash-leaves-pedestrian-critically/3329780/
About Keith Olberman: I used to like this guy, many years ago, but upon the election of Trump he devolved into giving unhinged rants about "Russian scum."
See for yourselves:
https://thehill.com/media/310355-olbermann-us-military-will-soon-be-controlled-by-scum-beholden-to-russian-scum/
A companion 2 yesterday's post.
Someone did a WHOLE compilation series of “fast food freakout” vids.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiG-78qqIH0
These miserable folks hate their lives, & need 2 rage @ someone. So fast food restaurant workers it is! Here's what national decay looks like;)
Greetings MB and Wafers,
MB, Sven-
Shaneka's current status: I've no idea if she's been released. I certainly hope so. I would support her being equipped w/an AK-47 and turned loose to shoot anything she damn well pleases. Go Shaneka!
Freddie Wadsworth: Is back home in Atlanta holding his wad, I fear.
P. Snoots: Wow, a blast from the past! Would luv to hear from her these days. I think she was into u, MB ;-).
Schmendrick: Was institutionalized and given a Haldol drip.
Crystal Walraven: I believe she was sentenced to 20 yrs in prison for her stunt.
Lorenzo Riggins: Now realizes his missing McDouble was not a Mc-Mergency.
A new fruitcake for our list:
https://www.tampabay.com/news/crime/2024/04/05/alyssa-ann-zinger-tampa-arrest/
Jeff/Miles
Note to Sven: A Wafer must always be able to quickly identify and urinate on Hush Puppies and Gucci shoes.
Jeff-
Thank you for these exciting updates. Gd news on Lorenzo, at least. As for yr new fruitcake: she's a Zinger. (Probably mentally ill, actually). Finally, I really hate Hush Puppies. They deserve all our urine.
We march into the future, Boebert and Bundchen at the front!
mb
Wafers -
Yesterday, my son told me about the fear of the eclipse. I reminded him of the high numbers of stupid people in the US. Sure enough:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/marjorie-taylor-greene-most-bonkers-214457506.html
I'm also seeing that some are calling it "The Great American Eclipse." https://www.greatamericaneclipse.com/
(Those folks are also hustling off of the event because...of course they are!)
Leave it to USians to make the sun and moon all about them...has a more narcissistic culture ever existed? The buffoon-ery knows no bounds...
DTE
Hello Wafers. I have a sordid confession to make. Yesterday I almost clicked on another blog. I had to gather myself, sit down, shake my head and say, "Why would I ever do such a thing?". This truly is the greatest blog in the world. No... cosmos!
Also, I want to say I thoroughly enjoy your work Dr. Berman. The Wandering God is one of my favorite books on spirituality and is part of my collection of books on lamenting the spiritual connotations of the desert (although I know the book covers much more). I also always look forward to your more long form, personal essays (ex: How Chic Was My Progress). They're very relatable.
Apologies if this goes a bit over the half-page limit. I'm going to try to keep this succinct.
American Anger™ is nothing new. It's an industry unto itself. It's the lifeblood of our country, in fact. As long as I've been alive, Americans have operated under the delusion that the sad states of their lives are someone else's fault, and they DESPERATELY need people to channel this bitterness at.
Whether it's Foxnews telling viewers that Biden is a dyed in the wool Communist or MSNBC telling viewers that 'Straight White Males Are the Root Of All Evil', the unifying fact is that Americans are a miserable people, and only feel a temporary sense of relief when the talking heads on T.V. give them a target.
This video is 12 years old. Romney had just lost the election and this woman decided to livestream her drunken spittle flecked rage. As ugly as this video is, I encourage you to listen to the whole thing because it's a phenomenal case study of the 'LOUD DESPERATION' Americans live with. These are your neighbors, folks.
https://youtu.be/wLoqti0lzAw?si=g_f-nC2K59gn8Sd4
mau-
Thanks for yr appreciation. Sometimes I hear of people going to another blog, and all I can do is shake my head in disbelief. Also check out my short stories: "The Heart of the Matter." You cd probably use a gd laugh rt abt now.
Dio, Pen-
It's a stupid country filled w/stupid people. This is the bottom line, and is perhaps the #1 factor in our decline. All I can say is, Go, Boebert!
mb
Amerikkka is beefing up Taiwan against some imaginary Chinese "threat". The only "products" Amerikkka peddles 2 other nations now are weapons. Gone are the days when it actually sold something substantial
https://www.foxnews.com/world/taiwan-safeguards-against-rising-china-threat-commissioning-2-new-navy-corvettes
Meanwhile, Baltimore businesses are picking up the pcs. after the bridge collapse, "raising funds" for the workers. Congress $$ nowhere 2 b found! Pitiful
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/businesses-once-near-key-bridge-raise-funds-for-collapse-victims-impacted-workers/ar-BB1lelzm
Fly-
Tulsi is the answer.
mb
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Wafer Film rec: Japanese custodial worker leads a life of music, trees, and literature. It's a wonderfully quiet film about living in the moment w an appreciation of what you have however minimal, even if life has been heavy...
https://www.lighthousecinema.ie/film/perfect-days
Oren-
Sometimes called the 'Satori generation." Check out my bk "The Crisis of Our Time."
Molly-
Only 1 post per 24 hrs, thanks.
mb
Perhaps the phrase "Great Amerikkkan Eclipse" was a metaphor 4 Amerikkka being "eclipsed" & then surpassed by other nations. Cuz that's exactly what's going on:)
https://www.timeout.com/uk/news/this-new-high-speed-train-line-will-link-up-london-and-wales-120222
Satch-
Time for a new post-it 4u:
THEY LIVE IN DEGRADATION
Pls put on bathrm mirror.
mb
Meanwhile, it appears that Schmiden's strongly worded caution to Netanyahu regarding the coming ground invasion of Rafah didn't work. Gee, I wonder why (continuing to clandestinely send materiel to Israel might have something to do w/it).
https://edition.cnn.com/middleeast/live-news/israel-hamas-war-gaza-news-04-09-24/index.html
Hello Wafers. Hey Dr. Berman, you recently mentioned you finished reading biography on Rothko. I would have never guessed you were in to abstract painting. I remember you saying you weren't really into Picasso (sorry I can't find the link) years back. Do you mind telling us what you appreciated about him?. I might check that biography out or at least delve in to him more (I kind of ignored him in college).
Also, the collapse continues via more violence. I invite you all to stare into her gaze. She needs to be our president:
https://www.cbs17.com/news/north-carolina-news/nc-woman-accused-of-shooting-boyfriend-with-shotgun-deputies-say/
mau-
I don't regard Rothko as abstract; I see him as deeply spiritual. If you go to the Rothko Chapel in Houston, you'll see what I mean.
mb
MAU/MB
Rothko is certainly more spiritual than abstract! There is a beautiful work by the composer Morton Feldman called Rothko Chapel that is spellbinding:
https://youtu.be/1ZZ0DYIkaP8?si=dP1bxk1XjNOM14MK
Personally I was never into Picasso's work either. Too neurotic...
- SJJ
SJJ-
Just my opinion, but while Picasso's work pushes the observer away, Rothko's draws him/her in. He believed art shd be a total experience. In addition, he sought to generate emotions solely by color. This is a v. different vision than that of the Modernists, with their urinals (Duchamp) and paint randomly thrown at the canvas. Altho I do like some of Pollock's work.
mb
Dear Dr Berman,
I think I'm starting to appreciate the humor of the blog more. Over the past few years I have been visiting the blog from time to time. And while I was deeply moved by your Senses trilogy and my eyes were opened by the WAF trilogy, it was a bit difficult for me to stomach the humor that, it seemed to me, was relishing degradation. However, I think I'm starting to see the point and chuckled a few times at the headlines that were published this week. Still, as a representative of the younger generation, I think you are a bit too harsh on us. While I'm not American, since I'm from the Eurasian heartland, I can say that the youth of today has been handed a pretty terrible hand by our elders: institutions have all but collapsed, economy is awful, our parenting has been quite bad, and we are the first generation on whom brain-altering technology has been unleashed with such force. This is not to mention the train-wreck that is global capitalism in general, destroying nature itself. I think it's understandable that people are falling apart? And I have to point out that this is not only an American issue. It's everywhere - in Asia, Africa, Latin America... I think almost all of my friends, who are from very different countries, are suffering from some kind of "mental illness." I think it might be easier for a person of an advanced age to look at everything with humor and distance. But for those who dreamed of having a life and didn't have a chance, it's difficult to be detached. Maybe you have advice for someone young as to how to face what's coming and already unfolding?
https://www.slowboring.com/p/trumps-middle-class-tax-hike
Pretty good review of how Trumpi is awful for the lower and middle classes, yet he somehow touts being anti elite. This guy is the cancer that will really bring that decline up to speed. The elite banks and corporations hate Biden bc he's really rallied against them w antitrust reform (probably the only real thing he's accomplished)
I just wanted to share this article from the guardian. It’s interviews with various Americans and how they are borrowing money to survive because their wages aren’t enough. This is the real America not what Paul krugman tells us. I work 63 hrs a week so I don’t have to borrow.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/apr/09/us-credit-card-debt
Mo-
A very lg % of Americans are hanging on by their fingernails, one paycheck away from disaster. As for Krugman (and the whole op-ed crew at the NYT), he needs to be vigorously slapped. Plus, his shoes are too dry.
Brennan-
Millions of those classes will vote for him in November.
Palinka-
Thanks for staying w/the blog. I agree, we can be a bit aggressive at times. (Tho I do think it's appropriate to call Kamala a rancid bag of douche fluid, and if allowed, I wd certainly go to the W.H. and pee on Schmiden's shoes.) And much of what u say abt the younger generation being victimized is true. Altho if you go to those YouTube videos of American youth being asked simple questions on the street, their stupidity is beyond belief. (E.g., "Name just one country besides the US"--they can't do it. "Whom did America get free of in 1776?"--"Korea". "When was the War Between the States?"--"Oh, you mean the student uprisings of the sixties." Etc.) The truth is that a lg % of American youth are complete morons, have their heads wedged in their recta, and are rolling around like doughnuts. And I fear a lot of this is by choice.
As for advice on what lies ahead: To quote Kurt Vonnegut, many yrs ago: "There's a shitstorm coming." Well, chica, that shitstorm has now arrived. According to my Twilight bk, you have 2 options: 1. Hit the road. In yr case, go back to the Eurasian heartland. The next few yrs are going to be pretty awful in the US; don't stick around for the show. 2. What I call the monastic option: an inner migration, for those unable to get out. You'll find more on this in the Twilight bk.
Finally, put a post-it on yr fridge, wh/reads:
I'M LIVING AMONG DOLTS
mb
U.S. backed regime in Ecuador raids Mexican embassy and assaults Mexican diplomat in order to illegally arrest the leftist vice president under Correa
https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/06/americas/ecuador-vice-president-arrest-mexico-embassy-diplomatic-tensions-intl-hnk/index.html
Complete silence from the State Department. Complete silence from Antony Blinken and Brian Nichols. Complete silence from US Ambassadors in Ecuador and in Mexico — as a flagrant violation of the Vienna Convention erupts a regional scandal across Latin America. U.S. must be comfortable with this — difficult to imagine Ecuador did it without the U.S. ambassador signing off
Wafers-
British genocidal scumbags:
https://www.spaywall.com/news/https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/apr/09/uk-will-not-suspend-arms-exports-to-israel-david-cameron-says
ps:
https://www.spaywall.com/news/https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2024/apr/09/jon-stewart-israel
I just wanted to reinforce the comment by Mo about Paul Krugman's interpretation of the economy by posting Krugman's latest in series of column's claiming that everything is just wonderful:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/08/opinion/economy-vibes.htm
It never seems to occur to Paul Krugman that people working two or three jobs to make ends meet is not a sign that the economy is thriving for everyone. I know people living in upstate NY who do not at all think everything is wonderful. They tell me that they spend more on groceries than ever but end buying less of them, and these are people who have what would normally be considered good jobs (teachers). People such as these just don't exists to the likes of Krugman, so it seems.
In the article, Krugman says, "[V]iews of how America is doing tend to be colored by political affiliation." But could it be instead that how people are doing might be coloring their political affiliations? Krugman has a net worth of $5 million according to this:
https://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest-businessmen/wall-street/paul-krugman-net-worth/
I'm "sure" that his being worth $5 million has nothing to do with his outlook on the economy.
ccg-
The NYT is little more than a comic bk. Its function is to reassure the professional and upper-middle classes that all is well in these United States, and that there is nothing to worry about. That whole op-ed crowd needs to be waterboarded for extended periods of time, and more than once. "All the news that fits our views" is their true motto.
Huss-
America has been pulling this sorta shit for over a century now. There are numerous exposes of its twisted, self-serving, foreign policy. You might start by rdg up on Smedley Butler.
mb
Dear Dr Berman,
Thank you for your reply to me. I guess I do not share your optimism about the options available in other countries. I think there are lots of incredibly dumb people all around the world who believe all kinds of asinine ideas. And the poison of social media/smartphones/internet is nowadays omnipresent. For example, my own cousins are practically illiterate even though we are only about 10 years apart, but I grew up without this technology. I think my point of divergence from you is that I interpret America as a canary in a coalmine - it is a harbinger of things to come to a theater near you. To me, there is a general process of decivilization, to borrow a term from Norbert Elias. I am afraid that barbarism is on the rise everywhere.
Pal-
George Carlin once said that if you were born on this earth, you were born into a freak show. But if you were born in the US, you get a front row seat.
For a pinch of optimism, check out my latest bk: "The Crisis of Our Time."
mb
Dr. Berman:
Carlin would have been a great Wafer were he alive today. RIP.
Palinka, I love this blog! Not only for the humor but the intellectual discourse. And the fact that this is the only sane place to visit when the world has gone to crap.
I thought about moving to Europe and leaving the U.S. but I just don’t have the money. Plus I’m older now and I just don’t have the energy to restart anywhere.
I also thought about just killing myself but I have a son, or as George Carlin would say, “the keeper of the sacred DNA.” Hahaha, I don’t want to leave him alone in this world of smooth brained buffoons.
Emily-
Once in a while I hear of someone who went to a different blog, and I hafta shake my head in disbelief. Why wd anyone do such a thing? It staggers the imagination. I mean, yr rt: America, or even the world, has gone to hell in a basket, and this blog remains the ONLY place whose goal is reality, nada mas. Smooth-brained buffoons run around waving Ukrainian flags; universities(!) cancel courses in Tolstoy; Schmiden wags his finger at Netanyahu while sending him shitloads of military equipment; Trumpi is leading the polls in 6 out of 7 swing states; and a bunch of demented women are leading the country into the toilet: Boebert/Greene/Tulsi/Bundchen, while millions of Americans have no retirement savings and hafta dine on cat food. Young people can't name a single country besides the US, and a lot of them can't locate America on a world map. The nation has no spiritual basis or moral compass, and its citizens float on an ocean of anomie, having no purpose in life beyond hustling. They are drowning in opioids, alcohol, cell phones, and organized religion, obsessed w/who wore what at the Met Gala, while the suicide rate goes thru the roof. In such a horrific context, in which the NYT tells these brain-dead and heart-dead citizens that everything is just fine, there is only one place you can go to live in reality, and seek the truth, and that is RIGHT HERE!
I rave, I rant, I worship Boebert, I embrace my Inner Tulsi.
mb
ps: In the face of all this, let me recommend "Healing" and "The Crisis of Our Time." Also note that I am abt to publish a book on American poetry. Stay tuned.
The earlier mention of Wim Wenders new film and Dr. Berman’s love for Cherry Blossoms got me thinking about the Japanese and there understanding of negative spaces, silence, and simplicity. Americans are afraid of this. The Satori Generation gives me hope. I’m glad this is catching on in fact. This, in turn reminded me of why I like Hayao Miyazaki. He thinks America stinks and isn’t afraid to say so. Also, he has always called out techno-douchebaggery. I would like to say this man is a Wafer and then some.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fG60kVkEjm0
And the mass shootings roll on! The latest ones occur on a Muslim religious day and in the capitol of this violent pathetic country.
https://whyy.org/articles/multiple-people-shot-parkside-section-philadelphia/
https://abcnews.go.com/US/dc-mass-shooting/story?id=109106953
Today’s wacky pseudo-thinking USAin: a woman who went on a murder spree because of the eclipse.
https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/us-astrology-influencer-worried-about-solar-eclipse-kills-partner-baby-reports-101712802455614.html
https://www.audacy.com/1010wins/news/national/mom-who-threw-2-kids-onto-la-freeway-killing-her-infant-appeared-agitated-by-impending-eclipse
p.s. Doctor, To add on to what you said to Emily: In addition to USAins drowning in opioids, alcohol, cell phones and religion, we also can throw in pornography, gambling, and television.
Joe-
I have tried to get them to switch to deli meats, to no avail.
mau-
https://www.amazon.com/Silence-Power-Quiet-World-Noise/dp/0062224700/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2Q6X38FY35LNM&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.2q0b6xqAaEnqBak4P0SvbRhX3TW3rywU79nBpNxnQx9DwxB7DjuRd-okA7jk6ZcLVjVJBOxWjogV5YY6jg1pCfgqAS1Dg-KJ6OBPVcLGuoTRVx9db69xaf78yMK-COKu4e_kVupxKWPb-7ZFCjm7dhGhH7n3LsDoWUYf6c-QXl_Y-ZXB56adk_RldAWb3P7QB0xGrN2bhwv73FcbvLRFLAakVgetohb3tA8OFT3y9AQ.8sRQku4iIHOqcg0c7ja-1qdjKrXWDY_dcZFQ3aJRhyI&dib_tag=se&keywords=thich+nhat+hanh+silence&qid=1712869936&s=books&sprefix=thich+nhat+hanh+silence%2Cstripbooks%2C439&sr=1-1
https://www.amazon.com/Neurotic-Beauty-Outsider-Looks-Japan/dp/1621342107/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&dib_tag=se&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.Nk6YUXiihXX67wOtoHjUaCkY9fFSJLdI_AkfnZr30TBaGjeUhaoL2HGWWGbkJFfedjyF48CLQmfzuFw6kOrs2Q.YIVXn-7nlxhvfpViwgiyPj1lviZZz0CiKXTbAbL0HKU&qid=1712870087&sr=1-1
mb
Cash-
We are a discussion forum, not a bulletin board. Pls re-send link, adding a paragraph of yr own commentary. Thanks.
mb
mb96-
You cite a # of sources, but w/o providing links for them. Pls re-send, and give us the refs. Thank you.
mb
This is why people are miserable, not rewarding Biden for the booming economy, etc. The billionaires are keeping all the money:
America’s billionaires are $1.2 trillion richer than last year! This article reports on the countries with the most billionaires 2024https://www.forbes.com/sites/devinseanmartin/2024/04/02/the-countries-with-the-most-billionaires-2024/?sh=26b1ea7054f8
Myers-
Actually, I think the present conflict in the US is more of a cultural one, one of identity, than an economic one. Trumpi and Schmiden stand for 2 different types of people, and 2 different ways of life. Embedded in this, of course, is the issue of race.
mb
Re: your forthcoming book on American poetry, I was wondering if you ever read George Oppen (?), a Wafer if there ever was one. Oppen was of Jewish heritage: “my distances neither Roman nor barbarian"(1)
I am certain that Oppen’s poem “Route” is a poem all Wafers should be acquainted with. Link below (2). Here’s that poem’s epigraph: ‘the void eternally generative'.
Emily—
Oppen may provide some “comfort", but please note that I put the word comfort in quotation marks because of a poem he addressed to his wife Mary, who he wrote:
Has changed the aspect
Of things, everything is pierced
By her presence tho we have wanted
Not comforts
But vision
Whatever terrors
May have made us
Companion
To the earth,
whatever terrors (3).
“Oppen saw plenty that was awful in his life—his mother’s suicide; the extensive, brutal poverty of the Great Depression, during which he and Mary worked so hard to help as many people as they could; the horrific violence of World War II, in which Oppen was wounded and saw his fellow soldiers die; his sister’s death in 1960, which was also ruled a suicide.”(3)
(1) https://poets.org/poem/semite
(2) http://www.divasofverse.com/2022/08/route-by-george-oppen.html?m=1
(3)https://gristjournal.com/2021/03/that-they-are-there-on-george-oppen-and-the-role-of-poetry-by-jonathan-farmer/
Isn't this nice?:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/12/fisa-surveillance-act-reauthorized
Hi Dr. Berman and Wafers,
I think I do not completely agree with you that Americans have a "choice" - I mean aren't we all conditioned by society, history, and our biology? There is this scary article in the NYT about what's going on with teenagers and their sex lives:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/12/opinion/choking-teen-sex-brain-damage.html
I don't think these poor kids had a choice in how f-ed they were by technology. A lot of this was laid down by selfish boomers and their "sex, drugs, rock-n-roll" attitude, which now, combined with pornification and commodification, is ruining their own grandkids. And this American blasé attitude to porn has spread to many countries around the world. I think it's contributing to a growing gender divide:
https://www.ft.com/content/29fd9b5c-2f35-41bf-9d4c-994db4e12998
As you can see from the second FT article, the divide is present in many different countries. I read in Lasch about a war between sexes. Well, it ain't only in America anymore.
Pal-
Yes, Noam Chomsky with "manufactured consent," or the so-called false consciousness argument. It's not entirely wrong, but ultimately it says we have no agency, are robots. I'm going to let other Wafers respond 2u, but clearly, there are tons of alternative information out there, and if you look, it's easy to find it. Conditioning, my dear, is never total.
mb
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/from-intellectual-dark-web-to-crank-central?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
From Intellectual Dark Web to Crank Central | this essay shows the hazards of letting contrarianism slide into its own tribalism--cant stand the Weinstein Brothers, Sam Harris, Doug Murray, Alex Jones et al.
Remember that terrible photo shoot?
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/08/opinion/intellectual-dark-web.html
In the spirit of having a sane discussion, factually speaking, baby-boomers are more conservative than younger generations. Even those that are culturally more tolerant, ie. accepting of gay rights, they are personally more conservative in values, as far as belief in marriage, family raising, responsibility, etc. This is been over-studied so I'll just provide one link. So, blaming baby-boomers for the decay in society and ruining their grandkids with their obsession with porn sounds like the crazy drunk guy at the end of the bar right before closing time.
In truth, baby-boomers are more often blamed for "selling out" -- getting a comfy good paying job, moving to the 'burbs, having 2.5 kids and forgetting about the social activism of their college days. This is probably closer to the truth, although that seems to be the way of the world, or at least the US - people stop demonstrating with picket signs when they have 2 jobs 2 kids and a mortgage. Even if you do, Pelosi will label you a "Russian infiltrator", and the press will trivialize you.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/181325/baby-boomers-likely-identify-conservative.aspx
From the “Only in the U.S.A.!, U.S.A.!, U.S.A.! department”, check out what only can happen here in the Land of Exceptionalism. Two idiots get thrown into jail for stealing…..get this….shopping carts. But with the tax free $ trillion plus underground economy in full swing, hustling for scrap metal makes sense. It’s comparable to these myriad street spam signs plastered onto telephone poles advertising paying cash for cars. Didn’t these two idiots know they were filmed at some of these places? LOL! They also are deserving of today’s mugshot.
https://www.audacy.com/1010wins/news/local/2-arrested-for-stealing-140-shopping-carts-worth-usd28k-in-nj
https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/men-stole-shopping-carts-nj-shoprite/5315608/
@Palinka
I think what you said is a very reductionist take, and may even be incorrect. If we are totally conditioned then human activity would be impossible. Also, such a take presupposes perfect transmission of information from the social to the individual (in the process of conditioning) with no errors or mistakes. The way I see it is that the social, historical and biological are the necessary conditions for the emergence of the individual, but they do not cage it's development.
For more info on my take see Edgar Morin and Cornelius Castoriadis
Iran has just attacked Israel. It may be just a PR stunt, similar to what they've done to a US base in Iraq years ago, and it can also be real.
The US is saying they will stand with Israel in this one, knowing fully that Israel started it (an attack on a consulate is a declaration of war). All the tension between the US and Israel is a pile of crap.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/4/13/israels-war-on-gaza-live-5-dead-dozens-injured-in-gaza-city-attack
french-
Pls give Palinka some refs to Morin and Castoriadis. Thanks.
Also note that the US and Israel are piles of crap.
mb
Trump is leading Biden in six swing states. 24/7 Democrats, Biden and the liberal media are always saying trump is a threat to democracy and America . If they believe that I don’t understand why they don’t change course on their economic policy, foreign policy and the border so they can win?
https://youtu.be/rO3YwXkuDXE?si=uZ4z1x7pKQvwpLu8
Castoriadis offers a critique of Marxian historical and economic absolute determinism in the first chapter of his book The imaginary institution of society
https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262031349/the-imaginary-institution-of-society/
For Morin, you can check his books, The lost paradigm and The unity of man. Both books are an essay to study humans from a biological, social, psychological and anthropological perspectives. ost importantly are the latter 5 parts of his method (The life of life, THe knowledge of knowledge, ideas, the humanity of humanity and ethics). In these tomes, questions on determinism, conditioning and information transmission in biology, the world of ideas and human society are treated.
Morin is a marginal thinker in France and is not widely translated into English (but he is well known in Latin America, Europe, Africa and East Asia), I can only find the following about him in english
https://grain.org/es/article/entries/290-the-ecology-of-action
https://www.jstor.org/stable/3684252
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9MP0TIHHrQ
Palinka-
Cdn't run it, for 2 reasons. One, you exceeded the the half-pg limit; and 2, you provided no evidence for yr arguments. Pure opinion is not what we are looking for here. So, perhaps you cd edit it down a bit, and give us some refs (e.g., links) for your assertions. Thank you.
mb
And...here we go again. You just can't even keep up with this anymore. Another shooting. Granted, this was gang related so it wasn't the outlandish, "my burger wasn't done the right way" kind of senselessness but still, more American violence.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/chicago-shooting-kills-7-old-065544545.html
I'm going to go outside and do the Wa-Tulsi to cleanse myself of this.
French- I've actually never even heard of Morin. I am going to check some of this out. Thanks for mentioning him.
Anybody ever seen the Michael Moore film Sicko? It exposes the dirty underbelly of Amerikkka's healthcare system, from the perspective of INSURED folks who had claims denied. There's a scene of a homeless patient being dumped in Skid Row still in a hospital gown 4 good measure
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0386032/
Another scene shows Moore taking 9/11 first responders to big, bad Cuba for medical treatment. Funny how Amerikkka likes 2 demonize Cuba, yet they apparently have a more functional healthcare system. What a JOKE
Question 4 MB: what was healthcare like in ur day?
Satch-
Moore has made some bad films, but "Sicko" is a gd one. As for health care when I was a kid: doctors made house calls; there was no corporate interference. My father wd pay the doctor out of his wallet, and it wasn't esp. expensive.
mb
About 30% of Americans think that neither Trump nor Biden will make a good president, and I'm not sure what the other 70% are smoking. (link below)
Although Trump will dismantle (whatever's left) of US democracy, Biden's orchestrating a genocide in Gaza is a deal breaker, not to mention his incompetence, senility, and the fact that he is a puppet of the military industrial state.
This is like the kind of like the verbal games little kids play -- would you rather eat a slug, or be covered in dog poo?
Unfortunately, this is the best that America can come up with anymore. Combine that with he ever deepening chasm between the masters and workers, and rotting institutions. You practically need to be rich to afford housing, medical care, college, transportation -- things a thriving middle class used to be able to afford. The weird thing is like a frog heating in a pot of water, most people do not see what is coming.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/642911/say-neither-biden-nor-trump-good-president.aspx
Molly-
I'm not sure there has been a more clueless population in the history of the world, than Americans. As I've said so many times, no amt of slapping, no amt of urine...
mb
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