This is the Blog for MORRIS BERMAN, the author of "Dark Ages America". It includes current publications and random thoughts about U.S. Foreign Policy, including letters and reactions to publications from others.
A cultural historian and social critic, MORRIS BERMAN is the author of "Wandering God" and "The Twilight of American Culture". Since 2003 he has been a visiting professor in sociology at Catholic University of America in Washington, DC.
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Yea! This is what I'm asking Santa for this year. Meanwhile, in case anyone missed this from 2010: http://www.escapefromamerica.com/2010/06/escape-from-america-the-grim-truth/
Looks like American men are under Roman law-guilty till proven innocent. While in NYC I passed Chelsea Park which had a sign reading: "No adult can enter [the park] unless accompanied by a child." WTF! Can you believe that? The culture is that terrified of single men. Later I passed a school yard with children playing and there were 3 policemen within the grounds again I suppose to be on the lookout for wandering single men. I mean who are single men allowed to talk to? We certainly can't speak to a woman for fear of being accused of sexual harassment and now you cannot even be in the vicinity of a child for fear of being labeled a pediphile. Yeah, no chance any media outlet would even suggest terrorism in the US may be the result of our continual bombing of 7 Muslim countries. Always safe to play the innocent victim. Israel has probably perfected it best. There a 7 year old can throw a stone and is labeled a terrorist as he fights vainly against the 4th largest military on earth.
Good read. I escaped the US for Germany about 10 years ago and can confirm much of what the author writes about.
This part was particularly bang-on: "Mentally, you are truly imprisoned. You don’t even know the degree to which you are tormented by fears of medical bankruptcy, job loss, homelessness and violent crime because you’ve never lived in a country where there is no need to worry about such things."
These fears are buried so deep in the subconscious of most Americans that they take years to get rid of, and I am not sure they ever truly go away.
My son who lives in Italy recently spent some time with his Italian friends in NYC. They described their trip this way:"Non e una vacanza ma e una guerra."
I sort of consider Jonathan Turley to be an "inadvertent Wafer." If only he could connect the dots, he might realize that what he reports on his blog every day is indicative of a country slowly tearing itself apart. Just in the past few days, he has noted the following:
Morris this just like the McDonald’s lady u mentioned a while back . This time it involves a gun http://wwmt.com/news/offbeat/man-pulls-gun-after-being-told-ohio-mcdonalds-was-out-of-egg-mcmuffins-police-say
Morris should most definitely have been on this panel, and I’m wondering why not. Were you even invited Morris? I’d like to think so and that you had other commitments at the time.
I find the moral panic over Trumpo being a barbarian to be funny. Clinton (Branch Davidian massacre and Yugoslavia bombing), Bush Jr. (Started invasion of the Middle East) and Obama/Hillary (destabilized several countries) are all objectively more barbaric than Trumpo. Trumpo is vulgar and did order that stupid strike on Syria. However, he has shown relatively more restraint than his immediate predecessors thus far. We will see how long that lasts though.
A very good article. What do you make of the ending:
"In closing, I want to remind you of something – unless you are an American Indian or a descendant of slaves, at some point your ancestors chose to leave their homeland in search of a better life. They weren’t traitors and they weren’t bad people, they just wanted a better life for themselves and their families. Isn’t it time that you continue their journey?"
Lots of questions: What journey and where to? Why run from USA when you should reclaim what your ancestors built for you? Aren't you cowards for wanting to run away from your ancestors' house? If you get to where you are running to, what says you will not fuck it up the same way you fucked up America? British called your ancestors terrorists and traitors, so why should we not call you terrorists and traitors?
“...revolves around the journey of King Porus...who fought against Alexander the Great in the Battle of the Hydaspes. https://m.timesofindia.com/tv/news/hindi/porus-new-show-to-set-bar-higher-for-historicals-on-tv/amp_articleshow/61461797.cms
I was about to throw the BS flag on your Chelsea Park tale until I looked up NYC Park rules and found this gem:
Exclusive Areas Areas within the parks designated by the Commissioner for exclusive use by means of posting signs shall include: Exclusive Childrens Playgrounds: Adults allowed in playground areas only when accompanied by a child under the age of twelve (12). Violation of this paragraph constitutes a misdemeanor.
https://www.nycgovparks.org/rules/section-1-05
Are there that many child snatchers and pervs out there? Sheesh!
So Dr Berman I know you didn't answer my question on whether there is a chance that Jews continue to have vertical practices to this day but I've been thinking about it a lot and realized it doesn't matter. Things are bad enough by just looking at it horizontally. But I did read the bicameral mind and if Julian was right and everything, including language is an object or reference to an object, it makes sense why governments distribute televisions so much. They're just putting a bunch of images in our head which makes me double think conspiracies.
Anyways, there is a company called Cambridge Analytical where the chief executive claimed this in 2006, "in the United States we have somewhere close to four or five thousand data points on every individual ... So we model the personality of every adult across the United States, some 230 million people." This was in 2006, did Facebook even exist yet? Regardless of how America collapses, one thing I am certain of, it will reemerge as a totalitarian state. But I do think there is a chance the decay being slow and the totalitarian state implemented so slowly and secretly that Americans don't even notice it, or maybe it's already here...
California joins Oregon recognizing a third gender option—non-binary—for its driving licenses and state-issued IDs. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/10/19/female-male-non-binary-california-legally-recognizes-third-gender-identification-documents/779188001/
Kellogg's agrees to replace box cover art on Corn Pops cereal, yielding to Tweeted charges of racial insensitivity in the current version: https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2017/10/25/kelloggs-replace-racially-insensitive-corn-pops-boxes-following-twitter-rant/797911001/
The family church of two Virginians—George Washington and Robert E. Lee—says their memorial plaques are being removed from Alexandria’s Christ Episcopal: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/historic-alexandria-church-decides-to-remove-plaques-honoring-washington-lee/2017/10/28/97cb4cbc-bc1b-11e7-a908-a3470754bbb9_story.html?undefined=&utm_term=.777ebf96daa9&wpisrc=nl_most&wpmm=1
I wasn't invited. I'm not even on the radar screen in the US.
Chopped-
Post only once every 24 hrs, thank you.
Wafers-
I just ran across an early statement of Dual Process. This is a commentary on Ulrich Duchrow et al., "Solidarisch Mensch werden," 2006, by Joerg Rieger:
"The strategy that Duchrow proposes is first to starve the capitalist system through demythologization of its ideology and clear refusal (strikes, boycotts of banks and cheap consumer goods) and resistance. The second step includes developing local-regional alternatives to capitalism (exchange-based rather than money-based; cooperative banking, alternative energies, local food production), reclaiming resources in all areas (dignified work, agriculture, public goods such as water, just taxes--capital pays less and less, social networks, fair trade, renewable energies), and developing an alternative macronarrative of hope."
Look at those douchebag faces: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/03/iphone-x-apple-thousands-queue-overnight-fans
Meanwhile, this is what elite university students are preoccupied with: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5044443/Posh-students-strip-crowned-Cambridge-s-Best-Bum.html
It was great attending the 2017 NY Wafer Summit! My only regret was not ordering the apple pie at The Pie in the Sky Restaurant, as chocolate pie doesn't fling as far... Next time, however, I hope to be better prepared for a spontaneous Wafer food fight! In any event, you could have heard a pin drop, as Wafers descended on the Village. Every New Yorker was holding his or her breath, waiting for the unexpected; a sudden sense of the unsanctioned was everywhere as Wafers imbibed in food and spirits, and began discussing the crucial events of the day. I tell ya, the scene was so intense that non-Wafers in the restaurant began to spontaneously giggle, wrinkle their foreheads, and stick their fingers in their ears. Many had to be packed off to local hospitals to lie down. Simply put, those who missed this earth-shattering event missed out on one of the greatest phenomenons of the early 21st century, no doubt about it.
I have been saying that for 2 years now. Odious as Trump can come across, he's actually been pretty mild in terms of his policies. Socially liberal, anti expansionist (we will see if this continues to hold). Worth noting that the action in Syria targeted an empty airfield; seemed calculated to me, especially in the face of wild Dem Russian conspiracy theories.
What I am most enjoying is watching everything in the Wiki/DNC/Podesta mails play out now. Trumpo is no one's savior, nor is he fit for office for a number of reasons, but the utter destruction of our media ghouls and the two party system is proving very entertaining; and I must admit, his win was quite shocking now that the true extent of the Dem/media corruption/collusion is being revealed.
Chopped - I don't think you listened to the podcast I posted, but I would challenge the idea that antisemitism and anti-Zionism are the same in most instances. Condemning the creation of illegal settlements and the genocide of Palestinians isn't antisemitic as the Israeli right would have the world believe. The podcast I linked to made it very clear that Zionism is akin to Nazism and that zionists shield their fascist politics from scrutiny by labeling dissent (whether from inside the Jewish community or outside it) as antisemitic. I would suggest looking past the propaganda you posted and instead focus on the actions of the Israeli government and the apartheid society which it has created.
James - It's so nice to hear that California is no longer imposing binary gender on its citizens. As as Oregonian I can't tell you how liberating it was to finally be able to self-identity as a Transformer on my legal documents.
Bullshevik - Thanks for the link, it was a good read. The sad part is that even if Americans read it they'd get angry and deny the facts the author points out. Calm, rational discussion is not their strong suit.
Our get-together in New York was enjoyable and nourishing-- both food and food for thought. Thank you, Morris, for the privilege!
Early this week NPR considered it newsworthy to impose yet another guilt trip on Philadelphians: according to a survey, we/they lag behind the country in celebrating Halloween. Seems we don't buy enough candy and costumes or throw big enough parties for the kids. My impression, having lived in various parts of the country, is that in the suburbs and environs of Philly, secular observance of the vigil of All Saints Day is quite robust. In the city itself, any lack might be due to the fact that parents are justifiably reluctant to let children roam around after dark.
In any case, disappointed merchants might try not plugging Christmas in October. Americans have trouble concentrating on so many things at once. :-)
I think Israeli Jews have a very besieged mentality, which is somewhat understandable given the history of the Jews. This mentality makes them think that any act done to "preserve the Jewish state" is justified. The Nazi Germans had a similar mentality in justifying their atrocities.
Israel is creating a story about Iran being a "major threat" because Iran stands in the way of Israel's ambitions. America buys the story due to its warmongering nature. The other great powers (i.e. Russia and China) know that Israel is full of shit. With the coming decline of America, it is likely that Israel's expansionist ambitions will be restrained.
No, these policies are the natural outgrowth of the "stranger danger" paranoia that has been around for decades. The risk of children being kidnapped or harmed by strangers is actually pretty low. Children, like most other people, are more at risk from family members than from strangers.
I blame the media for exaggerating the risk of child abduction. Child abduction stories are salacious and people like anything that is salacious. Cases like that of Adam Walsh get publicized even though they are rare. The result is that Americans are now paranoid about letting their kids play outside alone and think every man is a “creeper.” I definitely agree with Dan that men, and particularly single men, are unfairly stereotyped as “creepy” even when they aren’t doing anything that could remotely be considered strange or dangerous. I think this phenomenon is another example of how anti-social Americans have become.
The link I posted is somewhat over-the-top, being sarcastic, but the more serious point is that "anti-Zionism" is to antisemitism what "intelligent design science" is to Biblical creationism, "racial realism" to the KKK, and so on. It is the same thing, thinly disguised for social acceptability. Hence the not-so-subltle similarities, e.g., "the Zionists control the USA" instead of "The Jews control the world", "Israel has no right to exist" instead of "Jews have no right to exist", "colonialist zionist, get out of Palestine and go back to Europe!" instead of "asiatic Jew, get out of Europe and go back to Palestine!", "the Zionists are Nazis" instead of "The Jews are league with the Devil", etc., etc.
Of course, by "anti-Zionism" I do not mean criticism of Israel, or the belief in the right of the Palestinians for a state. Nor do I even mean the belief that Zionism is wrong, per se. I mean the hated of Israel and denial of its right to exist, considerimg the Jews (sorry, "zionists" or "israelis") to be nazis, etc. Richard Dawkins and Karl Popper (to name two) expressed skepticism about Zionism, but are not "anti-zionists", since they do not see Israel as utterly evil, or rant against it using thinly-disguised age-old antisemitic tropes, draw cartoons of the "zionists" as big-nosed monsters crucifying innocents (gee, where have we seen *those* images before?), etc. Nor did they write pseudointellectual "history" or "sociology" books proving how evil zionism is, the modern equivalent of previous "intellectual" jew-haters writing simlar books "proving" how evil Jews are.
It's always fun playing spot the american at airports, hotels, eateries. They simply cannot blend in, or really assimilate without their americanism showing. It's as if someone dropped the dinner tray, or used the c word in mixed company--there they unfortunately are.
For example, in Sweden, complete quiet ride in the elevator with children, parents, sporadically whispering to each other. Then the elevator door opens, some Mr. businessman anglo type-phone glued to ear talking loudly the entire ride down. The ass clown leaves the elevator in front of everyone else in that hurried, frenetic hamster wheel american pace.
Everyone turns to each other--says--american, eye rolls, head shaking, and laughter from all.
*A year after Donald Trump’s improbable election, the post-Cold War Official Future has collapsed—and in its place have emerged a bewildering array of possibilities.*
I don't post Unknowns. You need a real handle, e.g. Lord Fartwell.
Chopped-
I think yr very much off-base. Anti-Zionism and antisemitism might overlap in practice, at times, but they are conceptually and politically very different things.
From a recent article on Counter Punch:
"I will not shed tears over how the 2016 elections exposed the exhausted nothingness of the Democrats’ scam “neoliberal progressivism” (left historian Nancy Fraser’s useful phrase) or over how Trump is diminishing the American Empire’s brand strength, cultural capital, and (see Andrew McCoy’s latest book) strategic capacity. Who wants Uncle Sam more decently clothed? Who wants the U.S.-ruling class “adults in the room” – the real and “responsible men of power” – to run this morally failed Mafia state with more outward acceptability and effectiveness than it deserves? Let this vicious Empire stand more unambiguously exposed as the racist, classist, sexist, criminal and eco-exterminist prison, police and pariah state that it is."
Professor Berman, I am looking forward to reading Neurotic Beauty. I was wondering if you had ever read The Book of Five Rings by Miyomoto Musashi? In the translation that I am reading it says “as human beings, it is essential for each of us to cultivate and polish our individual path.” When I read that I thought of you and the greatest blog ever!
Another important Taibbi article. Especially relevant for me with a daughter now in 12th grade. We're getting stacks of brochures in our mail box daily, and numerous emails from colleges across the country.
"America as a country has evolved in recent decades into a confederacy of wide scale industrial scams. The biggest slices of our economic pie – sectors like health care, military production, banking, even commercial and residential real estate – have become crude income-redistribution schemes, often untethered from the market by subsidies or bailouts, with the richest companies benefiting from gamed or denuded regulatory systems that make profits almost as assured as taxes."
Glad you're back from your trip! I'll guess I'll have to read the old stuff to find out how it was like and how you guys enjoyed the NYC Wafer conference. Wish I could've been there; I would have taken the train: lower CO2 footprint and far more convenient!
Anyway here are some blurbs that showed up in my news services.
Jason Megatron--I find it interesting that for all of the screeching liberals have done about how Trump's election has created a climate in which bigots, misogynists and racists have felt free to come out the closet and openly express their vile viewpoints, there has been an equally repugnant phenomenon going on in their own camp. Whether it is pushing the idiotic idea that there are more than two genders, or claiming that white males are automatically racist and sexist based solely upon their genetics, or wanting to erase nearly every historic figure from the history books or sneering at the desperate economic straits of the working class; liberals have taken advantage of Trump hatred to push forth agendas that would have been as equally repellent to most Americans just a couple of years ago.
Jessie, build that wall! To keep Americans out, of course. "[...] what says you will not fuck it up the same way you fucked up America?" They will, obviously. Note that the article mainly talks about the material quality of life in the US but, as Wafers know, the real problem is spiritual squalor.
About Duchrow, I am sorry, but he sounds to me like Chris Hedges after smoking something real good: "developing local-regional alternatives to capitalism (exchange-based rather than money-based; [..]" Say what? I don't ask for some of what he's having because drinking is my thing. I am afraid that money is as necessary to post-neolithic societies as language; the fact that in sick societies the former is used for brainwashing and the latter for physical enslavement of the population doesn't alter the fact.
First, even if you just "overlap in practice at times" with the likes of the American Nazi Party or Iran's revolutionary guard in your view of Zionism, that is a rather big hint it is not likely to be accurate.
Second, in my experience it is not "at times", but very often. For example, Iran had repeatedly declared it intends to destroy Israel, yet posters here dismiss this as an Israeli invention because Iran heroically "resists" Israel's nefarious yet unspecified "plans", but Israel cunningly tricked the stupid USA into believing it.
Gee, the Jewish state manages to trick the world powers into helping with its nefarious, evil plans, against which Iran's declared intention of destroying it is brave "resistance". Now, where have we heard all *that* before?
I think our five senses function as filters that prevent us from observing the Noumenon (i.e. reality independent of human perception) directly. Perhaps the minds of most humans cannot handle observing the Noumenon directly. That might be why so many people who receive "revelations" go insane.
If our fearless, fickle idiotic liar in chief wants to confront the limits of the Empire, he should come home. WE are our limits. And thank God for it. Otherwise the rest of the world would be worse off due to our violence and stupidity than it is now.
Sorry, I don't post Anons. You need a real handle, like Goat Droppings, e.g.
Gig-
However, revelations are often delusions.
Chopped-
You can disagree all you want, but yr dead wrong. Regardless of practice, anti-Zionism and antisemitism are conceptually and politically different creatures, and no amount of sophistry or finger-pointing can alter that basic fact. It's no accident, for example, that from its inception to date, Zionism has had a huge # of Jewish opponents, who were/are definitely not antisemitic. The usual Zionist response is "self-hating Jew"--an ad hominem and cowardly way of hiding from the truth.
Zar-
It's hard for me to disagree with Duchrow because he captures the theme of my "Dual Process" essay very well. Have you read it? It's the last essay in AWTY. In any case, similarities to Hedges are quite marginal. Hedges talks about revolution, a purported mass uprising against the corporate class; which makes him a dummy, imo. He does not talk abt barter economies, as far as I know, and these, my friend, are not only viable but actually in practice today, in Barcelona, Japan, and elsewhere. Money may eventually be around, but there is no logic that says it has to be. You might wanna do some actual research on the topic, plus lay off the sauce, I'm thinking.
Francois-
I think I read part of Musashi, many yrs ago. What you quote is the essential Wafer path. This is indeed the greatest blog in the entire universe. When I hear abt people going to other blogs, I can only shake my head. The choice is Wafer or Douche Bag; most Americans choose the latter. The current ratio is 172 to 327 million. Any guesses as to how America is going to turn out?
In America, not even churches are immune from mass shootings. This one just happened this morning at a Baptist church in Texas and no, this is not the first time a church congregation was in the line of fire.
Dill--is it any real surprise that Chimpy Bush voted for Botox Face when America's two royal families have been thick as thieves for decades? Daddy Bush and Bill are both sexual predators, and like Chimpy ol' Botox never met a foreign war she could wait to support, some of them his. Just for driving a stake through the heart of both families of political vampires last year, Trump has already done more good for America than they did in their 20 collective years in the Oval Office.
Speaking of which, the Donna Brazile story that broke this week is pretty astonishing. Consider that Brazile has been working on Democratic presidential campaigns going back to Dukakis and was the one who leaked CNN's debate questions to Hillary last fall, and she is the ultimate "swamp creature." Yet now she comes out and confirms that Hillary and Wasserman-Shultz colluded to steal the nomination from Sanders AND that Obama basically wrecked the Democratic Party machinery during his time as president. Guess there truly is no honor among thieves anymore.
Elliot Ness to the rescue! From the latest column by the "editor in chief" written apparently in crayola, (I thouhgt of emailing the douche but really why?)
"Teachers cannot teach in a classroom of 30 students when 5-10 students need constant attention and disrupt the class. Those 5-10 students literally are taking education time away from the other 25. They need to be booted out and sent to an alternate school, a place where highly creative teachers make it clear to the youngsters that this is their last stop. Those kids need to hear that if they can't make it at the alternate school, they'd best prepare themselves for a lifetime of work in the fast food or service industry, or turn to a life of crime and prison."
The latest mass killing...26 Dead...As we WAFERS know, largely through the work of Morris, the Cause and Solution really doesn’t lie in Guns and Gun Control, it lies in a Spiritually, Intellectually, and Emotionally Bankrupt modern Society that is producing Spiritually, Intellectually, and Emotionally Bankrupt Human Beings who feel the delusional inner need to lash out and commit these horrific acts. In other words, this is a SYSTEMIC problem.
Morris is the clearest thinker on these matters and his insights on what is happening to us as a society and a nation are spot on...I think this is his best interview...
If it "anti-zionism" you mean merely "a Jewish state should not be / should not have been established", yes, such anti-zionism is old and not necessarily anti-Semitic. But I am not only aware if this, I explicitly *referred* to such anti-zionism when I spoke of those "skeptical of Zionism" and mentioned the likes of Dawkins and Popper.
But today "anti-zionism" means something far more sinister: ask the typical anti-zionist and he will tell you he thinks Israel should be *destroyed* and/or is the worst, most evil country in the world, using grossly unfair double atandards. This is the way I use the term since this is true today for the vast majority of "anti-zionist". This is straight up antisemitism (and eliminationist antisemitism, at that) in the flimsy disguise of replacing "Jew" with "Zionist" or "Israeli".
The problem is that old-fashioned anti-zionism (in your terms) or skepticism of Zionism (in my terms) is what the more "sophisticated" type of anti-Semites (those who do not just replace "Jew" with "Zionist" in antisemitic rants and call it a day) *claim* they are, just like the more sophisticated creationists claim they are doing "science".
But they are not. Their visceral hatred of Israel, their wish to see it destroyed, their obsession with "Zionist" world-spanning conspiracies - all clearly a slight mutation of the old "Jews are evil and control the world" view - give the game away.
Bill Gates and Steve Jobs limited the amount of technology their children used and wealthy Silicon Valley parents send their children to low-tech specialty schools that teach soft skills like cooperation and respect.
A quote: There’s an easy test for whether a building is beautiful or not. Ask yourself: if this building could speak, would it sound like the Rubaiyat or the works of Shakespeare, or would it make a noise like “Blorp”? For nearly 100 years, we have been stuck in the Age of Blorp. It is time to learn to speak again.
Jung's observations of Hitler. Not interested in comparing Trumpi to him, but this does remind me of Trumpi
"In comparison with Mussolini, Hitler made upon me the impression of a sort of scaffolding of wood covered with cloth, an automaton with a mask, like a robot or a mask of a robot. During the whole performance he never laughed; it was as though he were in a bad humor, sulking. He showed no human sign.
His expression was that of an inhumanly single-minded purposiveness, with no sense of humor. He seemed as if he might be a double of a real person, and that Hitler the man might perhaps be hiding inside like an appendix, and deliberately so hiding in order not to disturb the mechanism.
With Hitler you do not feel that you are with a man. You are with a medicine man, a form of spiritual vessel, a demi-deity, or even better, a myth. With Hitler you are scared. You know you would never be able to talk to that man; because there is nobody there. He is not a man, but a collective. He is not an individual, but a whole nation. I take it to be literally true that he has no personal friend. How can you talk intimately with a nation?
True, but Jung was enthusiastic abt Hitler, at 1st. Changed his mind later.
Chopped-
Lots of religious Jews in Israel today are anti-Zionist, as it turns out. The bottom line is that regardless of the time line, or practical overlaps, antisemitism is conceptually very different from anti-Zionism. I can't keep repeating this, as it is not getting thru 2u.
jj-
Nice that the guy was a Bible study teacher, I suppose. Massacres are getting larger and more frequent, as the US commits suicide. Massacres, and mass douchebaggery, go hand in hand.
Wafers who were at the NY Summit on Oct. 29: I forgot to offer a toast to our lodestar, Lorenzo Riggins. Pls do this tonight over dinner.
I have been thinking recently that history, as a whole, is not cyclical. Certain parts of history, such as the rise and fall of civilizations, are cyclical. History as a whole, however, seems to move from one point to another somewhat randomly. The problem is that certain people (i.e. progs) think that history is moving towards an end point of "progress."
As you drive your elderly relation to the Quik Kash check-cashing store to cash her Social Security check, please take care she doesn't hear about this. Her heart, you know. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41889787
"[Leaked] Paradise Papers documents show Apple's two key Irish subsidiaries, Apple Operations International (AOI), believed to hold most of Apple's massive $252bn overseas cash hoard, and Apple Sales International (ASI), were managed from Appleby's office in Jersey from the start of 2015 until early 2016. This would have enabled Apple to continue avoiding billions in tax around the world. Apple's 2017 accounts showed they made $44.7bn outside the US and paid just $1.65bn in taxes to foreign governments, a rate of around 3.7%. That is less than a sixth of the average rate of corporation tax in the world."
Bill Hicks: It was amazing after the election how quickly progressives went from being moral relativists to moral absolutists. They went from saying 'there is no such thing as good and evil' to 'Trump is the ultimate evil' pretty much overnight.
The Donna Brazille revelations confirm what's been obvious for a while, that our current two major parties are dying. What could happen when they're gone? I think the left will form a new party around a Bernie Sanders type (only younger and probably a woman). The right is a little more scary. I can see a hard nationalist Christian party forming led by a veteran of one of our recent wars, backed by a paramilitary wing. Whatever happens it will be scary and violent, and you can count on Americans to make all the wrong choices at crucial times.
After a big shooting, I like to take the rectal temperature of the internet. This time I was disturbed by the fact that rather than believing that this latest shooting was somehow faked, or a ploy to take the guns away, the idea that this is the work of 'Antifa' seems to be gaining ground. Might this be a sign of the further escalation of civil strife?
Some evidence: https://www.buzzfeed.com/talalansari/fake-news-about-the-texas-church-shooting
P.S. I hereby make the pledge to footnote Dr. Berman as the Jewish Parsley should I ever manage to produce a doctoral thesis.
I find the initial reactions of American TV outlets, particularly the "liberal/fair/open-minded" ones like CNN and MSNBC, to the latest mass murder (the TX church shooting) be most revealing about the nature of the American character, in particular: 1. Invariably, an attempt is made to link the shooting to "terrorists", meaning from outside the Promised Land and always Muslim extremists. Possibly in an effort to avoid admitting to ourselves that we are, as Morris writes in AWTY. "eating each other". As if to say, these horrendous acts MUST be of foreign origin; they can't possibly come from a kind-hearted, compassionate, peaceful citizenry like us. 2. The second issue raised is almost always about motive - the "why" question. Why did he (notice that the killers are always male, usually white males)do it? As if a logical motivation can be found for an insane act. So that if we can figure out the "why" maybe we can protect ourselves from similar acts. 3. Focusing on motivations of the killers also deflects attention away from what made the killings "mass", i.e., the guns. I almost choked on my coffee this morning when it was reported that the Idiot Mad King Donald blames the most recent massacre on the mental condition of the perpetrator - no doubt to deflect from his chosen instrument of slaughter.
As the empire continues to implode in on itself, these events will occur at an ever increasing rate. We have developed a taste for the flesh of our fellow Americans. Bring me another body, knave. And keep 'em coming.
Texas attorney general doubles down on the stupid--suggests the state's open carry law could prevent mass shootings even though it didn't stop this one and Colorado's concealed carry law not only didn't prevent the Walmart shooting, it hampered the police from quickly identifying the shooter. Proving yet again that while most Americans are brain dead idiots, gun nuts are in a class all by themselves.
I think you are probably on the right track with your predictions for both parties. Its clear to the Democratic leadership that democratic voters, particularly young democrats, are interested in the Bernie Sanders path, but the Clintonites are holding on for dear life. The tragedy of the left is that if they hadn't embraced both big-money politics and PC/post-modern nonsense whole hog, then maybe the republican party wouldn't be as strong as it is today.
Trump is a reaction to (among other things of course) the modern notion that social, gender, and national identities don't matter, and anyone who thinks otherwise is just an ignorant dummy. I'm in the south and I know a lot of people who would vote for democrats again if they would worry more about jobs and less about cultural appropriation.
As for the right itself, who knows, though if Trump is a sign of things to come its not going to be pretty. If we do end up with a truly militant political party it will probably come from the right. Trump appearing is not a surprise by itself, but you have to wonder what kind of Trump-like character we might get if the economic situation becomes really bad and stays bad. Then we might we get someone who has Trump's outlook but with the brains and connections to pull it off.
I just received AWTY! I will write a review of it on amazon as soon as I've completed it. So far, it's been an absolute joy to read! My brain is dancing w/excitement. And, yes, I will certainly toast our beloved Lorenzo Riggins tonight.
Poem for Lorenzo:
A simple life Of burgers and fries Maybe not the best for yr health, But they're a feast for yr eyes
Seven McDoubles Shorted by one And like Charles Dickens's crumpet, Don' forget my Chicken nugget
PBS Nightly Business Report this evening revealed a new "app" called Forewarned. Sadly, it meets a genuine need among real estate agents showing occupied homes to prospective customers. Some of these "prospects" have no interest at all in buying the place. What they are looking for is an opportunity to raid the owner's medicine cabinet; and when they can't do so unobtrusively, they might not be above physically attacking the realtor first.
The app reveals personal information about a name from various sources never so easily available before, providing realtors with quicker and more effective ways to "vet" a guest. We can't assume, however, that users will be limited to professionals with such compelling purposes.
"farmers face pressure from their ag lenders, who often encourage them to remove their shelterbelts for additional cropland, looking for a quicker return on the investment. And they face pressure from their seed salesmen, hoping to sell them more seed, and from their fertilizer salesman, hoping to sell them more fertilizer; and from their tax assessor, who often values the land greater with the trees removed; and from their implement dealers, pushing to sell them a larger piece of equipment."
A necessary app. Don' ferget that most Americans are douche bags.
Jeff-
Beautiful poem; I wept. Other Wafers are encouraged to write odes to Lorenzo, Freddie Wadsworth, Brittany Carulli, et al.
pole, Bill-
We are at the pt now that daily massacres of 4 or 5 people have become "background." To make the news, ya hafta kill more than 20. In a couple of yrs, it will be more than 50. In 10 yrs...
"a dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people than under the forbidden appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of government. History will teach us that the former has been found a much more certain road to the introduction of despotism than the latter, and that of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people; commencing demagogues, and ending tyrants."
Lemonade stands aren't enough! Apparently, 5 years old is the new age to learn how to hustle! A private elementary school aimed to "teach young children about entrepreneurship" : https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-06/wework-hits-education-with-an-entrepreneurial-school-for-kids
Personally, I find the gun-control debate in America to be stupid on both sides.
The anti-gun-control lobby (led by gun manufacturers and the NRA) ignore the fact that Americans are too stupid to handle firearms.
The pro-gun-control lobby (led by well-off urban and suburban progs) correctly points out the need for better regulation. However, they ignore the fact that the American police are the most dangerous group of organized thugs in the country because the police work on their behalf.
I feel that Robert Kaplan’s The Coming Anarchy is here. I especially feel what he writes about nation-states imploding and the rise of criminal violence and organizations is on target. I realize certain countries are in better shape than others. But when I look at secessionist movements in Europe and how many states are poorly governed by extractive institutions around the world and that nation-states were created to fight and win wars in what Martin van Creveld has called a trinitarian manner to keep civilians from suffering like they did during the Thirty Years War. Since western nation-states record of winning wars since WWII is abysmal and for many their debt levels are horrific and debt is stealing from your future to have present satisfaction. There will be a large number of angry young people who will give up on the institutions in their countries and resort to violence. Cell phones and other techno douchebaggery produce alienated people but I feel they contribute to what Kaplan and van Creveld have called the reprimitivation of man which fuels people to snap and shoot up a McDonald’s when their order is incorrect, or run over strangers with trucks. I read about sixteenth and seventeenth century Japan to cope. Much love to the wafers and may you find your own authentic path.
Polecat- You are right the American media's 'analysis' of mass shootings. I've also noticed that in more than a few of the cases (Ft. Hood shootings, Washington Navy Yard, Beltway Sniper, 2016 Dallas Sniper, Christopher Dorner, Umpqua Community College shooting, and the UT Sniper in 1966) - I'm sure I left some out- the perpetrator is a US service member or veteran but this fact is always downplayed by the media. They wouldn't want to suggest that there's something about the military machine that is not healthy to society at large, now would they? Nope, let's just keep repeating that every member of armed forces is a hero.
An article that discusses shootings by military members: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/texas-shooting-shows-military-work-article-1.3616905
Megatrone - Ancient societies provided rituals and ceremonies to help returning warriors re-integrate into the tribe to protect tribal members from their violence. In some, if I remember correctly, warriors were disarmed; in others, made to spend time outside tribal boundaries before being allowed to reenter. Today soldiers have to learn on their own how to transition from a culture that awards them for killing other human beings and one that fears that they may use their lethal skills on their own fellow citizens. In failing them, we have put ourselves at jeopardy and are inheriting the whirlwind.
Reprimitivation of man : All Against All, in The Age of Anger -Pankaj Mishra https://www.truthdig.com/videos/chris-hedges-pankaj-mishra-global-shift-authoritarianism-video/
But what about the revolution? Heated debate on how to save mankind,... http://www.foxnews.com/food-drink/2017/10/30/google-ceo-to-fix-burger-emoji-after-heated-debate-cooks-up-on-twitter.html
I've become pretty jaded about technodouchebaggery and its effects, but even so, I found this article about the content being shown on YouTube channels aimed at preschoolers to be quite disturbing. It's long piece, but worth reading in its entirety. The "normal" content on these channels is depressing enough given that it appears to be perfectly designed to destroy attention spans and inhibit mental development, but the fact that it is randomly mixed up with content being produced by trolls, bots and even abusive parents with little or no controls being exercised is downright scary. The author also goes an extra step and links this phenomenon with the state of capitalism itself:
"What concerns me is not just the violence being done to children here, although that concerns me deeply. What concerns me is that this is just one aspect of a kind of infrastructural violence being done to all of us, all of the time, and we’re still struggling to find a way to even talk about it, to describe its mechanisms and its actions and its effects. As I said at the beginning of this essay: this is being done by people and by things and by a combination of things and people. Responsibility for its outcomes is impossible to assign but the damage is very, very real indeed."
re: Megatron, My thoughts exactly about military. Dude probably joined for economic reasons and after expressing rage and hostility (correlated to being a trained killer?) he finds himself busted to E1 and bad conduct discharge. Probably not a goal when he joined, what employer can mar your record with something nearly as bad as a felony? Without excusing his disgusting behavior it still seems to me all we know is punish punish punish and make him take ALL responsibility. Maybe he felt he was backed into a corner and came out guns blazing. How cowboy.
Welp, by the look of things the show "House of Cards" has turn meta. I mean damn the show now has to compete with everyday American politics. Kevin Spacey's dirty exist in fictional and non-fictional worlds.
The presumed "solutions" to the current world crisis offered by Blond in the First Things essay could be titled "cow manure all the way down". For a thorough-going critique of the applied politics advocated and practiced by the creatures that infest the right wing back-to-the-past "catholic" world view promoted by the "religious" zombies that infest First Things and their fellow travelers check out the truth telling website Open Tabernacle. First Things also has very direct links with the completely obnoxious in-your-face fascist Opus Dei outfit - see www.odan.org Remember too that these zombies are also key supporters of the obnoxious Manhattan Declaration.
Megatron, Wudufugel: We don’t have two major parties. We have one party, the war party, and what we’re looking at are two wings of the same rapacious bird (my apologies to birds everywhere). It’s a difference in style, not substance. The PTB allow the occasional maverick to keep false hope alive, but nothing ever really changes for the better.
I’ve recently been listening to Max Igan of The CrowHouse, who talks a lot about the rollout of 5G, AI, and the extreme dangers to mankind. I’m definitely a very mid 20th century kind of gal, so technically I’m pretty ignorant. I’d be interested to hear any comments from knowledgeable Wafers on this subject. Pick a podcast: http://www.thecrowhouse.com/radio.html#now
On another note, I thought the following comment kinda sums up the world situation, which the U.S.A. has tweaked to psychopathic levels: “…every organic organism…has been forced to participate in a self perpetuating cycle of murder. The collective soul has been bound to a world where every living thing must consume the nearest next available living thing to continue its own existence.“
"Money may eventually be around, but there is no logic that says it has to be. You might wanna do some actual research on the topic, plus lay off the sauce, I'm thinking."
I think that in the future, fiat currencies, crypto-currencies, bartering and precious metals will all be used as means of exchange. Different societies will use one or more of them in order to meet their needs.
"So, I always ask every client, 'Are you prepared to sustain this lie?'” https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/545060/ How to Hire Fake Friends and Family
Bill, just returned from a trip to Seattle where I had to sit between 2 techno-douchebags even you would wince at. Both were not only watching a movie provided by the airline but were also working an I-phone and a tablet at the same time. Thus, there were engaged in 3 gadgets near simultaneously. Unfortunately, they only had 2 ears to handle all the input, poor souls. I thus predict that within 50,000 years humans will develop either 1 or 2 more ears to handle more input or perhaps a second anus which would be as much a statement about humanity as much as another area to place a listening device. Did go to Seattle to attend a bar mitzvah, by the way. The latest trend in bar mitzvahs is for adults to stay more or less seated watching the bar mitzvah boy and his friends play games in the center such as musical chairs. Of course why involve adults in weird things like dancing? After all, adolescent kids are the true repositories of wisdom and must be feted as such. Poor me. I could see the disappointment on guests' faces when I said I was retired. After all they could not engage in conversation to see who had the better job and thus the better life. Perhaps I should say I am a private contractor next time given the fact that I substitute teach a few days a week. I was actually hoping the hustle would not be as pronounced on the west coast as it is on the east. It wasn't though Subway foot long sandwiches are cheaper so the trip was not a total loss.
Frederick, I would not call Opus Dei fascist; it's much, much worse. It's a Satan-worshipping abomination (in Catholic dressing), but way more secretive than fascist movements usually are. It's a cancer infiltrating power centres in places you don't even imagine. Think Freemasonry with a medieval set of values (although, in common with many semi-secret societies, I think the means have become the goal to a large extent, that is, their main objective is to consolidate and increase their power).
An earlier post linked to a video of Clifford Stoll telling an audience at a TED Talk that if they really wanted to know the future they should ask an experienced Kindergarten teacher instead of asking a technologist or a scientist.
I know you did not ask, but (having taught first grade for forty years and having spent the past twelve years reading to children at the public library) I would like to share an observation on how children have changed.
Take the “True Story of the Three Little Pigs”, which came out in 1989. I read this story yearly to all my first graders until my retirement in 2005. All of my children laughed as I read this story. They knew that (a) the wolf was a predator and (b) that he would lie. The lies were so blatant that they were funny.
In 2017, the other children's librarian and I are doing the Summer Reading program. I am sitting with the elementary students as my coworker read this same story about the wolf and pigs. Nobody laughed. Nobody even smiled. They just stared. These same children are not incapable of laughing. For example, the same children laughed at the slap stick, Three Stooges type, physical antics in a play performed a week earlier at the library. However, something important is now missing.
It seems a significant, negative change has occurred in the past 12 years.
The next generation is growing up into healthy adults:
"A 2016 study showed that 49% of teenagers happily admitted that they would text or instant message someone when they were in the same room. They’re calling them Generation Mute."
Whenever I hear news of the degradation of American youth, I am reassured that the country can go in only 1 direction. This culture is a powerful engine for moronization and turkification.
Reed's tuition is 49,000 per year; I wonder what the per minute cost of RAR's protests is......Egypt is referred to as too white and defended as being mocked for being black by the same group in the same series of protests, for those of you scoring at home...
[begin sarcasm] Cultural pun-appropriation ("poetry is lit") is a pressing problem in 2017, maybe even more important than climate change, heroin epidemic, and economic inequality combined.[end sarcasm]
This serves to show that if you get to make up all the rules as you go, you can never be wrong. Does anyone else get the idea that this niche of cultural-left delusion would count as some sort of fantasy escapism on par with the movement towards obsession with VR, videogames, fantasy fiction etc.??
After 3 months working in the U.S., I finish tomorrow and get to leave again Wednesday. Thank. Fucking. God.
I taught public school for a little while and got out of it. In all the classes and grades I taught half the kids were at least two or three years behind in reading and writing. One place the discipline was absolutely atrocious. This was my third grade class. I figured out an incentive that believe it ont made them want to behave. I let them write in pen and so be "special" from all the other classes at the school. They actually behaved pretty good for the right to write in pen and were proud of it. Then my certification advisor stopped by and saw it and said "These are children. They can't write in pen. I want them writing in pencil tomorrow". I politely try to explain this is what was making them want to behave and I actually be able to teach. She literally turns around and just walks off. When Christmas break came I gave my notice and left teaching never to look back.
This is one reason I agree with Dr. Berman that Mr. Hedges and other left writiers are mistaken in thinking we will somehow have some sort of revolution that fixes things. The people coming out of the schools and I dare say even lots of colleges simply do not have the intellectual aptitude to think of a way to pull something like that off or even see the need for something like that.
I mentioned at work a couple of days ago that it was the 100 anniversary of the Russian Revolution. I got blank stares from the younger folks at work and asked if they had ever heard of Lenin, Trotsky, or Stalin. One middle aged lady responded she had heard of Stalin and said she thought he was one of Hitler's generals in World War Two. The stupid coming from these people really hurt.
As a "trained killer" (M.Sgt. res., IDF) myself, I doubt that military training is the cause of shooters' mental problems. Military life and discipline are not for everybody, and can cause mental breakdown, but countries with conscription such as, for example, Switzerland, Norway, Denmark, or for that matter Mr. Berman's adopted country, Mexico, tend to have a much lower rate of such events than the USA.
This stands to reason, in fact; if there is one thing that is drilled into you as a soldier, it is that weapons are dangerous and must be handled with care. It is instinctive for any soldier to not aim weapons at people unless there is a VERY good reason to, to wit, in battle. Of course this instinct too can be overcome if someone is suicidal or insane enough, but it would be an extra psychological hurdle. It would make a soldier less, not more, likely than a civilian to commit such a crime.
A soldiers' extra training with weapons would not be relevant in any such scenario. Shooting at civilians from close range requires no particular skill, and a SEAL is no better in doing so than anybody who spent a week in a gun range. In theory, someone with my training could use heavier weapons and equipment better than the average Joe, but one rarely has access to, say, a tank in civilian life (still less to the crew, oils, fuel, batteries, ammunition, spare parts, and technical know-how that would be required for such a tank to remain in working order).
JJ- Lunacy like that isn't confined to the Reed campus. You can find people like that all over Portland. I lived in Portland for five years in the early 2000s and I found it to be a lonely, hostile place. The low point for me was one day after work I was still wearing my work clothes (a suit and tie) and I stopped by a locally-owned coffee shop. As I was placing my order the clerk laughed and called me a fascist. And yet Portlanders are constantly reminding people how tolerant and compassionate they are!
The worst part is that Morris's blog didn't exist yet, so I didn't have this island of sanity to keep me grounded and commiserate with fellow Wafers.
@wizard I'm horrified. To do a thing like that to a girl out of love would be beautiful, but doing it for money is the saddest thing I can think of. Let's make him an honorary american.
Thanks for yr input. It calls to mind a bumper sticker I saw in DC, a few mos. b4 I left it: "You Can't Fix Stupid." No kidding. With what raw material are Hedges et al. going to make this purported uprising or resistance, and who is it exactly that they are going to save? I suspect that one reason I'm off the radar screen in the US is that it is mega-politically incorrect to say that Americans are dumb as shit. And yet, I follow an illustrious line: H.L. Mencken, Geo Carlin, and Gore Vidal. George was dismissed as a comedian; the others, and myself, as cranks. As of late, however, 2 writers have followed my example: Kurt Andersen and Suzy Hansen. Check them out on Amazon.
Fran-
Actually, they've switched to pretzels. But a blowjob is still in the lead, I'm thinking.
Josh-
I've often said on this blog that Pinker is a turkey. His linguistics also sucks.
To Peez: https://www.amazon.com/Doughnut-Economics-Seven-21st-Century-Economist/dp/1603586741
This is the book the George Monbiot column is referring to. It is a great work, reads like Nomi Prins.
To MB: "I've often said on this blog that Pinker is a turkey. His linguistics also sucks."
Wow! I can relate having contrary views to his on the anthropological lit.[re: his "Better Angels of Our Nature"], but I've never heard such a categorical dismissal of his technical work in language science. I have always met his hard-nosed materialism w/ a fair amount of skepticism myself, but I also enjoy his lay books "Stuff of Thought" "Language of the Mind" and "Sense of Style" that focus on the neuroscientific underpinnings of language.
Is there anything you could recommend? I'd love to read!
Restaurant Owner Chokes Woman In Dispute Over Cold Fries
A restaurant owner in Memphis is accused of attacking and choking a customer who complained about her fries being cold. The incident happened on Nov. 3 at Crumpy’s Hot Wings when the victim, Rinesha Moore, came in to pick up an order.
The two argued over the cold fries for minutes, according to witnesses who said they saw Moore throw her food on the floor. And started saying the fries were cold and old.
That’s when the restaurant owner came out from behind the counter, grabbed her by the neck and started strangling her over the cold fries.
americans were very passionate about important things such as cold fries.
I've often contemplated joining the Freemasons and am curious to hear your take on them as an organization.
Frederick: Thanks for those Opus Dei and Catholic Church links. I was raised Catholic and had heard of Opus Dei but I had no idea what they were really up too until I started reading about them yesterday. Yikes! And I thought evangelicals were scary...
Dr. B: I've had many blowjobs, given by many people, and have had zero orgasms from any of them. Personally, I'd rather have the peanuts or a proper mile high club romp in the lavatory.
Just received my copy of AWTY in the mail yesterday. Just in time for the weather here to turn cold, so I won't mind getting snug on the couch for hours of good reading.
Meanwhile, the latest America-in-collapse headlines:
But that isn't as bad as this article, which stubbornly refuses to state the bleeding frickin' obvious: that the parents of the children in question cannot AFFORD to pay for their kids' dental work:
BH, I taught first grade for many years. In the first few weeks I taught making a plural by adding "S". I had the children fold a paper in half and at the top, for example they wrote boy and boys on the other half. I then passed out crayons and let the kids draw 1 boy and 2 or more boys on the other half of the page. One day the vice-principal entered and said, "First graders should not be using crayons. We have art teachers for that." Of course I could have reminded him of various multiple intelligence studies such as spacial, kinesthetic, etc. but why waste my breath.
So the American right is getting scary, I've mentioned a pseudointellectual named Jordan Peterson before, he has such a large following of sexually frustrated white males that he's making around 60k a month of donations and millions of views on his youtube videos.
So he has this biblical series where he tries to talk philosophy and give special meaning to myths. Of course that has some value but not the way he does it. He mentioned how the idea of God is so deep and atheists are stupid. For instance, the ten commandments tells us the values of the people who lived in the time of Moses and I thought to myself "no shit and it also disproves God." I mean if what they're saying is that religion is just men's values put into a book then doesn't that also mean that we don't need God to make those rules, like how nearly every nation on earth does this today? The retards of the alt-right are turning to theocracy without even realizing it. So you're right again Dr Berman, religion is never going away, they will just find new fallacious arguments to keep believing nonsense. God I need to gtfo of this freak show ASAP.
Here's a bizarre take on what future convenience relationships will evolve to that is already happening in Japan (probably other places as well). It's interesting/frightening how the guy opens up with all the details of the scenarios he has to deal with. The most telling line that this guy is bankrupt is when he says, "I don’t have a real girlfriend right now. Real dating feels like work. It feels like work to care for a real person."
How to Hire Fake Friends and Family https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/545060/
“more than real” - less concerns, less misunderstanding, less conflict, better results, more ideal, more clean, a more perfect form of reality ... what a tagline.
Strangling is gd, but if he had been armed--like a true American--he cd have simply blown her brains out. Of course, why she wasn't armed is also puzzling.
Sandy-
Look, I'm no linguistic expert, but as far as linguistics goes, Pinker's work strikes me as being just warmed-over Chomsky, and I never believed in Chomsky's Cartesian Port-Royale theory of an innate grammar, myself. There is some crit of Chomsky in Norman Malcolm's "Wittgenstein: A Religious Point of View?", and then there was field research some yrs ago by some anthropologist, with a tribe in the Amazon (I think), that claimed to refute Chomsky's theory. He 1st published in Current Anthropology, then did a bk; but I just can't recall the details. What seems more likely than an innate grammar is the basic fact that children learn language by living in it. So no great mystery: German children learn to speak German, Bulgarian children learn to speak Bulgarian, and American children learn to drool and grunt.
Meanwhile, mixed messages in the press re: Trumpi and China. According to one report, it looks like he has symbolically handed over the reins of power to Pres Xi. We are officially No. 2, economically speaking. Trumpo's historical mission is to degrade and bury the US, and he has taken some impt steps in this direction. The problem, as I suggested in the Preface to the Chinese translation of WAF, is that Xi's goal is basically to replicate the American pattern in Mandarin. So what's on deck is a Chinese, globalized, authoritarian capitalism. This isn't much of an improvement over what we have now, and it certainly poses problems for Dual Process. It will probably be hard for DP to gain ground in the territories controlled (economically) by China. Europe and Latin America may be our only hope. Just speculating...
Sadly, I think you are right about China, Mr Berman, and would extend your analysis to all of Asia with the exception of Japan.
I've been travelling to Asia since 2001, and just recently I noticed a dramatic shift in atmosphere towards vulgar capitalism, materialism, American-style interpersonal aggression, anger, perpetual scowls, and irritability.
Asia is "ambitious" now - and is afflicted with all the ills of ambition.
A place like Thailand is, now, barely any better than America in terms of angey, aggressive, unhappy people, and I've lost count of the number of aggressive, materialistic, awful Chinese I've encountered.
Poor Asia - but it just shows no culture has shown itself immune from the disease.
Europeans, by contrast, seem to me to be entering a pre-Buddhist phase - a more chilled out, relaxed group of people you will not find. Europeans have seen through "ambition".
Spirituality must now be sought in the West, and the East is materialistic - interesting reversal, but consistent with the cyclical nature of history.
Anyone reading about the Paradise Papers? Seems like it should be a massive story, but I see it's already disappeared off the NYT website in favor of the newest Hollywood sexual abuse story.
Saw the director of the VA on TV literally bragging that anyone who gets a bad conduct discharge is permanently denied benefits. Everyone knows seeking mental health treatment is a career killer in the military, it happened to me when I was in the army. I also experienced a would be assasin dressed in black body armour armed to the gills ready to mow us all down from the rear of our Monday morning company formation. The quick thinking of a SFC literally prevented a bloodbath. Apologies if it offends but to me being a "trained killer" is someone who has gone thru enough training to objectify another person giving him/her the right to take their life under the prescribed circumstance. It isn't difficult to see how it can all go off the rails in certain people. The Texas shooter can go to admin segregation for the rest of his life for all I care, but what about the ones suffering in silence even the ones who fucked up and got a bad discharge? For the VA, not to single them out b/c all the social welfare agencies do the same, to cut and run is shameful to me, punishing people into oblivian just creates more victims.
I would like to make a WAFer book recommendation. Alan Ehrenhalt’s “The Lost City: The Forgotten Virtues of Community in America.” The book is about 1950s Chicago and how, despite all of the corruption and unfairness of life in Chicago at the time most people were probably happier than they are now. The book came out in 1995 so it is somewhat outdated. However, Ehrenhalt’s point about how limits in life actually make most ordinary people happier is interesting. Ehrenhalt argues that the drive to throw off all limits and promote unlimited choice after the 1960s destroyed many of the good aspects of community life in America. Definitely worth a read.
What a sick culture ours; perverted, hyperSexed and frustrated. One douchebag just wanna fuk point-blank, while the other pleasures himself spanking his monkey in public. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olXBfU4Bjp8 https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/masturbation-sexual-assault_us_5a04dcc4e4b05673aa584c89?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009
Jiddu Krishnamurti pointed out, “it is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” Wafers zindabad!!
A couple of tidbits--not related to each other but each in its own way infuriating.
A Pew Research Center poll reveals that about 40% of LGBT adults were met with rejection when they came out to family and friends, and about 30% were physically threatened or even attacked.
And the most popular comments to this article are disgusting.
Meanwhile Roy Moore, who has been denounced as a creep with a liking for teenage girls, finds that other GOP lawmakers want nothing to do with him and wish he would just drop out of tha race, "if these allegations are found to be true."
ps: Actually, I think this segment might only be a preview, because Sean Stone asked me several questions during the interview, and this cut represents only 1 of them. I did ask him for the link, so there may be more to come. Stay tuned.
Why this Hollywood sex-scandal corp media blitzkrieg? The casting couch is as well known as coked out Wall Street sex feinds or Catholic peds or Epstein's Lolita express etc.
I'm not trying to emotionally invalidate valid moral outrage but I'm paranoid the corp matrix is always distracting and herding the free range slaves when bank bail-ins and other corp state tyranny looms the horizon.
MB has mentioned repressed everything. Why are women allowed to couple with the corp state to harvest and destroy men in divorce court etc. e.g. condoned female sexual harrassment.
The state may be using tactics to control disenfranchised working class men. Regardless so much for the sexual revolution of the 60's and 70's. E. Fromme pointed out the group decides normalcy no matter how unfair and insane.
"As the failures of “progressive” electoralist forces pile up across the world—Syriza in Greece, Podemos in Spain, the PT in Brazil, renascent Peronism in Argentina, to name just a few— we are all going together is deeper into capitalist crisis and the disintegration of the system as a whole"
How ironic how dysfunctional governments are allowing alternatives, hopefully Latin American countries don't get functional governments and that more austerity is implemented in Europe to force people to find alternatives. In the same way, we should be applauding china's attempt at destroying the dollar, doesn't benefit the 99% to have the reserve currency, if anything it allows the US government to spend and spend until it finally creates a perfect totalitarian state like they are blatantly doing by scare mongering Americans about how "China will beat us in AI so we have to collect more data than them." I find AI to be pretty goddam scary, it won't benefit the 99% percent but it sure as hell will allow governments to place data points on each person and project the future with it, I really hope something happens to stop all the data collection, AI will not bring singularity but it might bring big brother IMHO
And here's one of those stupid "outrage stories" in which we are supposed to get all mad at a teacher who threatened to put bullet in a student’s head. Outraged, that is, until you read a quote from the student's momma and realize who the real problem likely is:
Carr told WSB-TV in Atlanta she received a call from the administration on Thursday informing her of what happened. She reportedly admitted her son’s behavior caused the incident, but was still outraged by the “terroristic threat[s]” made against her son. “I want him fired. And I want him fired and I want charges pressed against him,” Carr said.
Fired? They ought to make this guy "teacher of the year."
About Reed college: From the information posted here, it costs 50 grand a year, has the highest % of humanities graduate degrees pursuers, and "spurns the US News & World Reporrt ranking". In plain English it's a $200,000 finishing school for future Starbuck's baristas. No wonder they are frustrated. But why not get a technician's degree in someting useful and then read Plato or Aquinas for themselves, instead of throwing $200,000 to read "Aristotle was a black lesbian" women studies' PhDs that pass for "research in the humanities" today?
Gunner Burton - About "trained killer": You are correct that soldiers get trained to kill people, but surgeons are trained to cut people with knives, and electricians to wire things to high voltage sources. Yet you do not see surgeons going around randomly cutting up people, or electricians electrocuting people in the street. If a surgeon *did* go amok and ran around cutting people with a knife, his training as a surgeon would hardly be the reason.
The other day I saw bits of a TV show about the history of Rolling Stone magazine. It wasn't exactly riveting analysis or anything, but the segment about Hunter S. Thompson was great. The piece featured a couple of quotes that ought to resonate with Wafers:
"This may be the year when we finally come face to face with ourselves; finally just lay back and say it — that we are really just a nation of 220 million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns, and no qualms at all about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable."
“It is Nixon himself who represents that dark, venal and incurably violent side of the American character that almost every country in the world has learned to fear and despise. Our Barbie-doll president, with his Barbie-doll wife and his boxful of Barbie-doll children is also America's answer to the monstrous Mr. Hyde. He speaks for the Werewolf in us; the bully, the predatory shyster who turns into something unspeakable, full of claws and bleeding string-warts on nights when the moon comes too close…"
More on Justin Mcdaniel's course on Living Deliberately, where students become monastic, ditch their tech. We discussed his Existentialist Dread course on the blog previously
I think Chopped may have presented a false equivalence here. He is arguing that the the "training" of both the soldier and the surgeon are logically equivalent when in fact they are not. Surgeons and electricians are *not* specifically trained to kill, but soldiers are. We can thus conclude that training an individual to kill could be a major factor in their decision to kill.
I am slightly late to the party, but I discovered the song "The Dolphins" by Fred Neil today and it's been a while since I listened to such powerful music. It hit me like a truck. If progs listened to such music, surely the world would be a better place. Re: Fred Neil, this is from Wikipedia:
"Though highly regarded by contemporary folk singers,[2] he was reluctant to tour and spent much of the last 30 years of his life assisting with the preservation of dolphins."
Well, I'm not exactly ecstatic about what RT Television did with my interview with them. The taping (in NY) ran about 20-25 mins, and then they apparently took 2 short segments of that and folded it into larger programs. Here's the one that Jeff already posted:
There may be more, for all I know, but I haven't found it.
They had pursued me rather keenly, for months, to do this interview, and then instead of running the whole interview, made something of a hash of it. Well, what can ya do. Mexican TV humped me in a similar fashion some yrs ago, so there's no singling out Russia for this bowdlerization (or "salad"). I just wish these people wd tell their subjects in advance what they plan to do, so we cd say Thanks but no thanks. Maybe I'll drop Vlad a line, in Russian. :-(
Please excuse if this "daily" post of mine is perhaps an hour or two early than the 24-hour-rule requires. Also, as I post once a day, I make two separate points on different issues.
About soldiers - the point of my analogy is to not confuse means with ends. Surgeons learn to cut people *for the purpose* of healing them. Soldiers learn to kill the enemy *for the purpose* of protecting their country and countrymen. Thus for both, cutting or killing people randomly is unlikely, since it doesn't serve the purpose. It is deeply drilled into both to use their training only for the correct purpose.
Also, soldiers are not really trained "to kill people" at all. Their training is in operating their weapons or other equipment. They aren't trained to hate the enemy or consider him subhuman, at least not in Western armies. Just like surgeons aren't really trained "to cut people" - they are not released among condemned prisoners to slash them at will, for example. The whole "trained to kill" idea is based on a misunderstanding of what soldiers do.
Another, unrelated question to Mr. Berman. The one-line summary of your books is, I think it is fair to say, "how to find love and meaning in a selfish, meaningless society". I have no disagreement with your recommendations, but it occurred to me that you never mention anywhere the most common and obvious way to do so, to wit, to marry someone you love and raise a family with them. Why?
WAFER Derek--the Paradise Papers are /were discussed in depth by real news in the EU. All over France, Sweden, Netherlands, UK, etc.... 30-60min intense TV debates, discussions, and interviews with critically thinking real journalists with sharp criticisms and provocative debate.
The american "news" discussed it superficially, then crickets.
We now have cute celebrity pet halloween costumes, Hollywood sexy times, Turkducken recipes, and which mutual fund should have your money.
Regarding the soldiers and violence issue, this story might be relevant: Marine drill instructor gets 10 years in prison for hazing Muslims and other recruits Note that the ABC "News" headline refers to the drill sergeant's actions as "hazing" rather than physical abuse that led one recruit to commit suicide. I served in the army for 7 years, and my experience was that the guys who went in as psychos came out as psychos, only now were more efficient killers. For the rest of us, it was a job we had to do. Of course, I was extremely fortunate never to have been ordered to participate in one of America's many recent war crimes.
There was a new twist yesterday in the sexual predator stories, as it turns out that one of Hollywood's most adamant critics of Trump's p-grabbing is actually a d-grabber himself. I used to be somewhat amused by George Takei's schtick, and would never denigrate the abusive treatment he received from his own government as a Japanese internee, but in recent years he has come off more and more like a sanctimonious prick--a typical American liberal in other words. Every liberal douchebag in Hollywood who has prattled on about Trump should put this little sign on their bathroom mirror: "I am a hypocritical turkey and should keep my mouth shut."
I watched the movie you suggested Dr Berman and it kind of made me lose hope for Latin America. US influence is just too strong and they already have a fairly large capitalist class that is willing to do whatever it takes for power. I think the alternative structure will come from a culturally united racially homogenous country, like Scandinavia, or maybe Japan, who knows maybe even some place like Armenia, in Latin America only Mexico has a strong culture but they are not racially united, the other South American countries are missing smth culturally IMO.
One thing has become clear for me every since reading your works though is that a mental revolution is the #1 prerequisite for any sort of alternative. Like Julian Jaynes wrote, most people can't do smth from just pure will power, we either need a power structure, like a "god" that commands us or a belief that makes us do what we do. America doesn't have much of a culture so that's not an option here but I think a place like Norway could replace it's power structure with cultural unity maybe this is why the elites want multicultarism, I know it's a conspiracy theory but the billionaires ain't no dummies, they're smart evil assholes.
It's strange Russian TV Putin owned?-TV is closer to truth than mass media but there is conflation. The current commander in chief was allowed in as a possible launderer for eastern oligarchs.
I think the nation state is an illusion like Thatcher said - there are families, heirarchies, cultural tribes, institutions, etc all vetted to be in league with oligarchs for existential collectivism, resulting in centralized poli-bureaus.
Only now gov has so much tech to control disposable labor it really does look like sociopathic family values from here on.
Watching the Hawks is cringe worthy in how they try to cross pollinate hip, alternative media, over production, entertainment, and shoddy progressive style that just amounts to tasteless noise.
You got carnival barked by a horribly disingenuous vibe MB.
Good news WAFers, we can stop worrying about the state of America because Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg is finishing up his country-wide tour and has figured out what is wrong with the country.
Well, RT are journalists at the end of the day, that is, in an ethical scale of professions, way below prostitutes and drug dealers (with apologies to prostitutes and drug dealers) and only slightly above contract killers. Like all journalists, they take orders from their pay masters and do propaganda accordingly. Occasionally, they report part of the truth, more by accident than by design IMHO.
I just felt like saying this because I have personal experience of things that have been ludicrously falsified by newspapers, but by no means I'd like to start a flame war about who is worse, the BBC, the CNN, RT etc.
Check out On Contact with Chris Hedges interviewing Stuart Euen. Marketing and advertising has swallowed us up with the logical outcome being Donald Trump; the ultimate product that assures success.
I think the problem with Chopped's analogy is that it confuses training with the purpose of such training. A surgeon is trained to cut people up, but the purpose of the training is to directly save lives. Likewise, a soldier is trained to use weapons, and the purpose of the training is to kill people.
That said, I think the issue of soldiers being "trained killers" does not explain the problems within the American military by itself. As many great thinkers have pointed out, it is necessary for a society to have the ability to wage war or have some other entity willing to wage war on its behalf. Rather, the problems within the American military arise from the fact that the soldiers are Americans (i.e. fucked up) combined with the fact that they are also "trained killers."
Chopped: I’d almost agree with you if the armed forces had to follow something like the Hippocratic Oath which is the physician's highest calling. I’m thinking too that knowledge of surgery aided and abetted Dr. Mengele, and Frankenstein, and Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde for contrast Darwin, as far as electricians off the top of my head the electric chair, electroconvulsive therapy, and downright meanness in cases of torture seem like about the same perversions in training. Interesting fact, Kitty Hawk 1903, US Army Air Signal Corp purchases a plane (which the bros enthusiastically sold for $30,000) in 1909. 6 yrs to be weaponized, what to make of it? Can’t go along down this road much further, I just have my own opinion after observation. I was an interrogator and went to the same language school as the ones caught bangin’ in Abu Grahib. I got to see insanity in embryo. It’s a scar I don’t much look at esp distasteful on V Day.
So what happened to the grand promise of liberal western free-enterprise capitalist democracy and its trickle-down whatever? Thomas Frank believes that Obanga was competent and "good at the job." Sure he was, and so is our Dear Orange Leader. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/12/aghast-donald-trump-thomas-frank https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/06/02/obama-a-hollow-man-filled-with-ruling-class-ideas/
The white man willingly and enthusiastically took on the burden to "civilize" the savages of the world and in turn became the savage that he always was. And now we are supposed to sympathize with his plight? https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/american-hyper-capitalism-breeds-lonely-alienated-men-who-become-mass-killers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Man%27s_Burden
I really don't follow Chopped's analogies here...not clear what electricians hafta do with soldiers, etc. It seems scrambled. In addition, the militarization of American police forces since 9/11 led to the killing of 5000 unarmed civilians during 2001-11, cd be 8 or 9000 by now. It seems to me that being part of the military means u.r. trained to kill, or else there wd be no purpose to having a military. Thus whole discussion seems like a red herring, and much of what Chopped says above seems to me quite simply wrong. This feels a lot like our argument about antizionism = anti-Semitism: the logic is off, and I myself don't want to keep going round in circles. It seems like talk for the sake of talk.
As for Chopped's one-line summary of my work: Are you kidding me? You've got 14 bks on a wide variety of subjects (I'm guessing you haven't read very many of them). There *is* no one-line summary of my work. In addition, I don't think that any of my bks is abt finding love. Once again, a very confused mode of thinking.
I don't think there was anything intentionally nasty going on w/RT; this is probably just how they work, and I was not aware of it. Nor wd I be: I've probably given more than 100 interviews in my life, maybe 200, and none of them followed this odd slice-and-dice formula; they just ran the entire interview. I had no reason to expect anything different.
Joanna-
Yes, I know, I cited both of the "Berman cuts" on RT above.
We went to a local church bazaar for supper last week because we didn't feel like cooking. I overheard the minister say that the two clergy parking spaces in front of the local hospital recently had the signs changed to "drug reps" and there are no longer any reserved spaces for clergy. Sad, but predictable.
Meanwhile, you've got Trump initially pulling a Shrub after his meeting with Putin. I know the latter was a long time KGB flunky, but he must have gotten some damn good hypnosis training at some point since every U.S. president who "looks into his eyes" comes away wishing they could marry the guy.
Trump then walked the statement about how much he trusted Putin back, likely after the IC assholes reminded him of what they have on him that hasn't been publicly revealed yet, while dumbass liberals and douchebag Democrats are crowing again about how the CIA is protecting our "democracy." If the U.S. manages to get any collectively dumber, a black hole is going to open up and swallow us all.
I've heard that forgiveness is the highest form of love. In Tom Franks' case forgiving him for taking a corp Guardian job is not so hard.
The Wrecking Crew really pointed out how careerist traitors sold the country out. And Frank in Listen Liberal astutely observed that "creativity" now belongs to a credentialed class of people - that that is how this caste class warfare corruptly self-deals etc.
@ Kanye, Yes Searching for Sugarman is a very good profile of a forgotten musician that is appreciated later in life.
In Michael Herr's Dispatches he describes the Vietnam War press briefings as "psychotic vaudeville". What an apt description for our current societal and political climate. Almost everyday is psychotic vaudeville.
Attended a performance or Phantom last night and once again encountered women, one or two generations removed from the working class effectuating upper-class accents.What's with that? All that distinct pronunciation which I'm sure the true upper-class doesn't actually do as they don't need to be so conscious of their speech. I also notice there's almost no heterosexual dating. It's mostly groups of women and gay guys. My guess is that men have more or less given up on American women who attend more to their phones than to their male date. Stock tip-invest in Petsmart since most of these women will be alone living with a cat. By the way, the biggest cheers last night were for the special effects. Who needs music when you can have chandeliers dropping from the ceiling? And so many little princesses working on their accents of course.
Nemesis: Whom the gods wd destroy, they 1st drive crazy. The US is rt on schedule. Also keep in mind that Thanksgiving is approaching, and millions of turkeys are marching toward it.
Chopped, you said: “Also, soldiers are not really trained "to kill people" at all. Their training is in operating their weapons or other equipment. They aren't trained to hate the enemy or consider him subhuman, at least not in Western armies….the trained to kill" idea is based on a misunderstanding of what soldiers do.”
Are you kidding me? Yes, soldiers are trained to operate weapons and equipment, but more than that, they are trained to consider the enemy sub-human. How else to overcome the reluctance of what otherwise might be decent people to exterminate their fellow human beings? This is essentiaL.
BTW, during the Viet Nam War my cousin graduated from Ranger School at Fort Benning, Georgia, and said he was, and I quote, “a trained professional killer.” He signed up for a second tour.
"Regardless so much for the sexual revolution of the 60's and 70's."
I think the "sexual revolution" is another illusion created by the American corporate media and American culture. America is still a very Puritan society that absolutely loathes any kind of authentic expression, especially sexual expression.
The real sexual revolution in America was just a blip that lasted during the late 60s and the 70s.
Lately I have been getting a weird feeling in my stomach when I think of how simplistically stupid American's thoughts are. You can tell by looking at the people they follow, Scott Adams, Sam Harris, the worshipping of billionaires, etc. Here is Scott Adams' report card of Trumpi, it would be funny if it wasn't for how many Americans follow him and people like him. Be bulgar and have simplistic, fallacious logic and it is a sure way to get millions of American Turkeys following you.
An A on terrorism, lmfao, I guess domestic terrorism doesn't count and he's not aware that ISIS works for the US. I suppose he could be writing what his stupid followers want to hear. Go down to the comments if interested in the philosopher's of our day
WAFER Student of Waferism--americans are d-bags and dumber than shit. Period. The. End. 99.7% of them. We have "lost" friends b/c of our arguments and opinions re: the empire. Apparently, american 'friends' can only hear shiny happy people stories. Or black/white "thinking" b/c that's all the american brain can handle.
Any sharp criticism, or reality -based arguments and they ghost on ya or look at you like you dropped the supper tray.
Robert Bellah and Dr. Berman have discussed the civil religion in america (the lust of america being akin to the love of God), and anything that insults their God is seen as a big threat; followed by vitriolic rage.
2 options: 1. Emigrate (much preferred) or 2. NMI.
Under the heading “Thank you for your service,” this item reporting the suspected murder of a Green Beret in Mali by two SEALs from SEAL Team Six when the Green Beret discovered they were pocketing cash from a contingency fund and refused to join in the stealing.
“As the elite troops do in so many countries, they operate in the shadows, with comparatively little oversight—and what their actions actually look like on the ground can be much dirtier than the heroic image the Pentagon prefers to portray.”
I'm waiting for the headline "Surgeon runs amok with scalpel at McDonalds. Says hot apple pie was cold."
I was shocked at how MSNBC/Fox like that rt show? was. Hope they paid you well for your time, or at minimum gave you a reach-around. I can picture a million ameridiots tuned into the show going "huh?" I was reminded of the Sesame Street skit "One of these things is not like the other". Glad to have you back home again.
Isn't it the amerikn way to take matters into your own hands -stand your ground; get even- LasVegas style? When will these aggrieved Usonian start carrying bazookas to make their point? I mean how long will this lame slapping-punching go on before they bring out the big guns like their Uncle Sam? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMuw2C4qe88 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kln2SHc5-p8&list=RDKln2SHc5-p8&index=1
I know this is going back a bit, but I have to weigh in on the China trip. The idea that the Chinese have somehow left America in the dust is simply the result of the fevered American ego being unable to accept that there's a country somewhere on this earth we can't just push around and that is on the rise while we are very much on the opposite trajectory. Don't get me wrong, a changing of the guard in the Pacific, and thereafter the whole world, is pretty much inevitable and sooner than many might think. But there is the distinct air of puerile, delusional self-pity in the Trumpite China/America analysis, akin to Americans making themselves the victims of Vietnam, or bemoaning that the Olympic Basketball Team won the Gold Medal game by a mere handful of points.
Yea! This is what I'm asking Santa for this year. Meanwhile, in case anyone missed this from 2010: http://www.escapefromamerica.com/2010/06/escape-from-america-the-grim-truth/
ReplyDeleteI am not sure your link works, did nothing for me. Better put the tittle and we can search.
ReplyDeleteOdile-
ReplyDeleteFunny, it works for me. But the title is "Are We There Yet?" Gd luck, and thanks for yr interest.
mb
http://reason.com/blog/2017/11/01/fake-human-trafficking-busts-by-dhs/amp
ReplyDeletesheesh! creeps!
Here's a recent comedy/politics podcast featuring a(n) "self-hating" (anti-zionist) Jewish cartoonist:
ReplyDeletehttps://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/patreon-posts/5SNGGDjnab7ch_WpDxQhSzqBd7GIj_Fdiot90wJhSuNyO51OscowN9Wx1scVG8aW.mp3
Looks like American men are under Roman law-guilty till proven innocent. While in NYC I passed Chelsea Park which had a sign reading: "No adult can enter [the park] unless accompanied by a child." WTF! Can you believe that? The culture is that terrified of single men. Later I passed a school yard with children playing and there were 3 policemen within the grounds again I suppose to be on the lookout for wandering single men. I mean who are single men allowed to talk to? We certainly can't speak to a woman for fear of being accused of sexual harassment and now you cannot even be in the vicinity of a child for fear of being labeled a pediphile.
ReplyDeleteYeah, no chance any media outlet would even suggest terrorism in the US may be the result of our continual bombing of 7 Muslim countries. Always safe to play the innocent victim. Israel has probably perfected it best. There a 7 year old can throw a stone and is labeled a terrorist as he fights vainly against the 4th largest military on earth.
Bullshevik,
ReplyDeleteGood read. I escaped the US for Germany about 10 years ago and can confirm much of what the author writes about.
This part was particularly bang-on: "Mentally, you are truly imprisoned. You don’t even know the degree to which you are tormented by fears of medical bankruptcy, job loss, homelessness and violent crime because you’ve never lived in a country where there is no need to worry about such things."
These fears are buried so deep in the subconscious of most Americans that they take years to get rid of, and I am not sure they ever truly go away.
American barbarity continued....
ReplyDeletehttps://www.theroot.com/3-dead-after-gunman-opens-fire-inside-walmart-1820072020
https://www.theroot.com/disgusting-university-of-hartford-freshman-who-rubbed-u-1820036536
This country is such a cruel place to be, the tensions that run from coast to coast are ubiquitous and irreversible.
Dr. Berman is right, if you can, get out !!!
Wafers,
ReplyDeleteMy son who lives in Italy recently spent some time with his Italian friends in NYC. They described their trip this way:"Non e una vacanza ma e una guerra."
Marianne
I sort of consider Jonathan Turley to be an "inadvertent Wafer." If only he could connect the dots, he might realize that what he reports on his blog every day is indicative of a country slowly tearing itself apart. Just in the past few days, he has noted the following:
ReplyDeleteChrist Church Removes Plaque To Its Former Patron, George Washington, Because It Created An “Unsafe Or Unwelcome” Space
“Sexist By Virtue Of Being A Male”: Emory Professor Under Fire For Views On Race and Gender Bias
No “Cisgender Straight White Males” Wanted: DNC Posts Job Notice That Excludes Heterosexual White Males
DNC Chairman Perez: “The Electoral College Is Not A Creation Of The Constitution
O&D, Jonathan, O&D
Morris this just like the McDonald’s lady u mentioned a while back . This time it involves a gun
ReplyDeletehttp://wwmt.com/news/offbeat/man-pulls-gun-after-being-told-ohio-mcdonalds-was-out-of-egg-mcmuffins-police-say
Also, a helpful link for comparison purposes, showing how antisemitism and "anti-zionism" are, like, completely different, man:
ReplyDeletehttps://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FvEJdHdduKM/WfZrNMhr6-I/AAAAAAAA9Ew/p5ICzKODD2c0OWYVzp_UC1ajDJSjsCgBwCLcBGAs/s1600/as%2Baz%2Bbig.jpg
Morris should most definitely have been on this panel, and I’m wondering why not. Were you even invited Morris? I’d like to think so and that you had other commitments at the time.
ReplyDeletehttps://youtu.be/DOFc0ZEmaHI
I find the moral panic over Trumpo being a barbarian to be funny. Clinton (Branch Davidian massacre and Yugoslavia bombing), Bush Jr. (Started invasion of the Middle East) and Obama/Hillary (destabilized several countries) are all objectively more barbaric than Trumpo. Trumpo is vulgar and did order that stupid strike on Syria. However, he has shown relatively more restraint than his immediate predecessors thus far. We will see how long that lasts though.
ReplyDeleteBullshevik,
ReplyDeleteA very good article. What do you make of the ending:
"In closing, I want to remind you of something – unless you are an American Indian or a descendant of slaves, at some point your ancestors chose to leave their homeland in search of a better life. They weren’t traitors and they weren’t bad people, they just wanted a better life for themselves and their families. Isn’t it time that you continue their journey?"
Lots of questions:
What journey and where to?
Why run from USA when you should reclaim what your ancestors built for you?
Aren't you cowards for wanting to run away from your ancestors' house?
If you get to where you are running to, what says you will not fuck it up the same way you fucked up America? British called your ancestors terrorists and traitors, so why should we not call you terrorists and traitors?
“...revolves around the journey of King Porus...who fought against Alexander the Great in the Battle of the Hydaspes.
ReplyDeletehttps://m.timesofindia.com/tv/news/hindi/porus-new-show-to-set-bar-higher-for-historicals-on-tv/amp_articleshow/61461797.cms
Dan,
ReplyDeleteI was about to throw the BS flag on your Chelsea Park tale until I looked up NYC Park rules and found this gem:
Exclusive Areas
Areas within the parks designated by the Commissioner for exclusive use by means of posting signs shall include:
Exclusive Childrens Playgrounds: Adults allowed in playground areas only when accompanied by a child under the age of twelve (12). Violation of this paragraph constitutes a misdemeanor.
https://www.nycgovparks.org/rules/section-1-05
Are there that many child snatchers and pervs out there? Sheesh!
So Dr Berman I know you didn't answer my question on whether there is a chance that Jews continue to have vertical practices to this day but I've been thinking about it a lot and realized it doesn't matter. Things are bad enough by just looking at it horizontally. But I did read the bicameral mind and if Julian was right and everything, including language is an object or reference to an object, it makes sense why governments distribute televisions so much. They're just putting a bunch of images in our head which makes me double think conspiracies.
ReplyDeleteAnyways, there is a company called Cambridge Analytical where the chief executive claimed this in 2006, "in the United States we have somewhere close to four or five thousand data points on every individual ... So we model the personality of every adult across the United States, some 230 million people." This was in 2006, did Facebook even exist yet? Regardless of how America collapses, one thing I am certain of, it will reemerge as a totalitarian state. But I do think there is a chance the decay being slow and the totalitarian state implemented so slowly and secretly that Americans don't even notice it, or maybe it's already here...
Welcome back, GSWH.
ReplyDeleteOn the collapsitarian front:
California joins Oregon recognizing a third gender option—non-binary—for its driving licenses and state-issued IDs.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/10/19/female-male-non-binary-california-legally-recognizes-third-gender-identification-documents/779188001/
Kellogg's agrees to replace box cover art on Corn Pops cereal, yielding to Tweeted charges of racial insensitivity in the current version:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2017/10/25/kelloggs-replace-racially-insensitive-corn-pops-boxes-following-twitter-rant/797911001/
The family church of two Virginians—George Washington and Robert E. Lee—says their memorial plaques are being removed from Alexandria’s Christ Episcopal:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/historic-alexandria-church-decides-to-remove-plaques-honoring-washington-lee/2017/10/28/97cb4cbc-bc1b-11e7-a908-a3470754bbb9_story.html?undefined=&utm_term=.777ebf96daa9&wpisrc=nl_most&wpmm=1
Esca-
ReplyDeleteToo long! But it was great 2 c.u. in NY.
jj-
I wasn't invited. I'm not even on the radar screen in the US.
Chopped-
Post only once every 24 hrs, thank you.
Wafers-
I just ran across an early statement of Dual Process. This is a commentary on Ulrich Duchrow et al., "Solidarisch Mensch werden," 2006, by Joerg Rieger:
"The strategy that Duchrow proposes is first to starve the capitalist system through demythologization of its ideology and clear refusal (strikes, boycotts of banks and cheap consumer goods) and resistance. The second step includes developing local-regional alternatives to capitalism (exchange-based rather than money-based; cooperative banking, alternative energies, local food production), reclaiming resources in all areas (dignified work, agriculture, public goods such as water, just taxes--capital pays less and less, social networks, fair trade, renewable energies), and developing an alternative macronarrative of hope."
mb
Look at those douchebag faces:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/03/iphone-x-apple-thousands-queue-overnight-fans
Meanwhile, this is what elite university students are preoccupied with:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5044443/Posh-students-strip-crowned-Cambridge-s-Best-Bum.html
Kanye
Greetings MB and Wafers,
ReplyDeleteIt was great attending the 2017 NY Wafer Summit! My only regret was not ordering the apple pie at The Pie in the Sky Restaurant, as chocolate pie doesn't fling as far... Next time, however, I hope to be better prepared for a spontaneous Wafer food fight! In any event, you could have heard a pin drop, as Wafers descended on the Village. Every New Yorker was holding his or her breath, waiting for the unexpected; a sudden sense of the unsanctioned was everywhere as Wafers imbibed in food and spirits, and began discussing the crucial events of the day. I tell ya, the scene was so intense that non-Wafers in the restaurant began to spontaneously giggle, wrinkle their foreheads, and stick their fingers in their ears. Many had to be packed off to local hospitals to lie down. Simply put, those who missed this earth-shattering event missed out on one of the greatest phenomenons of the early 21st century, no doubt about it.
Miles
Gig,
ReplyDeleteI have been saying that for 2 years now. Odious as Trump can come across, he's actually been pretty mild in terms of his policies. Socially liberal, anti expansionist (we will see if this continues to hold). Worth noting that the action in Syria targeted an empty airfield; seemed calculated to me, especially in the face of wild Dem Russian conspiracy theories.
What I am most enjoying is watching everything in the Wiki/DNC/Podesta mails play out now. Trumpo is no one's savior, nor is he fit for office for a number of reasons, but the utter destruction of our media ghouls and the two party system is proving very entertaining; and I must admit, his win was quite shocking now that the true extent of the Dem/media corruption/collusion is being revealed.
Chopped - I don't think you listened to the podcast I posted, but I would challenge the idea that antisemitism and anti-Zionism are the same in most instances. Condemning the creation of illegal settlements and the genocide of Palestinians isn't antisemitic as the Israeli right would have the world believe. The podcast I linked to made it very clear that Zionism is akin to Nazism and that zionists shield their fascist politics from scrutiny by labeling dissent (whether from inside the Jewish community or outside it) as antisemitic. I would suggest looking past the propaganda you posted and instead focus on the actions of the Israeli government and the apartheid society which it has created.
ReplyDeleteJames - It's so nice to hear that California is no longer imposing binary gender on its citizens. As as Oregonian I can't tell you how liberating it was to finally be able to self-identity as a Transformer on my legal documents.
ReplyDeleteBullshevik - Thanks for the link, it was a good read. The sad part is that even if Americans read it they'd get angry and deny the facts the author points out. Calm, rational discussion is not their strong suit.
Megatron Prime (formerly Jason Tower)
Our get-together in New York was enjoyable and nourishing-- both food and food for thought. Thank you, Morris, for the privilege!
ReplyDeleteEarly this week NPR considered it newsworthy to impose yet another guilt trip on Philadelphians: according to a survey, we/they lag behind the country in celebrating Halloween. Seems we don't buy enough candy and costumes or throw big enough parties for the kids. My impression, having lived in various parts of the country, is that in the suburbs and environs of Philly, secular observance of the vigil of All Saints Day is quite robust. In the city itself, any lack might be due to the fact that parents are justifiably reluctant to let children roam around after dark.
In any case, disappointed merchants might try not plugging Christmas in October. Americans have trouble concentrating on so many things at once. :-)
(Paul)
I think Israeli Jews have a very besieged mentality, which is somewhat understandable given the history of the Jews. This mentality makes them think that any act done to "preserve the Jewish state" is justified. The Nazi Germans had a similar mentality in justifying their atrocities.
ReplyDeleteIsrael is creating a story about Iran being a "major threat" because Iran stands in the way of Israel's ambitions. America buys the story due to its warmongering nature. The other great powers (i.e. Russia and China) know that Israel is full of shit. With the coming decline of America, it is likely that Israel's expansionist ambitions will be restrained.
@Boar's Head,
ReplyDeleteNo, these policies are the natural outgrowth of the "stranger danger" paranoia that has been around for decades. The risk of children being kidnapped or harmed by strangers is actually pretty low. Children, like most other people, are more at risk from family members than from strangers.
https://boingboing.net/2015/02/24/our-children-are-safer-than-ou.html
I blame the media for exaggerating the risk of child abduction. Child abduction stories are salacious and people like anything that is salacious. Cases like that of Adam Walsh get publicized even though they are rare. The result is that Americans are now paranoid about letting their kids play outside alone and think every man is a “creeper.” I definitely agree with Dan that men, and particularly single men, are unfairly stereotyped as “creepy” even when they aren’t doing anything that could remotely be considered strange or dangerous. I think this phenomenon is another example of how anti-social Americans have become.
Sorry, Mr. Berman, forgot about the 24-hour rule.
ReplyDeleteThe link I posted is somewhat over-the-top, being sarcastic, but the more serious point is that "anti-Zionism" is to antisemitism what "intelligent design science" is to Biblical creationism, "racial realism" to the KKK, and so on. It is the same thing, thinly disguised for social acceptability. Hence the not-so-subltle similarities, e.g., "the Zionists control the USA" instead of "The Jews control the world", "Israel has no right to exist" instead of "Jews have no right to exist", "colonialist zionist, get out of Palestine and go back to Europe!" instead of "asiatic Jew, get out of Europe and go back to Palestine!", "the Zionists are Nazis" instead of "The Jews are league with the Devil", etc., etc.
Of course, by "anti-Zionism" I do not mean criticism of Israel, or the belief in the right of the Palestinians for a state. Nor do I even mean the belief that Zionism is wrong, per se. I mean the hated of Israel and denial of its right to exist, considerimg the Jews (sorry, "zionists" or "israelis") to be nazis, etc. Richard Dawkins and Karl Popper (to name two) expressed skepticism about Zionism, but are not "anti-zionists", since they do not see Israel as utterly evil, or rant against it using thinly-disguised age-old antisemitic tropes, draw cartoons of the "zionists" as big-nosed monsters crucifying innocents (gee, where have we seen *those* images before?), etc. Nor did they write pseudointellectual "history" or "sociology" books proving how evil zionism is, the modern equivalent of previous "intellectual" jew-haters writing simlar books "proving" how evil Jews are.
It's always fun playing spot the american at airports, hotels, eateries. They simply cannot blend in, or really assimilate without their americanism showing. It's as if someone dropped the dinner tray, or used the c word in mixed company--there they unfortunately are.
ReplyDeleteFor example, in Sweden, complete quiet ride in the elevator with children, parents, sporadically whispering to each other. Then the elevator door opens, some Mr. businessman anglo type-phone glued to ear talking loudly the entire ride down. The ass clown leaves the elevator in front of everyone else in that hurried, frenetic hamster wheel american pace.
Everyone turns to each other--says--american, eye rolls, head shaking, and laughter from all.
americans really are cartoon characters.
There is a rabid pack of wolves (teens) running around in Baltimore.
ReplyDeletehttp://baltimore.cbslocal.com/2017/11/01/baltimore-teen-attacks/
https://www.the-american-interest.com/2017/10/30/official-future-dead-long-live-official-future/
ReplyDelete*A year after Donald Trump’s improbable election, the post-Cold War Official Future has collapsed—and in its place have emerged a bewildering array of possibilities.*
Unknown-
ReplyDeleteI don't post Unknowns. You need a real handle, e.g. Lord Fartwell.
Chopped-
I think yr very much off-base. Anti-Zionism and antisemitism might overlap in practice, at times, but they are conceptually and politically very different things.
From a recent article on Counter Punch:
"I will not shed tears over how the 2016 elections exposed the exhausted nothingness of the Democrats’ scam “neoliberal progressivism” (left historian Nancy Fraser’s useful phrase) or over how Trump is diminishing the American Empire’s brand strength, cultural capital, and (see Andrew McCoy’s latest book) strategic capacity. Who wants Uncle Sam more decently clothed? Who wants the U.S.-ruling class “adults in the room” – the real and “responsible men of power” – to run this morally failed Mafia state with more outward acceptability and effectiveness than it deserves? Let this vicious Empire stand more unambiguously exposed as the racist, classist, sexist, criminal and eco-exterminist prison, police and pariah state that it is."
mb
Duh! dept.:
ReplyDeletehttp://edition.cnn.com/2017/11/03/opinions/asia-trip-trump-confronts-limits-of-american-empire-opinion-robertson/index.html
Professor Berman, I am looking forward to reading Neurotic Beauty. I was wondering if you had ever read The Book of Five Rings by Miyomoto Musashi? In the translation that I am reading it says “as human beings, it is essential for each of us to cultivate and polish our individual path.” When I read that I thought of you and the greatest blog ever!
ReplyDeleteAnother important Taibbi article. Especially relevant for me with a daughter now in 12th grade. We're getting stacks of brochures in our mail box daily, and numerous emails from colleges across the country.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/taibbi-the-great-college-loan-swindle-w510880
"America as a country has evolved in recent decades into a confederacy of wide scale industrial scams. The biggest slices of our economic pie – sectors like health care, military production, banking, even commercial and residential real estate – have become crude income-redistribution schemes, often untethered from the market by subsidies or bailouts, with the richest companies benefiting from gamed or denuded regulatory systems that make profits almost as assured as taxes."
Hi MB!
ReplyDeleteGlad you're back from your trip! I'll guess I'll have to read the old stuff to find out how it was like and how you guys enjoyed the NYC Wafer conference. Wish I could've been there; I would have taken the train: lower CO2 footprint and far more convenient!
Anyway here are some blurbs that showed up in my news services.
Shrub (Dubya Bush) says he hates Trump and that he actually voted for Hillary. He also says Trump is a blowhard but that goes without saying.
Excellent vid by Prof. Jerry Kroth on USA endless war since the end of Second World War and our government's war plans for the future.
And Trump admits it's all about himself!
Jason Megatron--I find it interesting that for all of the screeching liberals have done about how Trump's election has created a climate in which bigots, misogynists and racists have felt free to come out the closet and openly express their vile viewpoints, there has been an equally repugnant phenomenon going on in their own camp. Whether it is pushing the idiotic idea that there are more than two genders, or claiming that white males are automatically racist and sexist based solely upon their genetics, or wanting to erase nearly every historic figure from the history books or sneering at the desperate economic straits of the working class; liberals have taken advantage of Trump hatred to push forth agendas that would have been as equally repellent to most Americans just a couple of years ago.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile:
Police say couple abused son and left him so hungry he ate his pillow
Pennsylvania officials say three men have been cited over social media photos showing a group giving beer to an opossum and kissing it.
And, in the latest temper tantrum at a fast food restaurant:
A man angry that he couldn’t get a steak bagel at a McDonald’s pulled a gun on an employee
Jessie, build that wall! To keep Americans out, of course. "[...] what says you will not fuck it up the same way you fucked up America?" They will, obviously. Note that the article mainly talks about the material quality of life in the US but, as Wafers know, the real problem is spiritual squalor.
ReplyDeleteAbout Duchrow, I am sorry, but he sounds to me like Chris Hedges after smoking something real good: "developing local-regional alternatives to capitalism (exchange-based rather than money-based; [..]" Say what? I don't ask for some of what he's having because drinking is my thing. I am afraid that money is as necessary to post-neolithic societies as language; the fact that in sick societies the former is used for brainwashing and the latter for physical enslavement of the population doesn't alter the fact.
I have to disagree, Mr. Berman.
ReplyDeleteFirst, even if you just "overlap in practice at times" with the likes of the American Nazi Party or Iran's revolutionary guard in your view of Zionism, that is a rather big hint it is not likely to be accurate.
Second, in my experience it is not "at times", but very often. For example, Iran had repeatedly declared it intends to destroy Israel, yet posters here dismiss this as an Israeli invention because Iran heroically "resists" Israel's nefarious yet unspecified "plans", but Israel cunningly tricked the stupid USA into believing it.
Gee, the Jewish state manages to trick the world powers into helping with its nefarious, evil plans, against which Iran's declared intention of destroying it is brave "resistance". Now, where have we heard all *that* before?
No this is not "the tragedy of the commons". It's the tragedy of open access
ReplyDeletehttps://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/nov/05/why-we-cant-have-nice-things-dockless-bikes-and-the-tragedy-of-the-commons
When an idea, however mistaken, is convenient for capital, it doesn't matter how many times it is debunked: it persists indefinitely.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/nov/01/marx-capital-and-the-madness-of-economic-reason-review
ReplyDelete“a growing sense of revulsion at how our societies and economies are organised” ?
I think our five senses function as filters that prevent us from observing the Noumenon (i.e. reality independent of human perception) directly. Perhaps the minds of most humans cannot handle observing the Noumenon directly. That might be why so many people who receive "revelations" go insane.
ReplyDeleteIf our fearless, fickle idiotic liar in chief wants to confront the limits of the Empire, he should come home. WE are our limits. And thank God for it. Otherwise the rest of the world would be worse off due to our violence and stupidity than it is now.
ReplyDeleteAnon-
ReplyDeleteSorry, I don't post Anons. You need a real handle, like Goat Droppings, e.g.
Gig-
However, revelations are often delusions.
Chopped-
You can disagree all you want, but yr dead wrong. Regardless of practice, anti-Zionism and antisemitism are conceptually and politically different creatures, and no amount of sophistry or finger-pointing can alter that basic fact. It's no accident, for example, that from its inception to date, Zionism has had a huge # of Jewish opponents, who were/are definitely not antisemitic. The usual Zionist response is "self-hating Jew"--an ad hominem and cowardly way of hiding from the truth.
Zar-
It's hard for me to disagree with Duchrow because he captures the theme of my "Dual Process" essay very well. Have you read it? It's the last essay in AWTY. In any case, similarities to Hedges are quite marginal. Hedges talks about revolution, a purported mass uprising against the corporate class; which makes him a dummy, imo. He does not talk abt barter economies, as far as I know, and these, my friend, are not only viable but actually in practice today, in Barcelona, Japan, and elsewhere. Money may eventually be around, but there is no logic that says it has to be. You might wanna do some actual research on the topic, plus lay off the sauce, I'm thinking.
Francois-
I think I read part of Musashi, many yrs ago. What you quote is the essential Wafer path. This is indeed the greatest blog in the entire universe. When I hear abt people going to other blogs, I can only shake my head. The choice is Wafer or Douche Bag; most Americans choose the latter. The current ratio is 172 to 327 million. Any guesses as to how America is going to turn out?
mb
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2017/nov/03/scurrilous-manuscript-that-could-have-undone-john-donne-discovered
ReplyDeleteSome sexy new John Donne letters appear, complete w. scatological references
In America, not even churches are immune from mass shootings. This one just happened this morning at a Baptist church in Texas and no, this is not the first time a church congregation was in the line of fire.
ReplyDeleteOur top story tonight! At least 20 dead and 30 injured from Texas church shooting.
O&D
Dill--is it any real surprise that Chimpy Bush voted for Botox Face when America's two royal families have been thick as thieves for decades? Daddy Bush and Bill are both sexual predators, and like Chimpy ol' Botox never met a foreign war she could wait to support, some of them his. Just for driving a stake through the heart of both families of political vampires last year, Trump has already done more good for America than they did in their 20 collective years in the Oval Office.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of which, the Donna Brazile story that broke this week is pretty astonishing. Consider that Brazile has been working on Democratic presidential campaigns going back to Dukakis and was the one who leaked CNN's debate questions to Hillary last fall, and she is the ultimate "swamp creature." Yet now she comes out and confirms that Hillary and Wasserman-Shultz colluded to steal the nomination from Sanders AND that Obama basically wrecked the Democratic Party machinery during his time as president. Guess there truly is no honor among thieves anymore.
Oh, and as I type I just got word of the latest mass shooting--this time in a church in Texas. Looks like allowing concealed carry in churches doesn't help keep them safe--who knew?
Elliot Ness to the rescue! From the latest column by the "editor in chief" written apparently in crayola, (I thouhgt of emailing the douche but really why?)
ReplyDelete"Teachers cannot teach in a classroom of 30 students when 5-10 students need constant attention and disrupt the class. Those 5-10 students literally are taking education time away from the other 25. They need to be booted out and sent to an alternate school, a place where highly creative teachers make it clear to the youngsters that this is their last stop. Those kids need to hear that if they can't make it at the alternate school, they'd best prepare themselves for a lifetime of work in the fast food or service industry, or turn to a life of crime and prison."
http://www.chieftain.com/columns/henson/henson-new-officials-what-are-you-prepared-to-do/article_4b33e04a-907e-5135-a8e3-a239526e8a14.html
Is it any wonder people are afraid?
The latest mass killing...26 Dead...As we WAFERS know, largely through the work of Morris, the Cause and Solution really doesn’t lie in Guns and Gun Control, it lies in a Spiritually, Intellectually, and Emotionally Bankrupt modern Society that is producing Spiritually, Intellectually, and Emotionally Bankrupt Human Beings who feel the delusional inner need to lash out and commit these horrific acts. In other words, this is a SYSTEMIC problem.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5052163/Up-27-shot-Texas-church-gunman-opens-fire.html
Morris is the clearest thinker on these matters and his insights on what is happening to us as a society and a nation are spot on...I think this is his best interview...
https://youtu.be/oV58ApTmSsA
Mr. Berman, we may be speaking at Cross purposes.
ReplyDeleteIf it "anti-zionism" you mean merely "a Jewish state should not be / should not have been established", yes, such anti-zionism is old and not necessarily anti-Semitic. But I am not only aware if this, I explicitly *referred* to such anti-zionism when I spoke of those "skeptical of Zionism" and mentioned the likes of Dawkins and Popper.
But today "anti-zionism" means something far more sinister: ask the typical anti-zionist and he will tell you he thinks Israel should be *destroyed* and/or is the worst, most evil country in the world, using grossly unfair double atandards. This is the way I use the term since this is true today for the vast majority of "anti-zionist". This is straight up antisemitism (and eliminationist antisemitism, at that) in the flimsy disguise of replacing "Jew" with "Zionist" or "Israeli".
The problem is that old-fashioned anti-zionism (in your terms) or skepticism of Zionism (in my terms) is what the more "sophisticated" type of anti-Semites (those who do not just replace "Jew" with "Zionist" in antisemitic rants and call it a day) *claim* they are, just like the more sophisticated creationists claim they are doing "science".
But they are not. Their visceral hatred of Israel, their wish to see it destroyed, their obsession with "Zionist" world-spanning conspiracies - all clearly a slight mutation of the old "Jews are evil and control the world" view - give the game away.
Bill Gates and Steve Jobs limited the amount of technology their children used and wealthy Silicon Valley parents send their children to low-tech specialty schools that teach soft skills like cooperation and respect.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/bill-gates-and-steve-jobs-raised-their-kids-tech-free-and-it-shouldve-been-a-red-flag-a8017136.html
Other tech workers have come out against addictive technologies such as smartphones and social media.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/05/smartphone-addiction-silicon-valley-dystopia
Just 11% of Americans say “being wealthy” is essential to their own view of the American dream
ReplyDeleteThey also think they've already achieved the Dream
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/10/31/most-think-the-american-dream-is-within-reach-for-them/
This article, a bit off-topic may appeal to those of the Wafer persuasion or just alienated by all the ugly buildings we see today:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/10/why-you-hate-contemporary-architecture
A quote: There’s an easy test for whether a building is beautiful or not. Ask yourself: if this building could speak, would it sound like the Rubaiyat or the works of Shakespeare, or would it make a noise like “Blorp”? For nearly 100 years, we have been stuck in the Age of Blorp. It is time to learn to speak again.
Jung's observations of Hitler. Not interested in comparing Trumpi to him, but this does remind me of Trumpi
ReplyDelete"In comparison with Mussolini, Hitler made upon me the impression of a sort of scaffolding of wood covered with cloth, an automaton with a mask, like a robot or a mask of a robot. During the whole performance he never laughed; it was as though he were in a bad humor, sulking. He showed no human sign.
His expression was that of an inhumanly single-minded purposiveness, with no sense of humor. He seemed as if he might be a double of a real person, and that Hitler the man might perhaps be hiding inside like an appendix, and deliberately so hiding in order not to disturb the mechanism.
With Hitler you do not feel that you are with a man. You are with a medicine man, a form of spiritual vessel, a demi-deity, or even better, a myth. With Hitler you are scared. You know you would never be able to talk to that man; because there is nobody there. He is not a man, but a collective. He is not an individual, but a whole nation. I take it to be literally true that he has no personal friend. How can you talk intimately with a nation?
Olive-
ReplyDeleteTrue, but Jung was enthusiastic abt Hitler, at 1st. Changed his mind later.
Chopped-
Lots of religious Jews in Israel today are anti-Zionist, as it turns out. The bottom line is that regardless of the time line, or practical overlaps, antisemitism is conceptually very different from anti-Zionism. I can't keep repeating this, as it is not getting thru 2u.
jj-
Nice that the guy was a Bible study teacher, I suppose. Massacres are getting larger and more frequent, as the US commits suicide. Massacres, and mass douchebaggery, go hand in hand.
Wafers who were at the NY Summit on Oct. 29: I forgot to offer a toast to our lodestar, Lorenzo Riggins. Pls do this tonight over dinner.
mb
I have been thinking recently that history, as a whole, is not cyclical. Certain parts of history, such as the rise and fall of civilizations, are cyclical. History as a whole, however, seems to move from one point to another somewhat randomly. The problem is that certain people (i.e. progs) think that history is moving towards an end point of "progress."
ReplyDeleteHa!
ReplyDeletehttps://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1820163660
As you drive your elderly relation to the Quik Kash check-cashing store to cash her Social Security check, please take care she doesn't hear about this. Her heart, you know.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41889787
"[Leaked] Paradise Papers documents show Apple's two key Irish subsidiaries, Apple Operations International (AOI), believed to hold most of Apple's massive $252bn overseas cash hoard, and Apple Sales International (ASI), were managed from Appleby's office in Jersey from the start of 2015 until early 2016.
This would have enabled Apple to continue avoiding billions in tax around the world.
Apple's 2017 accounts showed they made $44.7bn outside the US and paid just $1.65bn in taxes to foreign governments, a rate of around 3.7%. That is less than a sixth of the average rate of corporation tax in the world."
Bill Hicks: It was amazing after the election how quickly progressives went from being moral relativists to moral absolutists. They went from saying 'there is no such thing as good and evil' to 'Trump is the ultimate evil' pretty much overnight.
ReplyDeleteThe Donna Brazille revelations confirm what's been obvious for a while, that our current two major parties are dying. What could happen when they're gone? I think the left will form a new party around a Bernie Sanders type (only younger and probably a woman). The right is a little more scary. I can see a hard nationalist Christian party forming led by a veteran of one of our recent wars, backed by a paramilitary wing. Whatever happens it will be scary and violent, and you can count on Americans to make all the wrong choices at crucial times.
Gig-
ReplyDeleteProbably a helix (spiral).
mb
"Forgetting history or even getting it wrong is one of the major elements in building a nation."
ReplyDelete--Ernest Renan
After a big shooting, I like to take the rectal temperature of the internet. This time I was disturbed by the fact that rather than believing that this latest shooting was somehow faked, or a ploy to take the guns away, the idea that this is the work of 'Antifa' seems to be gaining ground. Might this be a sign of the further escalation of civil strife?
ReplyDeleteSome evidence: https://www.buzzfeed.com/talalansari/fake-news-about-the-texas-church-shooting
P.S. I hereby make the pledge to footnote Dr. Berman as the Jewish Parsley should I ever manage to produce a doctoral thesis.
I find the initial reactions of American TV outlets, particularly the "liberal/fair/open-minded" ones like CNN and MSNBC, to the latest mass murder (the TX church shooting) be most revealing about the nature of the American character, in particular:
ReplyDelete1. Invariably, an attempt is made to link the shooting to "terrorists", meaning from outside the Promised Land and always Muslim extremists. Possibly in an effort to avoid admitting to ourselves that we are, as Morris writes in AWTY. "eating each other". As if to say, these horrendous acts MUST be of foreign origin; they can't possibly come from a kind-hearted, compassionate, peaceful citizenry like us.
2. The second issue raised is almost always about motive - the "why" question. Why did he (notice that the killers are always male, usually white males)do it? As if a logical motivation can be found for an insane act. So that if we can figure out the "why" maybe we can protect ourselves from similar acts.
3. Focusing on motivations of the killers also deflects attention away from what made the killings "mass", i.e., the guns. I almost choked on my coffee this morning when it was reported that the Idiot Mad King Donald blames the most recent massacre on the mental condition of the perpetrator - no doubt to deflect from his chosen instrument of slaughter.
As the empire continues to implode in on itself, these events will occur at an ever increasing rate. We have developed a taste for the flesh of our fellow Americans. Bring me another body, knave. And keep 'em coming.
Texas attorney general doubles down on the stupid--suggests the state's open carry law could prevent mass shootings even though it didn't stop this one and Colorado's concealed carry law not only didn't prevent the Walmart shooting, it hampered the police from quickly identifying the shooter. Proving yet again that while most Americans are brain dead idiots, gun nuts are in a class all by themselves.
ReplyDeleteIn a related story: the Texas shooting was not the only fatal church shooting yesterday.
In even more comforting news: the five deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history have all taken place in the past decade--three in just in the past 18 months.
And lastly, not shooting related, but easily offended idiot students at Brandeis University have forced the cancellation of a biographical theatrical production about Lenny Bruce because of "offensive and objectionable content." Bruce was heard laughing hysterically in his grave from the dripping irony of it all.
Megatron,
ReplyDeleteI think you are probably on the right track with your predictions for both parties. Its clear to the Democratic leadership that democratic voters, particularly young democrats, are interested in the Bernie Sanders path, but the Clintonites are holding on for dear life. The tragedy of the left is that if they hadn't embraced both big-money politics and PC/post-modern nonsense whole hog, then maybe the republican party wouldn't be as strong as it is today.
Trump is a reaction to (among other things of course) the modern notion that social, gender, and national identities don't matter, and anyone who thinks otherwise is just an ignorant dummy. I'm in the south and I know a lot of people who would vote for democrats again if they would worry more about jobs and less about cultural appropriation.
As for the right itself, who knows, though if Trump is a sign of things to come its not going to be pretty. If we do end up with a truly militant political party it will probably come from the right. Trump appearing is not a surprise by itself, but you have to wonder what kind of Trump-like character we might get if the economic situation becomes really bad and stays bad. Then we might we get someone who has Trump's outlook but with the brains and connections to pull it off.
Greetings MB and Wafers,
ReplyDeleteMB-
I just received AWTY! I will write a review of it on amazon as soon as I've completed it. So far, it's been an absolute joy to read! My brain is dancing w/excitement. And, yes, I will certainly toast our beloved Lorenzo Riggins tonight.
Poem for Lorenzo:
A simple life
Of burgers and fries
Maybe not the best for yr health,
But they're a feast for yr eyes
Seven McDoubles
Shorted by one
And like Charles Dickens's crumpet,
Don' forget my Chicken nugget
Miles
PBS Nightly Business Report this evening revealed a new "app" called Forewarned. Sadly, it meets a genuine need among real estate agents showing occupied homes to prospective customers. Some of these "prospects" have no interest at all in buying the place. What they are looking for is an opportunity to raid the owner's medicine cabinet; and when they can't do so unobtrusively, they might not be above physically attacking the realtor first.
ReplyDeleteThe app reveals personal information about a name from various sources never so easily available before, providing realtors with quicker and more effective ways to "vet" a guest. We can't assume, however, that users will be limited to professionals with such compelling purposes.
Hello Dr. Berman and Wafers:
ReplyDeleteFrom the Forgetting History Department:
Uprooting FDRs Great Wall of Trees
"farmers face pressure from their ag lenders, who often encourage them to remove their shelterbelts for additional cropland, looking for a quicker return on the investment. And they face pressure from their seed salesmen, hoping to sell them more seed, and from their fertilizer salesman, hoping to sell them more fertilizer; and from their tax assessor, who often values the land greater with the trees removed; and from their implement dealers, pushing to sell them a larger piece of equipment."
The Dustbowl will return. Anything for a buck.
Alo-
ReplyDeleteA necessary app. Don' ferget that most Americans are douche bags.
Jeff-
Beautiful poem; I wept. Other Wafers are encouraged to write odes to Lorenzo, Freddie Wadsworth, Brittany Carulli, et al.
pole, Bill-
We are at the pt now that daily massacres of 4 or 5 people have become "background." To make the news, ya hafta kill more than 20. In a couple of yrs, it will be more than 50. In 10 yrs...
Bosch-
Why not oregano?
mb
"a dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people than under the forbidden appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of government. History will teach us that the former has been found a much more certain road to the introduction of despotism than the latter, and that of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people; commencing demagogues, and ending tyrants."
ReplyDelete--Federalist Papers #1
Lemonade stands aren't enough! Apparently, 5 years old is the new age to learn how to hustle! A private elementary school aimed to "teach young children about entrepreneurship" : https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-06/wework-hits-education-with-an-entrepreneurial-school-for-kids
ReplyDeletePersonally, I find the gun-control debate in America to be stupid on both sides.
ReplyDeleteThe anti-gun-control lobby (led by gun manufacturers and the NRA) ignore the fact that Americans are too stupid to handle firearms.
The pro-gun-control lobby (led by well-off urban and suburban progs) correctly points out the need for better regulation. However, they ignore the fact that the American police are the most dangerous group of organized thugs in the country because the police work on their behalf.
I feel that Robert Kaplan’s The Coming Anarchy is here. I especially feel what he writes about nation-states imploding and the rise of criminal violence and organizations is on target. I realize certain countries are in better shape than others. But when I look at secessionist movements in Europe and how many states are poorly governed by extractive institutions around the world and that nation-states were created to fight and win wars in what Martin van Creveld has called a trinitarian manner to keep civilians from suffering like they did during the Thirty Years War. Since western nation-states record of winning wars since WWII is abysmal and for many their debt levels are horrific and debt is stealing from your future to have present satisfaction. There will be a large number of angry young people who will give up on the institutions in their countries and resort to violence. Cell phones and other techno douchebaggery produce alienated people but I feel they contribute to what Kaplan and van Creveld have called the reprimitivation of man which fuels people to snap and shoot up a McDonald’s when their order is incorrect, or run over strangers with trucks. I read about sixteenth and seventeenth century Japan to cope. Much love to the wafers and may you find your own authentic path.
ReplyDeleteThis is a really interesting read on the culture of liberalism:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.firstthings.com/article/2017/12/politics-after-liberalism
Polecat- You are right the American media's 'analysis' of mass shootings. I've also noticed that in more than a few of the cases (Ft. Hood shootings, Washington Navy Yard, Beltway Sniper, 2016 Dallas Sniper, Christopher Dorner, Umpqua Community College shooting, and the UT Sniper in 1966) - I'm sure I left some out- the perpetrator is a US service member or veteran but this fact is always downplayed by the media. They wouldn't want to suggest that there's something about the military machine that is not healthy to society at large, now would they? Nope, let's just keep repeating that every member of armed forces is a hero.
ReplyDeleteAn article that discusses shootings by military members:
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/texas-shooting-shows-military-work-article-1.3616905
Fran-
ReplyDeleteAlways, always, capitalize Wafers. Thank you.
mb
Megatrone - Ancient societies provided rituals and ceremonies to help returning warriors re-integrate into the tribe to protect tribal members from their violence. In some, if I remember correctly, warriors were disarmed; in others, made to spend time outside tribal boundaries before being allowed to reenter. Today soldiers have to learn on their own how to transition from a culture that awards them for killing other human beings and one that fears that they may use their lethal skills on their own fellow citizens. In failing them, we have put ourselves at jeopardy and are inheriting the whirlwind.
ReplyDeleteReprimitivation of man : All Against All, in The Age of Anger -Pankaj Mishra
ReplyDeletehttps://www.truthdig.com/videos/chris-hedges-pankaj-mishra-global-shift-authoritarianism-video/
But what about the revolution? Heated debate on how to save mankind,...
http://www.foxnews.com/food-drink/2017/10/30/google-ceo-to-fix-burger-emoji-after-heated-debate-cooks-up-on-twitter.html
Further analysis on the decline in the age of scams in America by one of my favorites Matt Taibbi
ReplyDeletehttp://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/ripping-off-young-america-the-college-loan-scandal-20130815
And the hustling at all costs rot has spread to Canada
http://nationalpost.com/news/canada/he-imprisoned-a-toronto-homeless-man-for-two-decades-and-claimed-his-son-as-his-own-prosecutors-say
I've become pretty jaded about technodouchebaggery and its effects, but even so, I found this article about the content being shown on YouTube channels aimed at preschoolers to be quite disturbing. It's long piece, but worth reading in its entirety. The "normal" content on these channels is depressing enough given that it appears to be perfectly designed to destroy attention spans and inhibit mental development, but the fact that it is randomly mixed up with content being produced by trolls, bots and even abusive parents with little or no controls being exercised is downright scary. The author also goes an extra step and links this phenomenon with the state of capitalism itself:
ReplyDelete"What concerns me is not just the violence being done to children here, although that concerns me deeply. What concerns me is that this is just one aspect of a kind of infrastructural violence being done to all of us, all of the time, and we’re still struggling to find a way to even talk about it, to describe its mechanisms and its actions and its effects. As I said at the beginning of this essay: this is being done by people and by things and by a combination of things and people. Responsibility for its outcomes is impossible to assign but the damage is very, very real indeed."
re: Megatron,
ReplyDeleteMy thoughts exactly about military. Dude probably joined for economic reasons and after expressing rage and hostility (correlated to being a trained killer?) he finds himself busted to E1 and bad conduct discharge. Probably not a goal when he joined, what employer can mar your record with something nearly as bad as a felony? Without excusing his disgusting behavior it still seems to me all we know is punish punish punish and make him take ALL responsibility. Maybe he felt he was backed into a corner and came out guns blazing. How cowboy.
Welp, by the look of things the show "House of Cards" has turn meta. I mean damn the show now has to compete with everyday American politics. Kevin Spacey's dirty exist in fictional and non-fictional worlds.
ReplyDeleteThe presumed "solutions" to the current world crisis offered by Blond in the First Things essay could be titled "cow manure all the way down".
ReplyDeleteFor a thorough-going critique of the applied politics advocated and practiced by the creatures that infest the right wing back-to-the-past "catholic" world view promoted by the "religious" zombies that infest First Things and their fellow travelers check out the truth telling website Open Tabernacle.
First Things also has very direct links with the completely obnoxious in-your-face fascist Opus Dei outfit - see www.odan.org
Remember too that these zombies are also key supporters of the obnoxious Manhattan Declaration.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/apr/12/doughnut-growth-economics-book-economic-model
ReplyDeleteinteresting alt model by Monboit
Megatron, Wudufugel: We don’t have two major parties. We have one party, the war party, and what we’re looking at are two wings of the same rapacious bird (my apologies to birds everywhere). It’s a difference in style, not substance. The PTB allow the occasional maverick to keep false hope alive, but nothing ever really changes for the better.
ReplyDeleteI’ve recently been listening to Max Igan of The CrowHouse, who talks a lot about the rollout of 5G, AI, and the extreme dangers to mankind. I’m definitely a very mid 20th century kind of gal, so technically I’m pretty ignorant. I’d be interested to hear any comments from knowledgeable Wafers on this subject. Pick a podcast: http://www.thecrowhouse.com/radio.html#now
On another note, I thought the following comment kinda sums up the world situation, which the U.S.A. has tweaked to psychopathic levels:
“…every organic organism…has been forced to participate in a self perpetuating cycle of murder. The collective soul has been bound to a world where every living thing must consume the nearest next available living thing to continue its own existence.“
"Money may eventually be around, but there is no logic that says it has to be. You might wanna do some actual research on the topic, plus lay off the sauce, I'm thinking."
ReplyDeleteI think that in the future, fiat currencies, crypto-currencies, bartering and precious metals will all be used as means of exchange. Different societies will use one or more of them in order to meet their needs.
"So, I always ask every client, 'Are you prepared to sustain this lie?'” https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/545060/
ReplyDeleteHow to Hire Fake Friends and Family
Bill, just returned from a trip to Seattle where I had to sit between 2 techno-douchebags even you would wince at. Both were not only watching a movie provided by the airline but were also working an I-phone and a tablet at the same time. Thus, there were engaged in 3 gadgets near simultaneously. Unfortunately, they only had 2 ears to handle all the input, poor souls. I thus predict that within 50,000 years humans will develop either 1 or 2 more ears to handle more input or perhaps a second anus which would be as much a statement about humanity as much as another area to place a listening device.
ReplyDeleteDid go to Seattle to attend a bar mitzvah, by the way. The latest trend in bar mitzvahs is for adults to stay more or less seated watching the bar mitzvah boy and his friends play games in the center such as musical chairs. Of course why involve adults in weird things like dancing? After all, adolescent kids are the true repositories of wisdom and must be feted as such.
Poor me. I could see the disappointment on guests' faces when I said I was retired. After all they could not engage in conversation to see who had the better job and thus the better life. Perhaps I should say I am a private contractor next time given the fact that I substitute teach a few days a week. I was actually hoping the hustle would not be as pronounced on the west coast as it is on the east. It wasn't though Subway foot long sandwiches are cheaper so the trip was not a total loss.
Are these not clear signs of a societal collapse?
ReplyDeletehttps://www.thecollegefix.com/post/38303/
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/11/03/students-at-liberal-reed-college-stage-occupation-over-whitewashed-curriculum.html
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/544682/
https://theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/oct/31/finland-universal-basic-income
ReplyDeleteBrilliant experiment this: How 2 help the unemployed find meaningful work, be creative, not be demeaned.
Frederick, I would not call Opus Dei fascist; it's much, much worse. It's a Satan-worshipping abomination (in Catholic dressing), but way more secretive than fascist movements usually are. It's a cancer infiltrating power centres in places you don't even imagine. Think Freemasonry with a medieval set of values (although, in common with many semi-secret societies, I think the means have become the goal to a large extent, that is, their main objective is to consolidate and increase their power).
ReplyDeleteAn earlier post linked to a video of Clifford Stoll telling an audience at a TED Talk that if they really wanted to know the future they should ask an experienced Kindergarten teacher instead of asking a technologist or a scientist.
ReplyDeleteI know you did not ask, but (having taught first grade for forty years and having spent the past twelve years reading to children at the public library) I would like to share an observation on how children have changed.
Take the “True Story of the Three Little Pigs”, which came out in 1989. I read this story yearly to all my first graders until my retirement in 2005. All of my children laughed as I read this story. They knew that (a) the wolf was a predator and (b) that he would lie. The lies were so blatant that they were funny.
In 2017, the other children's librarian and I are doing the Summer Reading program. I am sitting with the elementary students as my coworker read this same story about the wolf and pigs. Nobody laughed. Nobody even smiled. They just stared. These same children are not incapable of laughing. For example, the same children laughed at the slap stick, Three Stooges type, physical antics in a play performed a week earlier at the library. However, something important is now missing.
It seems a significant, negative change has occurred in the past 12 years.
The next generation is growing up into healthy adults:
ReplyDelete"A 2016 study showed that 49% of teenagers happily admitted that they would text or instant message someone when they were in the same room. They’re calling them Generation Mute."
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/07/generation-mute-phone-call-instant-messaging
Kanye
Rose, Kanye, jj-
ReplyDeleteWhenever I hear news of the degradation of American youth, I am reassured that the country can go in only 1 direction. This culture is a powerful engine for moronization and turkification.
Dan-
Maybe next time tell 'em yr a hit man.
Peez-
Gd example of Dual Process.
mb
ps: What's a blowjob really worth? Wafers are encouraged to weigh in on this vital issue.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.washingtonpost.com/news/dr-gridlock/wp/2017/10/31/strangers-caught-in-a-sex-act-on-delta-flight-could-face-felony-charges-authorities-say/?tid=a_inl&utm_term=.b93a673fcd51
Steven Pinker: This Is History's Most Peaceful Time--New Study: "Not So Fast"
ReplyDeletehttps://www.scientificamerican.com/article/steven-pinker-this-is-historys-most-peaceful-time-new-study-not-so-fast/
A blowjob beats a pack of peanuts.
ReplyDeletejjarden, GSOWH & Wafers of the World,
ReplyDeleteReed's tuition is 49,000 per year; I wonder what the per minute cost of RAR's protests is......Egypt is referred to as too white and defended as being mocked for being black by the same group in the same series of protests, for those of you scoring at home...
[begin sarcasm] Cultural pun-appropriation ("poetry is lit") is a pressing problem in 2017, maybe even more important than climate change, heroin epidemic, and economic inequality combined.[end sarcasm]
This serves to show that if you get to make up all the rules as you go, you can never be wrong. Does anyone else get the idea that this niche of cultural-left delusion would count as some sort of fantasy escapism on par with the movement towards obsession with VR, videogames, fantasy fiction etc.??
After 3 months working in the U.S., I finish tomorrow and get to leave again Wednesday. Thank. Fucking. God.
Rosegarden
ReplyDeleteI taught public school for a little while and got out of it. In all the classes and grades I taught half the kids were at least two or three years behind in reading and writing. One place the discipline was absolutely atrocious. This was my third grade class. I figured out an incentive that believe it ont made them want to behave. I let them write in pen and so be "special" from all the other classes at the school. They actually behaved pretty good for the right to write in pen and were proud of it. Then my certification advisor stopped by and saw it and said "These are children. They can't write in pen. I want them writing in pencil tomorrow". I politely try to explain this is what was making them want to behave and I actually be able to teach. She literally turns around and just walks off. When Christmas break came I gave my notice and left teaching never to look back.
This is one reason I agree with Dr. Berman that Mr. Hedges and other left writiers are mistaken in thinking we will somehow have some sort of revolution that fixes things. The people coming out of the schools and I dare say even lots of colleges simply do not have the intellectual aptitude to think of a way to pull something like that off or even see the need for something like that.
I mentioned at work a couple of days ago that it was the 100 anniversary of the Russian Revolution. I got blank stares from the younger folks at work and asked if they had ever heard of Lenin, Trotsky, or Stalin. One middle aged lady responded she had heard of Stalin and said she thought he was one of Hitler's generals in World War Two. The stupid coming from these people really hurt.
As a "trained killer" (M.Sgt. res., IDF) myself, I doubt that military training is the cause of shooters' mental problems. Military life and discipline are not for everybody, and can cause mental breakdown, but countries with conscription such as, for example, Switzerland, Norway, Denmark, or for that matter Mr. Berman's adopted country, Mexico, tend to have a much lower rate of such events than the USA.
ReplyDeleteThis stands to reason, in fact; if there is one thing that is drilled into you as a soldier, it is that weapons are dangerous and must be handled with care. It is instinctive for any soldier to not aim weapons at people unless there is a VERY good reason to, to wit, in battle. Of course this instinct too can be overcome if someone is suicidal or insane enough, but it would be an extra psychological hurdle. It would make a soldier less, not more, likely than a civilian to commit such a crime.
A soldiers' extra training with weapons would not be relevant in any such scenario. Shooting at civilians from close range requires no particular skill, and a SEAL is no better in doing so than anybody who spent a week in a gun range. In theory, someone with my training could use heavier weapons and equipment better than the average Joe, but one rarely has access to, say, a tank in civilian life (still less to the crew, oils, fuel, batteries, ammunition, spare parts, and technical know-how that would be required for such a tank to remain in working order).
JJ- Lunacy like that isn't confined to the Reed campus. You can find people like that all over Portland. I lived in Portland for five years in the early 2000s and I found it to be a lonely, hostile place. The low point for me was one day after work I was still wearing my work clothes (a suit and tie) and I stopped by a locally-owned coffee shop. As I was placing my order the clerk laughed and called me a fascist. And yet Portlanders are constantly reminding people how tolerant and compassionate they are!
ReplyDeleteThe worst part is that Morris's blog didn't exist yet, so I didn't have this island of sanity to keep me grounded and commiserate with fellow Wafers.
@wizard
ReplyDeleteI'm horrified. To do a thing like that to a girl out of love would be beautiful, but doing it for money is the saddest thing I can think of. Let's make him an honorary american.
Meg-
ReplyDeleteProgs in action!
BH-
Thanks for yr input. It calls to mind a bumper sticker I saw in DC, a few mos. b4 I left it: "You Can't Fix Stupid." No kidding. With what raw material are Hedges et al. going to make this purported uprising or resistance, and who is it exactly that they are going to save? I suspect that one reason I'm off the radar screen in the US is that it is mega-politically incorrect to say that Americans are dumb as shit. And yet, I follow an illustrious line: H.L. Mencken, Geo Carlin, and Gore Vidal. George was dismissed as a comedian; the others, and myself, as cranks. As of late, however, 2 writers have followed my example: Kurt Andersen and Suzy Hansen. Check them out on Amazon.
Fran-
Actually, they've switched to pretzels. But a blowjob is still in the lead, I'm thinking.
Josh-
I've often said on this blog that Pinker is a turkey. His linguistics also sucks.
mb
To Peez: https://www.amazon.com/Doughnut-Economics-Seven-21st-Century-Economist/dp/1603586741
ReplyDeleteThis is the book the George Monbiot column is referring to. It is a great work, reads like Nomi Prins.
To MB: "I've often said on this blog that Pinker is a turkey. His linguistics also sucks."
Wow! I can relate having contrary views to his on the anthropological lit.[re: his "Better Angels of Our Nature"], but I've never heard such a categorical dismissal of his technical work in language science. I have always met his hard-nosed materialism w/ a fair amount of skepticism myself, but I also enjoy his lay books "Stuff of Thought" "Language of the Mind" and "Sense of Style" that focus on the neuroscientific underpinnings of language.
Is there anything you could recommend? I'd love to read!
- Sandy
Restaurant Owner Chokes Woman In Dispute Over Cold Fries
ReplyDeleteA restaurant owner in Memphis is accused of attacking and choking a customer who complained about her fries being cold. The incident happened on Nov. 3 at Crumpy’s Hot Wings when the victim, Rinesha Moore, came in to pick up an order.
The two argued over the cold fries for minutes, according to witnesses who said they saw Moore throw her food on the floor. And started saying the fries were cold and old.
That’s when the restaurant owner came out from behind the counter, grabbed her by the neck and started strangling her over the cold fries.
americans were very passionate about important things such as cold fries.
Founding President of Facebook admits that it is bad for your brain.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-11-09/facebook-founder-warns-god-only-knows-what-its-doing-kids-brains
Zarathustra/Wafers:
ReplyDeleteI've often contemplated joining the Freemasons and am curious to hear your take on them as an organization.
Frederick: Thanks for those Opus Dei and Catholic Church links. I was raised Catholic and had heard of Opus Dei but I had no idea what they were really up too until I started reading about them yesterday. Yikes! And I thought evangelicals were scary...
Dr. B: I've had many blowjobs, given by many people, and have had zero orgasms from any of them. Personally, I'd rather have the peanuts or a proper mile high club romp in the lavatory.
Great Waferesque Speech from the Twilight Zone episode...”No Time like the Past.”
ReplyDeletehttps://youtu.be/DTemvJkURAo
Just received my copy of AWTY in the mail yesterday. Just in time for the weather here to turn cold, so I won't mind getting snug on the couch for hours of good reading.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, the latest America-in-collapse headlines:
Keith Hilyer recently posted a sign directed at his neighbor Jeff Thomas that read: “Your cancer is taking to [sic] long.”
Toddler slams into windshield after Florida woman chases boyfriend at 90 mph, deputies say Check out the mugshot for THIS cutie.
Dispute over untied shoelace led to Walmart gunfire, man says Somehow, the headline writer manage to completely miss the fact that a nearby witness suffered a medical emergency, and collapsed and died as a result.
But that isn't as bad as this article, which stubbornly refuses to state the bleeding frickin' obvious: that the parents of the children in question cannot AFFORD to pay for their kids' dental work:
Orthodontists warn of kids trying to brace themselves at home
BH,
ReplyDeleteI taught first grade for many years. In the first few weeks I taught making a plural by adding "S". I had the children fold a paper in half and at the top, for example they wrote boy and boys on the other half. I then passed out crayons and let the kids draw 1 boy and 2 or more boys on the other half of the page. One day the vice-principal entered and said, "First graders should not be using crayons. We have art teachers for that." Of course I could have reminded him of various multiple intelligence studies such as spacial, kinesthetic, etc. but why waste my breath.
So the American right is getting scary, I've mentioned a pseudointellectual named Jordan Peterson before, he has such a large following of sexually frustrated white males that he's making around 60k a month of donations and millions of views on his youtube videos.
ReplyDeleteSo he has this biblical series where he tries to talk philosophy and give special meaning to myths. Of course that has some value but not the way he does it. He mentioned how the idea of God is so deep and atheists are stupid. For instance, the ten commandments tells us the values of the people who lived in the time of Moses and I thought to myself "no shit and it also disproves God." I mean if what they're saying is that religion is just men's values put into a book then doesn't that also mean that we don't need God to make those rules, like how nearly every nation on earth does this today? The retards of the alt-right are turning to theocracy without even realizing it. So you're right again Dr Berman, religion is never going away, they will just find new fallacious arguments to keep believing nonsense. God I need to gtfo of this freak show ASAP.
Check this out MB, Wafers:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/08/ashamed-to-work-in-silicon-valley-how-techies-became-the-new-bankers
Kanye
Here's a bizarre take on what future convenience relationships will evolve to that is already happening in Japan (probably other places as well). It's interesting/frightening how the guy opens up with all the details of the scenarios he has to deal with. The most telling line that this guy is bankrupt is when he says, "I don’t have a real girlfriend right now. Real dating feels like work. It feels like work to care for a real person."
ReplyDeleteHow to Hire Fake Friends and Family https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/545060/
“more than real” - less concerns, less misunderstanding, less conflict, better results, more ideal, more clean, a more perfect form of reality ... what a tagline.
http://peterturchin.com/cliodynamica/four-trajectories-europes-future/
ReplyDelete4 virtual euro futures
Mike R.-
ReplyDeleteStrangling is gd, but if he had been armed--like a true American--he cd have simply blown her brains out. Of course, why she wasn't armed is also puzzling.
Sandy-
Look, I'm no linguistic expert, but as far as linguistics goes, Pinker's work strikes me as being just warmed-over Chomsky, and I never believed in Chomsky's Cartesian Port-Royale theory of an innate grammar, myself. There is some crit of Chomsky in Norman Malcolm's "Wittgenstein: A Religious Point of View?", and then there was field research some yrs ago by some anthropologist, with a tribe in the Amazon (I think), that claimed to refute Chomsky's theory. He 1st published in Current Anthropology, then did a bk; but I just can't recall the details. What seems more likely than an innate grammar is the basic fact that children learn language by living in it. So no great mystery: German children learn to speak German, Bulgarian children learn to speak Bulgarian, and American children learn to drool and grunt.
Meanwhile, mixed messages in the press re: Trumpi and China. According to one report, it looks like he has symbolically handed over the reins of power to Pres Xi. We are officially No. 2, economically speaking. Trumpo's historical mission is to degrade and bury the US, and he has taken some impt steps in this direction. The problem, as I suggested in the Preface to the Chinese translation of WAF, is that Xi's goal is basically to replicate the American pattern in Mandarin. So what's on deck is a Chinese, globalized, authoritarian capitalism. This isn't much of an improvement over what we have now, and it certainly poses problems for Dual Process. It will probably be hard for DP to gain ground in the territories controlled (economically) by China. Europe and Latin America may be our only hope. Just speculating...
mb
Sadly, I think you are right about China, Mr Berman, and would extend your analysis to all of Asia with the exception of Japan.
DeleteI've been travelling to Asia since 2001, and just recently I noticed a dramatic shift in atmosphere towards vulgar capitalism, materialism, American-style interpersonal aggression, anger, perpetual scowls, and irritability.
Asia is "ambitious" now - and is afflicted with all the ills of ambition.
A place like Thailand is, now, barely any better than America in terms of angey, aggressive, unhappy people, and I've lost count of the number of aggressive, materialistic, awful Chinese I've encountered.
Poor Asia - but it just shows no culture has shown itself immune from the disease.
Europeans, by contrast, seem to me to be entering a pre-Buddhist phase - a more chilled out, relaxed group of people you will not find. Europeans have seen through "ambition".
Spirituality must now be sought in the West, and the East is materialistic - interesting reversal, but consistent with the cyclical nature of history.
@jjarden, Great speech! This speech from The Martian Chronicles is almost the opposite: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfypTnKYN5s
ReplyDeleteWafers,
ReplyDeleteAnyone reading about the Paradise Papers? Seems like it should be a massive story, but I see it's already disappeared off the NYT website in favor of the newest Hollywood sexual abuse story.
Saw the director of the VA on TV literally bragging that anyone who gets a bad conduct discharge is permanently denied benefits. Everyone knows seeking mental health treatment is a career killer in the military, it happened to me when I was in the army. I also experienced a would be assasin dressed in black body armour armed to the gills ready to mow us all down from the rear of our Monday morning company formation. The quick thinking of a SFC literally prevented a bloodbath. Apologies if it offends but to me being a "trained killer" is someone who has gone thru enough training to objectify another person giving him/her the right to take their life under the prescribed circumstance. It isn't difficult to see how it can all go off the rails in certain people. The Texas shooter can go to admin segregation for the rest of his life for all I care, but what about the ones suffering in silence even the ones who fucked up and got a bad discharge? For the VA, not to single them out b/c all the social welfare agencies do the same, to cut and run is shameful to me, punishing people into oblivian just creates more victims.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.military.com/daily-news/2017/11/06/texas-church-shooter-doesnt-rate-called-veteran-va-secretary.html
I would like to make a WAFer book recommendation. Alan Ehrenhalt’s “The Lost City: The Forgotten Virtues of Community in America.” The book is about 1950s Chicago and how, despite all of the corruption and unfairness of life in Chicago at the time most people were probably happier than they are now. The book came out in 1995 so it is somewhat outdated. However, Ehrenhalt’s point about how limits in life actually make most ordinary people happier is interesting. Ehrenhalt argues that the drive to throw off all limits and promote unlimited choice after the 1960s destroyed many of the good aspects of community life in America. Definitely worth a read.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/alan-ehrenhalt/the-lost-city/
Greetings MB and Wafers,
ReplyDeleteMB on RT:
https://www.rt.com/shows/watching-the-hawks/409425-protests-massive-pollution-scandal/
MB appears at 16:35.
Comrade Miles
What a sick culture ours; perverted, hyperSexed and frustrated. One douchebag just wanna fuk point-blank, while the other pleasures himself spanking his monkey in public.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olXBfU4Bjp8
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/masturbation-sexual-assault_us_5a04dcc4e4b05673aa584c89?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009
Jiddu Krishnamurti pointed out, “it is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” Wafers zindabad!!
Hi all-
ReplyDeleteA couple of tidbits--not related to each other but each in its own way infuriating.
A Pew Research Center poll reveals that about 40% of LGBT adults were met with rejection when they came out to family and friends, and about 30% were physically threatened or even attacked.
And the most popular comments to this article are disgusting.
Meanwhile Roy Moore, who has been denounced as a creep with a liking for teenage girls, finds that other GOP lawmakers want nothing to do with him and wish he would just drop out of tha race, "if these allegations are found to be true."
Tom-
ReplyDeleteI have a vague memory that I cited it in DAA, but as I am fairly senile, I can't be sure.
Jeff-
You got the link b4 I did! Thanks for posting it.
mb
ps: Actually, I think this segment might only be a preview, because Sean Stone asked me several questions during the interview, and this cut represents only 1 of them. I did ask him for the link, so there may be more to come. Stay tuned.
ReplyDeleteWafers please consider Rickard's Road To Ruin.
ReplyDeleteWhy this Hollywood sex-scandal corp media blitzkrieg? The casting couch is as well known as coked out Wall Street sex feinds or Catholic peds or Epstein's Lolita express etc.
I'm not trying to emotionally invalidate valid moral outrage but I'm paranoid the corp matrix is always distracting and herding the free range slaves when bank bail-ins and other corp state tyranny looms the horizon.
MB has mentioned repressed everything. Why are women allowed to couple with the corp state to harvest and destroy men in divorce court etc. e.g. condoned female sexual harrassment.
The state may be using tactics to control disenfranchised working class men. Regardless so much for the sexual revolution of the 60's and 70's. E. Fromme pointed out the group decides normalcy no matter how unfair and insane.
Good article on the mental breakdown of America. The only thing I would add is that Americans brought this upon themselves.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2017/11/10/america-breaks-down-anatomy-national-psychosis.html
Dual process in action
ReplyDeletehttps://www.counterpunch.org/2017/11/10/mexicos-indigenous-governing-council-actually-existing-anti-capitalism-for-the-21st-century/
"As the failures of “progressive” electoralist forces pile up across the world—Syriza in Greece, Podemos in Spain, the PT in Brazil, renascent Peronism in Argentina, to name just a few— we are all going together is deeper into capitalist crisis and the disintegration of the system as a whole"
How ironic how dysfunctional governments are allowing alternatives, hopefully Latin American countries don't get functional governments and that more austerity is implemented in Europe to force people to find alternatives. In the same way, we should be applauding china's attempt at destroying the dollar, doesn't benefit the 99% to have the reserve currency, if anything it allows the US government to spend and spend until it finally creates a perfect totalitarian state like they are blatantly doing by scare mongering Americans about how "China will beat us in AI so we have to collect more data than them." I find AI to be pretty goddam scary, it won't benefit the 99% percent but it sure as hell will allow governments to place data points on each person and project the future with it, I really hope something happens to stop all the data collection, AI will not bring singularity but it might bring big brother IMHO
Apparently the DC city council really believes that "the bitch" set Marion Barry up, since they voted to erect a statue of him in front of city hall.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, the solution to reestablishing your relationship with a son and a daughter whom you lost custody of when they were little kids is to marry them one at a time after they grow up.
And here's one of those stupid "outrage stories" in which we are supposed to get all mad at a teacher who threatened to put bullet in a student’s head. Outraged, that is, until you read a quote from the student's momma and realize who the real problem likely is:
Carr told WSB-TV in Atlanta she received a call from the administration on Thursday informing her of what happened. She reportedly admitted her son’s behavior caused the incident, but was still outraged by the “terroristic threat[s]” made against her son. “I want him fired. And I want him fired and I want charges pressed against him,” Carr said.
Fired? They ought to make this guy "teacher of the year."
About Reed college:
ReplyDeleteFrom the information posted here, it costs 50 grand a year, has the highest % of humanities graduate degrees pursuers, and "spurns the US News & World Reporrt ranking". In plain English it's a $200,000 finishing school for future Starbuck's baristas. No wonder they are frustrated. But why not get a technician's degree in someting useful and then read Plato or Aquinas for themselves, instead of throwing $200,000 to read "Aristotle was a black lesbian" women studies' PhDs that pass for "research in the humanities" today?
Gunner Burton - About "trained killer":
You are correct that soldiers get trained to kill people, but surgeons are trained to cut people with knives, and electricians to wire things to high voltage sources. Yet you do not see surgeons going around randomly cutting up people, or electricians electrocuting people in the street. If a surgeon *did* go amok and ran around cutting people with a knife, his training as a surgeon would hardly be the reason.
https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/11/8/16611710/vertical-farms
ReplyDeleteThis company wants to build a giant indoor farm next to every major city in the world
Another alt. path *growing up*
Post carbon world!
OUCH
ReplyDeletehttps://www.naturalnews.com/2017-11-09-liberal-cities-in-california-becoming-homeless-wastelands-as-socialist-policies-fail.html
AND THIS IS SICK
http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/07/health/bulletproof-panels-backpacks-trnd/index.html?sr=twCNN110717bulletproof-panels-backpacks-trnd0459PMStory
Hello Wafers:
ReplyDeleteThe other day I saw bits of a TV show about the history of Rolling Stone magazine. It wasn't exactly riveting analysis or anything, but the segment about Hunter S. Thompson was great. The piece featured a couple of quotes that ought to resonate with Wafers:
"This may be the year when we finally come face to face with ourselves; finally just lay back and say it — that we are really just a nation of 220 million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns, and no qualms at all about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable."
“It is Nixon himself who represents that dark, venal and incurably violent side of the American character that almost every country in the world has learned to fear and despise. Our Barbie-doll president, with his Barbie-doll wife and his boxful of Barbie-doll children is also America's answer to the monstrous Mr. Hyde. He speaks for the Werewolf in us; the bully, the predatory shyster who turns into something unspeakable, full of claws and bleeding string-warts on nights when the moon comes too close…"
Chopped-
ReplyDeleteThere's something fundamentally wrong with yr analogy, but I'm too tired rt now to sort it out. Other Wafers may be able to set you straight.
Student-
Great article on Mexico. Let's hope they succeed. Check out "Our Brand Is Crisis" (Sandra Bullock) to get some idea of the opposition.
Gig-
He refers to Americans as "lab mice," but nowhere did I see the more appropriate label--turkeys.
mb
http://www.chronicle.com/article/Justin-McDaniel-Opens-a-Door/241487
ReplyDeletehttps://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2017/11/09/562933725/monks-for-a-month-college-kids-give-up-talking-and-technology
More on Justin Mcdaniel's course on Living Deliberately, where students become monastic, ditch their tech. We discussed his Existentialist Dread course on the blog previously
A humble example of an Dual Process alternative
Greetings MB and Wafers,
ReplyDeleteI think Chopped may have presented a false equivalence here. He is arguing that the the "training" of both the soldier and the surgeon are logically equivalent when in fact they are not. Surgeons and electricians are *not* specifically trained to kill, but soldiers are. We can thus conclude that training an individual to kill could be a major factor in their decision to kill.
Miles
Wait, my explanation of the argument made by Chopped may have inadvertently bolstered it. In any event, it's a weird analogy.
ReplyDeleteps: Please excuse this 2nd post violation, MB.
I think I've found your platonic ideal of an American citizen, Dr. B. He's Mel Bernstein, "the most armed man in America."
ReplyDeleteCheck him out:
http://abc13.com/society/most-armed-man-in-america-comments-on-mass-shootings/2633563/
Hello Wafers,
ReplyDeleteI am slightly late to the party, but I discovered the song "The Dolphins" by Fred Neil today and it's been a while since I listened to such powerful music. It hit me like a truck. If progs listened to such music, surely the world would be a better place. Re: Fred Neil, this is from Wikipedia:
"Though highly regarded by contemporary folk singers,[2] he was reluctant to tour and spent much of the last 30 years of his life assisting with the preservation of dolphins."
Can one be any more Wafer than that?
Kanye
Wafers-
ReplyDeleteWell, I'm not exactly ecstatic about what RT Television did with my interview with them. The taping (in NY) ran about 20-25 mins, and then they apparently took 2 short segments of that and folded it into larger programs. Here's the one that Jeff already posted:
https://www.rt.com/shows/watching-the-hawks/409425-protests-massive-pollution-scandal/ (at abt 16:35)
And here's a second one I found on rt.com:
https://www.rt.com/shows/watching-the-hawks/409542-dnc-primary-rigging-election/ (at abt 16:00)
There may be more, for all I know, but I haven't found it.
They had pursued me rather keenly, for months, to do this interview, and then instead of running the whole interview, made something of a hash of it. Well, what can ya do. Mexican TV humped me in a similar fashion some yrs ago, so there's no singling out Russia for this bowdlerization (or "salad"). I just wish these people wd tell their subjects in advance what they plan to do, so we cd say Thanks but no thanks. Maybe I'll drop Vlad a line, in Russian. :-(
mb
Please excuse if this "daily" post of mine is perhaps an hour or two early than the 24-hour-rule requires. Also, as I post once a day, I make two separate points on different issues.
DeleteAbout soldiers - the point of my analogy is to not confuse means with ends. Surgeons learn to cut people *for the purpose* of healing them. Soldiers learn to kill the enemy *for the purpose* of protecting their country and countrymen. Thus for both, cutting or killing people randomly is unlikely, since it doesn't serve the purpose. It is deeply drilled into both to use their training only for the correct purpose.
Also, soldiers are not really trained "to kill people" at all. Their training is in operating their weapons or other equipment. They aren't trained to hate the enemy or consider him subhuman, at least not in Western armies. Just like surgeons aren't really trained "to cut people" - they are not released among condemned prisoners to slash them at will, for example. The whole "trained to kill" idea is based on a misunderstanding of what soldiers do.
Another, unrelated question to Mr. Berman. The one-line summary of your books is, I think it is fair to say, "how to find love and meaning in a selfish, meaningless society". I have no disagreement with your recommendations, but it occurred to me that you never mention anywhere the most common and obvious way to do so, to wit, to marry someone you love and raise a family with them. Why?
[601] Dialogue Over Screaming & The Fallacy of More-- https://www.rt.com/shows/watching-the.../409542-dnc-primary-rigging-election/ you are at @16:00
ReplyDeletePlease erase the other post. if you want to, I think i was inchoate.
WAFER Derek--the Paradise Papers are /were discussed in depth by real news in the EU. All over France, Sweden, Netherlands, UK, etc.... 30-60min intense TV debates, discussions, and interviews with critically thinking real journalists with sharp criticisms and provocative debate.
ReplyDeleteThe american "news" discussed it superficially, then crickets.
We now have cute celebrity pet halloween costumes, Hollywood sexy times, Turkducken recipes, and which mutual fund should have your money.
Go failure!
Regarding the soldiers and violence issue, this story might be relevant: Marine drill instructor gets 10 years in prison for hazing Muslims and other recruits Note that the ABC "News" headline refers to the drill sergeant's actions as "hazing" rather than physical abuse that led one recruit to commit suicide. I served in the army for 7 years, and my experience was that the guys who went in as psychos came out as psychos, only now were more efficient killers. For the rest of us, it was a job we had to do. Of course, I was extremely fortunate never to have been ordered to participate in one of America's many recent war crimes.
ReplyDeleteThere was a new twist yesterday in the sexual predator stories, as it turns out that one of Hollywood's most adamant critics of Trump's p-grabbing is actually a d-grabber himself. I used to be somewhat amused by George Takei's schtick, and would never denigrate the abusive treatment he received from his own government as a Japanese internee, but in recent years he has come off more and more like a sanctimonious prick--a typical American liberal in other words. Every liberal douchebag in Hollywood who has prattled on about Trump should put this little sign on their bathroom mirror: "I am a hypocritical turkey and should keep my mouth shut."
I watched the movie you suggested Dr Berman and it kind of made me lose hope for Latin America. US influence is just too strong and they already have a fairly large capitalist class that is willing to do whatever it takes for power. I think the alternative structure will come from a culturally united racially homogenous country, like Scandinavia, or maybe Japan, who knows maybe even some place like Armenia, in Latin America only Mexico has a strong culture but they are not racially united, the other South American countries are missing smth culturally IMO.
ReplyDeleteOne thing has become clear for me every since reading your works though is that a mental revolution is the #1 prerequisite for any sort of alternative. Like Julian Jaynes wrote, most people can't do smth from just pure will power, we either need a power structure, like a "god" that commands us or a belief that makes us do what we do. America doesn't have much of a culture so that's not an option here but I think a place like Norway could replace it's power structure with cultural unity maybe this is why the elites want multicultarism, I know it's a conspiracy theory but the billionaires ain't no dummies, they're smart evil assholes.
Just Embarrassing....
ReplyDeletehttps://youtu.be/KOruQmB1Kbw
It's strange Russian TV Putin owned?-TV is closer to truth than mass media but there is conflation. The current commander in chief was allowed in as a possible launderer for eastern oligarchs.
ReplyDeleteI think the nation state is an illusion like Thatcher said - there are families, heirarchies, cultural tribes, institutions, etc all vetted to be in league with oligarchs for existential collectivism, resulting in centralized poli-bureaus.
Only now gov has so much tech to control disposable labor it really does look like sociopathic family values from here on.
Watching the Hawks is cringe worthy in how they try to cross pollinate hip, alternative media, over production, entertainment, and shoddy progressive style that just amounts to tasteless noise.
You got carnival barked by a horribly disingenuous vibe MB.
Good news WAFers, we can stop worrying about the state of America because Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg is finishing up his country-wide tour and has figured out what is wrong with the country.
ReplyDeletehttp://nymag.com/selectall/2017/11/zuck-has-figured-out-whats-wrong-with-the-country.html
I can finally sleep easy!
Well, RT are journalists at the end of the day, that is, in an ethical scale of professions, way below prostitutes and drug dealers (with apologies to prostitutes and drug dealers) and only slightly above contract killers. Like all journalists, they take orders from their pay masters and do propaganda accordingly. Occasionally, they report part of the truth, more by accident than by design IMHO.
ReplyDeleteI just felt like saying this because I have personal experience of things that have been ludicrously falsified by newspapers, but by no means I'd like to start a flame war about who is worse, the BBC, the CNN, RT etc.
/“Can’t you walk, instead of skipping like a goddamn fairy?” - John Ford to John Wayne, midway on his journey "from an artist into a political symbol"
ReplyDeletehttps://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/12/john-wayne-john-ford/544113/
The actor’s persona was inextricable from the culture of toxic Cold War machismo.
An American Archetype
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/nov/10/how-colonial-violence-came-home-the-ugly-truth-of-the-first-world-war
ReplyDeleteHow colonial violence came home: the ugly truth of the first world war
Wafers,
ReplyDeleteCheck out On Contact with Chris Hedges interviewing Stuart Euen. Marketing and advertising has swallowed us up with the logical outcome being Donald Trump; the ultimate product that assures success.
Marianne
I think the problem with Chopped's analogy is that it confuses training with the purpose of such training. A surgeon is trained to cut people up, but the purpose of the training is to directly save lives. Likewise, a soldier is trained to use weapons, and the purpose of the training is to kill people.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I think the issue of soldiers being "trained killers" does not explain the problems within the American military by itself. As many great thinkers have pointed out, it is necessary for a society to have the ability to wage war or have some other entity willing to wage war on its behalf. Rather, the problems within the American military arise from the fact that the soldiers are Americans (i.e. fucked up) combined with the fact that they are also "trained killers."
Chopped: I’d almost agree with you if the armed forces had to follow something like the Hippocratic Oath which is the physician's highest calling. I’m thinking too that knowledge of surgery aided and abetted Dr. Mengele, and Frankenstein, and Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde for contrast Darwin, as far as electricians off the top of my head the electric chair, electroconvulsive therapy, and downright meanness in cases of torture seem like about the same perversions in training. Interesting fact, Kitty Hawk 1903, US Army Air Signal Corp purchases a plane (which the bros enthusiastically sold for $30,000) in 1909. 6 yrs to be weaponized, what to make of it? Can’t go along down this road much further, I just have my own opinion after observation. I was an interrogator and went to the same language school as the ones caught bangin’ in Abu Grahib. I got to see insanity in embryo. It’s a scar I don’t much look at esp distasteful on V Day.
ReplyDeleteSo what happened to the grand promise of liberal western free-enterprise capitalist democracy and its trickle-down whatever? Thomas Frank believes that Obanga was competent and "good at the job." Sure he was, and so is our Dear Orange Leader.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/12/aghast-donald-trump-thomas-frank
https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/06/02/obama-a-hollow-man-filled-with-ruling-class-ideas/
The white man willingly and enthusiastically took on the burden to "civilize" the savages of the world and in turn became the savage that he always was. And now we are supposed to sympathize with his plight?
https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/american-hyper-capitalism-breeds-lonely-alienated-men-who-become-mass-killers
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Man%27s_Burden
Wafers-
ReplyDeleteI really don't follow Chopped's analogies here...not clear what electricians hafta do with soldiers, etc. It seems scrambled. In addition, the militarization of American police forces since 9/11 led to the killing of 5000 unarmed civilians during 2001-11, cd be 8 or 9000 by now. It seems to me that being part of the military means u.r. trained to kill, or else there wd be no purpose to having a military. Thus whole discussion seems like a red herring, and much of what Chopped says above seems to me quite simply wrong. This feels a lot like our argument about antizionism = anti-Semitism: the logic is off, and I myself don't want to keep going round in circles. It seems like talk for the sake of talk.
As for Chopped's one-line summary of my work: Are you kidding me? You've got 14 bks on a wide variety of subjects (I'm guessing you haven't read very many of them). There *is* no one-line summary of my work. In addition, I don't think that any of my bks is abt finding love. Once again, a very confused mode of thinking.
mb
Carnival-
ReplyDeleteI don't think there was anything intentionally nasty going on w/RT; this is probably just how they work, and I was not aware of it. Nor wd I be: I've probably given more than 100 interviews in my life, maybe 200, and none of them followed this odd slice-and-dice formula; they just ran the entire interview. I had no reason to expect anything different.
Joanna-
Yes, I know, I cited both of the "Berman cuts" on RT above.
mb
Dr. B:
ReplyDeleteWe went to a local church bazaar for supper last week because we didn't feel like cooking. I overheard the minister say that the two clergy parking spaces in front of the local hospital recently had the signs changed to "drug reps" and there are no longer any reserved spaces for clergy. Sad, but predictable.
Speaking of our glorious military, just how fucking stupid and incompetent is the Pentagon and the Neocons that their hand picked, hand puppet, long time president of Afghanistan is now accusing the U.S. of committing war crimes in his country and of collaborating with ISIS? The information itself is in the category of "no fucking shit" but seeing these allegations coming from Karzai is akin to Donna Brazile's election rigging accusations against the DNC.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, you've got Trump initially pulling a Shrub after his meeting with Putin. I know the latter was a long time KGB flunky, but he must have gotten some damn good hypnosis training at some point since every U.S. president who "looks into his eyes" comes away wishing they could marry the guy.
Trump then walked the statement about how much he trusted Putin back, likely after the IC assholes reminded him of what they have on him that hasn't been publicly revealed yet, while dumbass liberals and douchebag Democrats are crowing again about how the CIA is protecting our "democracy." If the U.S. manages to get any collectively dumber, a black hole is going to open up and swallow us all.
I've heard that forgiveness is the highest form of love. In Tom Franks' case forgiving him for taking a corp Guardian job is not so hard.
ReplyDeleteThe Wrecking Crew really pointed out how careerist traitors sold the country out. And Frank in Listen Liberal astutely observed that "creativity" now belongs to a credentialed class of people - that that is how this caste class warfare corruptly self-deals etc.
Much recommended movie to all Wafers: Searching for Sugarman.
ReplyDeleteWhat a NMI life!
Kanye
@ Kanye, Yes Searching for Sugarman is a very good profile of a forgotten musician that is appreciated later in life.
ReplyDeleteIn Michael Herr's Dispatches he describes the Vietnam War press briefings as "psychotic vaudeville". What an apt description for our current societal and political climate. Almost everyday is psychotic vaudeville.
Attended a performance or Phantom last night and once again encountered women, one or two generations removed from the working class effectuating upper-class accents.What's with that? All that distinct pronunciation which I'm sure the true upper-class doesn't actually do as they don't need to be so conscious of their speech.
ReplyDeleteI also notice there's almost no heterosexual dating. It's mostly groups of women and gay guys. My guess is that men have more or less given up on American women who attend more to their phones than to their male date. Stock tip-invest in Petsmart since most of these women will be alone living with a cat.
By the way, the biggest cheers last night were for the special effects. Who needs music when you can have chandeliers dropping from the ceiling? And so many little princesses working on their accents of course.
Kashe-
ReplyDeleteNemesis: Whom the gods wd destroy, they 1st drive crazy. The US is rt on schedule. Also keep in mind that Thanksgiving is approaching, and millions of turkeys are marching toward it.
mb
Chopped, you said: “Also, soldiers are not really trained "to kill people" at all. Their training is in operating their weapons or other equipment. They aren't trained to hate the enemy or consider him subhuman, at least not in Western armies….the trained to kill" idea is based on a misunderstanding of what soldiers do.”
ReplyDeleteAre you kidding me? Yes, soldiers are trained to operate weapons and equipment, but more than that, they are trained to consider the enemy sub-human. How else to overcome the reluctance of what otherwise might be decent people to exterminate their fellow human beings? This is essentiaL.
BTW, during the Viet Nam War my cousin graduated from Ranger School at Fort Benning, Georgia, and said he was, and I quote, “a trained professional killer.” He signed up for a second tour.
"Regardless so much for the sexual revolution of the 60's and 70's."
ReplyDeleteI think the "sexual revolution" is another illusion created by the American corporate media and American culture. America is still a very Puritan society that absolutely loathes any kind of authentic expression, especially sexual expression.
The real sexual revolution in America was just a blip that lasted during the late 60s and the 70s.
Greetings MB and Wafers,
ReplyDeleteTwo out of control tweakers (tweaks?) attack McDonald's worker over missing nuggets:
http://nbc4i.com/2017/11/11/video-drive-thru-fight-erupts-over-chicken-nuggets-at-indianapolis-mcdonalds/
O&D,
Miles
Sar-
ReplyDeleteReally, it's amazing that we are even discussing this. "Mental smog," is what I call it.
mb
Lately I have been getting a weird feeling in my stomach when I think of how simplistically stupid American's thoughts are. You can tell by looking at the people they follow, Scott Adams, Sam Harris, the worshipping of billionaires, etc. Here is Scott Adams' report card of Trumpi, it would be funny if it wasn't for how many Americans follow him and people like him. Be bulgar and have simplistic, fallacious logic and it is a sure way to get millions of American Turkeys following you.
ReplyDeletehttp://blog.dilbert.com/2017/11/13/president-trumps-2017-report-card-first-draft/
An A on terrorism, lmfao, I guess domestic terrorism doesn't count and he's not aware that ISIS works for the US. I suppose he could be writing what his stupid followers want to hear. Go down to the comments if interested in the philosopher's of our day
WAFER Student of Waferism--americans are d-bags and dumber than shit. Period. The. End. 99.7% of them. We have "lost" friends b/c of our arguments and opinions re: the empire. Apparently, american 'friends' can only hear shiny happy people stories. Or black/white "thinking" b/c that's all the american brain can handle.
ReplyDeleteAny sharp criticism, or reality -based arguments and they ghost on ya or look at you like you dropped the supper tray.
Robert Bellah and Dr. Berman have discussed the civil religion in america (the lust of america being akin to the love of God), and anything that insults their God is seen as a big threat; followed by vitriolic rage.
2 options: 1. Emigrate (much preferred) or 2. NMI.
This Socioeconomic formation is destroying lives at a rapid pace..
ReplyDeletehttps://www.cbsnews.com/news/cops-arizona-father-fatally-shoots-wife-toddler-baby-in-family-murder-suicide/
Under the heading “Thank you for your service,” this item reporting the suspected murder of a Green Beret in Mali by two SEALs from SEAL Team Six when the Green Beret discovered they were pocketing cash from a contingency fund and refused to join in the stealing.
ReplyDelete“As the elite troops do in so many countries, they operate in the shadows, with comparatively little oversight—and what their actions actually look like on the ground can be much dirtier than the heroic image the Pentagon prefers to portray.”
https://www.thedailybeast.com/green-beret-discovered-seals-illicit-cash-then-he-was-killed
Cd it be that every single male individual on the planet is guilty of sexual harassment? What then?
ReplyDeletehttps://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/nov/13/george-hw-bush-allegedly-touched-16-year-old-woman-inappropriately
I'm waiting for the headline "Surgeon runs amok with scalpel at McDonalds. Says hot apple pie was cold."
ReplyDeleteI was shocked at how MSNBC/Fox like that rt show? was. Hope they paid you well for your time, or at minimum gave you a reach-around. I can picture a million ameridiots tuned into the show going "huh?" I was reminded of the Sesame Street skit "One of these things is not like the other". Glad to have you back home again.
well, i guess since we briefly spoke of love, a Barthes take on modern love:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2017/11/13/screen-enamoration-love-age-google/
Wade-
ReplyDeleteActually, I think we briefly spoke of not-love (or at least, I did).
comrade-
I also like: "Killer electricians attack Burger King; say cheese had gotten left out." As for RT, they paid me nichivo (i.e., bupkis).
mb
Isn't it the amerikn way to take matters into your own hands -stand your ground; get even- LasVegas style? When will these aggrieved Usonian start carrying bazookas to make their point? I mean how long will this lame slapping-punching go on before they bring out the big guns like their Uncle Sam?
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMuw2C4qe88
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kln2SHc5-p8&list=RDKln2SHc5-p8&index=1
I know this is going back a bit, but I have to weigh in on the China trip. The idea that the Chinese have somehow left America in the dust is simply the result of the fevered American ego being unable to accept that there's a country somewhere on this earth we can't just push around and that is on the rise while we are very much on the opposite trajectory. Don't get me wrong, a changing of the guard in the Pacific, and thereafter the whole world, is pretty much inevitable and sooner than many might think. But there is the distinct air of puerile, delusional self-pity in the Trumpite China/America analysis, akin to Americans making themselves the victims of Vietnam, or bemoaning that the Olympic Basketball Team won the Gold Medal game by a mere handful of points.
ReplyDelete