ReplyDeleteYes, four more years of Prez Trumpi will bring the 'Republic' to it's knees. I can't however be sanguine about any of it, sort of looking like the collapse of the Roman Empire all over again. The only ray of hope is the EU with Merkel at the helm. How can anyone not be alarmed at what is currently happening in the US and around the world?!
Art McTeagle,
DeleteIs there any particular reason why you think the EU would be any hope for civilization? This is my personal observation, but they seem like same thing US is- just snootier. One could replace Macron with Obama and Vichy Chick with Trump while the English have Johnson and Corbyn as their Trumpi and Schmernie. Merkel seems to be just a prog like the dims with AfD being their version of the Boogaloos. They are further along I suppose in sense their Empires already collapsed(except Russia and France with regards to Siberia and West Africa respectfully). European civilization really has had one main organizing idea-Universal Conquest and Dominion, clothed either as civilizing mission or living space. Exhibits: Carl Schmitt, Friedrich Hegel, Immanuel Kant, Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, Charlemagne, Benjamin Disraeli, Lope de Aguirre, Sir Francis Drake, Ivan Grozny, Alexander of Macedon, and finally the Doctrine of Discovery. When they ran out of places to conquer is when they committed their form of civilizational suicide with the World Wars. Hucksterism is arguably just a mutated and baser form of this Conquistador ethic with an element of mercantile democracy thrown in for good measure.
If EU were run by the Italians it might be different(aside from Mussolini, they really haven't done much world conquest since Roman Republic).
Signed,
Mr. York
Christopher Lasch, who died in 1994, is an author whose name has been mentioned with some frequency here. I have not read him, but the following essay from the British website “unherd” may be of interest to WAFers.
ReplyDeletehttps://unherd.com/2020/07/the-book-that-predicted-2020/
The essayist notes that Lasch’s book may have underlain some of the thinking that caused President Jimmy Carter—you know, the goober from Georgia—to speak of an American malaise.
Well, there’s goobers and then there’s goobers. Carter ain’t one, Southerner or not.
56-0
ReplyDeletehttps://thehill.com/policy/defense/505570-house-panel-approves-7405b-defense-policy-bill
People in many countries are returning to normal life. Americans are acting like children:
ReplyDeleteTexas woman spits on counter after being told to wear a mask
https://www.wbtv.com/2020/07/02/texas-woman-spits-counter-after-being-told-wear-mask/
The MRIs would probably reveal that bubbas' heads are filled with potato salad and Cheez Whiz. Prog heads contain chopped kale and kombucha. This is a vital medical question that deserves further study.
"The status quo power structure will have to take more drastic means to maintain its control; hence more infractions on civil liberties, police state tactics, etc.
ReplyDeletePower via acceptance of dominant narratives is slowly eroding…people are waking up and losing faith in so-called leadership, especially politicians.
The more people challenge the system, the more police state tactics are employed. People now know better and must be physically controlled where mental control was all that was needed before. People are being beaten more because they are fighting back more." (2012; 2018)
http://www.associationofblacksociologists.org/racialization-of-a-nation/
I never accepted the dominant narratives in the 1st place. Never understood why anybody thought the U.S. was great in the 1st place. Paid a huge price (a very lonely existence, among other things).
200 years from now people will probably still be in denial. Denial for what? It doesn't feel like we're losing much.
Hello Wafers:
ReplyDelete"I'm concerned about being socially shamed up there in B.C., driving a U.S.-plated car because I've heard from multiple clients, stories of dirty looks," said Saunders, whose office sits close to the British Columbia border in Blaine, Wash.
Canadian drivers with U.S. licence plates harassed by fellow Canadians
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/canada-u-s-border-harassment-u-s-license-plates-banff-1.5634534
Yeah, well, watch out. We might not stop with dirty looks; Canadians have been known to finger-wag and talk about people behind their backs, too.
Hi MB, Looking from a distance too, the pace at which the US is hurtling down the slope is kinda unexpected. Now, Putin rules till 2036, or till he dies really. Ditto Xi and Erdogan. Modi aims as much, but Xi just showed him who is the bigger bully. China grabs HK. The west can't do anything except to murmur. With Putin and Xi firmly in power, the Iran regime is secure in its place. Overall, the liberal order is in a free fall. Where do we go from here? Do you think this instability could lead to another all out conflict, or have we learnt some lessons from the last century to engage more in proxy wars than real ones?
ReplyDeleteNeo-lib capitalism is in decline, yes, but power is being grabbed by cronies of right-wing populists in many major countries (Russia, India, Brazil e.g.). Is that the future? I see no alternative political idea/organization attempting a more equal future.
Interesting, depressing times.
Jas-
ReplyDeleteOn Carter's sources for his malaise speech, see WAF. (and DAA? I can't remember)
mb
Notice to all Wafers who want to pee in their pants from laughing: "The Heart of the Matter" is finally listed on Amazon at the correct price, $18.95. Buy a hundred copies, hand them out to yr friends. :-)
ReplyDeletemb
Thanks Wanderer!
ReplyDeleteWAFERS...Thoughts in James Kunstler’s write up this morning?
https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/history-lesson/
Prof, well over a decade ago Guy McPherson showed up on the doom boards touting his brand of off grid salvation. Trying to PhD his way in with us hard core AK toting turnip growers and goat milkers. A quick google search showed him to be an acolyte of a guy named Malcolm Light who was developing a CO2 zapping space-ray gun to sell to the military in order to combat global warming. I figured he was a fruit loop and baited him mercilessly. Ol' Guy had in his homestead plan a building to house full sized fruit trees... in the high desert of, I think, New Mexico. He was like a ten year old writing a comic book.
ReplyDeleteSad story... the pocket gophers ate everything he planted, what they didn't get dried up in the heat, and his wife said adios schmucko. Penniless, he set forth on his Guy McPherson World Tour looking for widows to support him and his teotwawki ravings, ie: the planet will be uninhabitable for humans by 2034. Just another hustler imo, and I'd hate to lend him the air of credibility by gracing him with your presence. But if you do, tell him the comrade hopes he hasn't caught crabs from the declining clientele he's reduced to, and that his mustache is still goofy looking.
random link supporting my claims that he's a douchebag. https://fractalplanet.wordpress.com/2015/01/08/once-more-mcphersons-methane-catastrophe/comment-page-1/
Pocket gophers, sheesh.
I often go to the very far right Catholic site Lifesite. I do this to amuse myself. Well, today it out did itself with nonsense, but one article is most interesting. It concerned the possible secession from the Union. The gentleman interviewed is F. H. Buckley, who teaches at George Mason University. I have no idea who Mr. Buckley is, but if Lifesite is interviewing I would guess he's far on the fringe. Nevertheless, he stated that secession is a real possibility. With this I have to agree.
ReplyDeleteSo I'm wondering how this will look. Realistically we could see secession within various states. After all, Texas and California, to name just two, have about ten different states within their borders. What I find interesting is that more and more people across the political divide see secession as a very likely future. Seems to me we are already seeing the beginning of the breakup. Stay safe all.
Arthur-
ReplyDeleteWd be helpful to have the link to the website. As for secession: discussed in WAF, also at some length on this blog. Yes, I think it's in the cards.
comrade-
I dunno if GM will wanna do an interview w/me, but I said (via Vince) that it cdn't be abt global warming because I really don't know v. much abt it. Just politics, in other words. I also usually ask for some sample questions in advance, so that I can think abt what I might wanna say. If the questions aren't sensible or relevant, I wd probably recuse myself, so to speak. It's just always nice to have an audience to infect w/a bit of Waferism.
York-
That's quite a lumping you've given us--so broad as to be meaningless. Why not add Davy Crockett and Buckminster Fuller? Once again, I don't really feel yr proving anything.
mb
The hits just keep coming.
ReplyDeletehttps://twitter.com/santiagomayer_/status/1279155143624159232?s=21
Tim - The primary tactic of choice for those who wish to stay in power - primary because its usually successful- over others is violence expressed as terrorism. Terrorism of one's own or of ones over whom a nation has authority. Let them know what will happen if they protest. Nothing deters protests better than violence. So, yes, the more minorities demand equal rights, the harder the state will come down on them. Nothing will go undone to maintain the power-quo.
ReplyDeleteIt worked for the Romans, until other factors destroyed them. Don't try to convince 95% of American Christians of this but Jesus of Nazareth was a Jewish victim of state terrorism, killed because he challenged some of the traditions and laws of his time and threatened to create unrest in Palestine, then occupied by the Empire. Now his followers worship the flag of the current empire and pledge allegiance to its laws.
anders-
ReplyDeleteWhat is going on here?
mb
At a July 4th "party," (I minimize any and all interactions with USians), my spouse stated that most of the USAers were "surprised" how bad Tom Hanks Disease was in the states-they did not understand, nor want to understand why. They felt they have health "insurance" and everyone from around the globe would give their left leg to come to the US.
ReplyDeleteWow. Just wow. T-2 yrs until we leave The Shithole permanently. Good on ya EU banning Americans. What fucking jokes they were, 400yrs+ of emptiness.
@Arthur wldnt think a priest wld say something like this
ReplyDeletehttps://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/07/03/carmel-indiana-priest-suspended-after-calling-blm-organizers-maggots/5371221002/
Maybe Hawaii will be the first to raise the middle finger and secede. Todd Palin was a member of a secession group in Alaska.
Random cop mayhem
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/07/02/video-shows-ohio-sheriffs-deputy-kicking-inmate-head/5369803002/
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/07/02/video-shows-ohio-sheriffs-deputy-kicking-inmate-head/5369803002/
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/07/01/florida-sheriff-says-he-may-deputize-gun-owners-against-protesters/5357157002/
(MB - goal of arming every American is progressing nicely)
But here's what's important
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/07/01/coty-to-pay-200-million-for-a-stake-in-kim-kardashian-wests-beauty-business/112041454/
MB-
ReplyDeleteI have no idea how it started. Some people were saying that the woman was denied entry because she didn’t have a mask, but the fella filming doesn’t either, so who knows?
I mean, "What the hell is going on?" is the question of the year. Clown world demands no logic, only complete self-absorption to the point of losing one’s mind. I’m conceding defeat to sense-making of any sort.
Stay sane, people, ‘cause it’s gonna get crazier than we thought. Related side note - Twitter engineering is doing away with the term "sanity check" and replacing it with something more PC, because, you know, politically correct words are going to fix all the damage Twitter has caused in terms of public discourse. What a joke.
-Anders
Gunnar-
ReplyDeleteAt least he didn't call them "hot, juicy maggots." That wd have been seriously rude.
Dr. Shit-
Hopefully we'll be here to send you off. When I lived in the US and usta visit other countries, I found it such a pleasure not to be having conversations w/rubes and buffoons.
mb
ps: check out the faces on this white couple. These are the folks you'll be leaving behind.
ReplyDeleteGunnar,
ReplyDeleteDid you see this one from last week?
“Feud ends in gunfire as pastor kills two in front of his daughter, Las Vegas cops say”
https://news.yahoo.com/feud-ends-gunfire-pastor-kills-210431443.html
“Neighbors say a long-running dispute between two Las Vegas homeowners began as a complaint over nude hot-tubbing activities, the Las Vegas Sun reported. Police say the neighborhood feud ended Thursday when Andrew Cote, 36, killed his 71-year-old neighbor and her friend with a shotgun, KVVU reported. Cote’s young daughter was present when Cote shot neighbor Mildred Olivo and her friend Timothy Hanson over a brick divider between their back yards, KLAS reported. Cote told police he ‘noticed Hanson was still moving and shot him in the head a second time.’”
I thought at least 2030 for the US to implode, but the sheer stupidity and solipsism permeating American society is like accelerationist rocket fuel. My friends and family keep infroming about some bay shit crazy thing an American did on this day or that, how the president did this or that and are shocked by my lack of surprise, but I just shrug. When you spend half your adult life pointing out that termites are eating away at the foundations of the house are you really surprised when it all comes crashing down? We Wafers aren't.
ReplyDeleteAnders, that video of the woman throwing herself at the door of the bar is one of the most disturbing things I've seen recently. People inside are laughing at her, but I found the whole scene profoundly sad. A graphic illustration, if you will, of how "fitting in" is a fundamental human need, and to the extremes people in the US go to try to achieve it without ever quite managing, due to the unfathomable cruelty of the American society. The only one that seems to give a damn is a black guy passing by, who apparently tries to do something about it while the rest look like they wish she just dropped dead.
ReplyDeleteI don't know, maybe I'm going batshit crazy myself and I'm spouting waffle...
Requiem, to do so would put you in physical danger. I have, and now consider it unwise!
ReplyDeleteMore Wafer-type material bubbles over to the surface. I find Mr. Baldwin’s comments on the fear of life to be a very apt description of American suburban life.
https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2020/07/raoul-peck-james-baldwin-i-am-not-your-negro/613708/
Happy July 4th, everybody. Author of this article concludes by saying that Americans hafta wake up to reality. Can anyone on this blog tell me how 330 million clueless buffoons are going to do that?
ReplyDeletehttps://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/03/investing/american-dream/index.html
mb
Dr. B:
ReplyDeleteDr. Bret Weinstein to the rescue-
https://youtu.be/ptrrDfDGzqs
https://www.change.org/p/andrew-yang-william-mcraven-join-the-darkhorseduo-movement-as-described-in-the-joe-rogan-podcast?recruited_by_id=1ced8b70-b2a1-11ea-9809-abdfa4779c82
Chris Hedge’s valiant revolutionaries have focused their desire to topple the upper classes, the police and white patriarchy by attacking the statue of an Elk in downtown Portland.
ReplyDeletehttps://katu.com/news/local/portlands-iconic-elk-statue-to-be-removed-after-vandalism-fires-during-protests
What’s next on the hit list of these genius’s, Bambi, Kermit the frog, the Easter Bunny ?
anders, Arthur-
ReplyDeletePost only once every 24 hrs, max. Thank you.
Seneca-
It is well-established that the Easter Bunny is a symbol of white patriarchal oppression. Down w/the Easter Bunny!
mb
Hello Wafers:
ReplyDeleteHeavily Armed Fans Guard Statue Of Yogi Bear In Case It Turns Out He Supported Confederacy
https://www.theonion.com/heavily-armed-fans-guard-statue-of-yogi-bear-in-case-it-1844070096
I don't know how Waferish this is, but lately I've been watching a lot of subtitled Russian movies, docs, and TV shows about the Soviet role in the Great Patriotic War on Youtube: Soviet Storm, Invasion, Come and See (the best movie about the war I've ever seen), Tankers, White Tiger, Road to Berlin, The Lieutenant, Local Skirmish, Three Days in the Life of Lt. Kratsov, Night Swallows, and another TV series, The Attackers.
The TV shows have soapish tendencies, but are nevertheless little like any Western TV depictions of war. A sense of doom hangs over every character, and most don't survive the last episode. One thing all these productions share is a strong sense of humanity.
Can anyone identify the song starting at about 44:25 in this episode?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaanQYhD8IE
JJ, My problem with Kunstler is he has become far too rigid when it comes to looking at these kinds of things. The main thrust of his argument is that black people failed to accept the "invitation" into greater society and that explains (almost) everything. To which my response is - really? Talk to any black person about their interactions with police or the courts and listen to what they have to say. I don't like a lot of what blm is doing, but to say its all a hustle is pretty dumb.
ReplyDeleteNot to say he doesn't display some good thinking about it. I agree with his sentiment when he talks about diversity for diversity's sake, multiculturalism, the failures of progressive policies, etc. Check out this interview he did several years ago with a black american - link. The guy is a world traveler and his experiences made him look at race relations with a different perspective, pretty thought provoking.
Kunstler's issue is the same one America at large has - a decreasing ability to look at issues with nuance or subtlety. He just wants to ignore too many of the other factors (prison-industrial complex anyone?), and frankly I feel like he gets a little loopier each year. But if you think I'm being unfair to K check out his blog "forecasts". They're a real hoot, and wrong every year. I've been following him for 15 years and I feel like he just aint the same, the long emergency keeps failing to arrive on time and its affecting the poor guy, just my perspective.
Dr. Berman,
ReplyDeletePerhaps it’s all to the wise that next year’s Wafers convention won’t be held here in New York where I live. It also looks as if the “fireworks” started early here to celebrate “what a great country” this is.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/ten-shootings-in-new-york-city-leave-14-injured-and-one-dead-in-nine-hour-period
Joe-
ReplyDeleteWe still might hold the 7ANYWSM in NY, as May is 10 months away, and perhaps the city might be relatively safe by then. I'll poll all interested parties in Dec. or Jan., see what everyone wants to do. We might also discuss postponing it until Oct. 2021, altho I hope we can make the May date.
As for all these shootings: on a # of occasions I have suggested that all of America's problems cd be solved if every citizen and resident were supplied w/a small arsenal, and encouraged to go out and blow everyone they see outta the water, just for the heck of it. And what do Trump, and the Pentagon do abt this? Nothing!
Wudu-
America's 'invitation' to black people to join the greater society has in fact been severely limited, and remains so to this day. Evidence for this is overwhelming, and the black attempt to get a larger cut of the pie has failed. The larger question, as MLK came to see toward the end, is Who wants a larger cut of a rotten pie? What blacks want, in economic terms, is a better, fairer, opportunity to hustle; but how does that fundamentally change anything? Color don' matter much if the entire structure is faulty. So Condi Rice, a war criminal, sits on the boards of several corporations--ones that probably damage the earth and pay out minimum wage while the chief execs such as herself get millions. What a triumph for race relations, eh?
al-
It was the Red Army that defeated Hitler. Russia lost 27 million in WW2; the US, abt 600,000. As for the song: Nuts! I know a # of Russian songs (including the Internationale), but don't recognize this one.
mb
I couldn’t find a Tulsi Gabbard message for this year’s Fourth of July, probably because she stood “in sadness and heartbreak” in DC on 01-July:
ReplyDeletehttps://gabbard.house.gov/news/press-releases/rep-tulsi-gabbard-stands-missing-soldier-s-family-demands-congressional
A quote for the forthcoming one-volume Book of Tulsism: “I know, personally, the strength of and the importance of the chain of command.”
Meanwhile, in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, private cops have proliferated during the month when Seattle police vacated what came to be known as the “Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone” straining to be free – of what? It had about the lifespan of a dandelion spore. Businesses moved quickly to protect their premises:
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/crime/with-cops-away-its-like-capitol-hill-is-slipping-back-to-the-pinkertons-era/
Dr. Berman, sorry about the 24 hour thing. Anyway, the site is lifesitenews.com. I would be interested in hearing what others think. Frankly, it's quite insane. And it also shows the foolishness of progressives who think they can ever reason with such people.
ReplyDeleteQuickly, on another topic. I find it interesting that one of the last things that may be holding things together is hanging by a thread due to Covid. I speak of sports. Whatever one's opinion on sports in general, I believe that sometimes things are soothed between people due to their love for. . .let's say the Chicago Cubs. With that maybe ending I wonder if people will have anything to talk about that doesn't evolve to a fistfight. Stay safe all.
A classic 4th of July repost by Paul Street over at Counterpunch. The key to understanding the frantic yowls of rabid Americans in defense of “freedom” will only ever be comprehensible once you understand how that word in the United States is meant to signify “the freedom to cage, kill, and enslave”:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.counterpunch.org/2020/07/03/the-racist-counter-revolution-of-1776/
WuduFugel,
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with your analysis, thanks.
I too have noticed a change in Kunstler, and not for the better. He used to be a reasonable Democrat, but as he’s aged he’s become a cranky white right wing NUT....his followers who comment mostly seem like angry far right lunatics.
https://nypost.com/2020/07/02/the-cancel-crowd-should-be-gunning-for-hamilton/
ReplyDeleteAmazed the Woke haven't come for "Hamilton" now that the filming of the production was released.
Hottake: Funny thing about the play -- I was too poor to see it. Funny thing about the film release on Disney+ -- I'm still too poor to see it.
Coastal elite history, if you ask me. And if you know anything about the 18thc Caribbean you'll know Hamilton wasn't an orphan, he had a rich father and that's how he got an education: kind of throws the rest of the story off!
York-
ReplyDeleteI can't keep playing ping pong w/u. As in the past, I'm not sure what we are arguing abt, or why. You might be better off w/a different blog, one that appreciates these 'vast canvases' you paint. Good luck.
mb
Taber:
ReplyDeleteI'm a big fan of Paine, but haven't sleep on Adams, or Madison, or Jefferson : )
Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence and Alexander Hamilton was a monarchist.
Jefferson > Hamilton.
al-al-Qa'bong-
ReplyDeleteThe song you wanted to identify is called "Ogonyok," which means "Little Twinkle." In this case it refers to the light coming from the window of a girl who just said goodbye to a soldier. This is a pretty good version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYKKyMg1YEI
I don't particularly like movies about the war produced after the collapse of the Soviet Empire. Many of them are too pop-ish and feel kitch. Agree with you that Come and See is an unforgettable movie, capturing the horror of that war.
Three of my four great grandfathers fought in the war, one of them spent two years at a POW camp. Was the only one who survived from the whole battalion. Naturally, he didn't want to recall what he went and saw. Incidentally, I am not Russian, and from my republic the casualties numbered around 500,000 - but no one really knows because the Soviets never cared about soliders' blood. Just wanted to point out the war, even though it is of course associated with Russia, was not really Russian, in my opinion. Come and See is set in Belarus, if I remember correctly. It was always astonishing, and quite honestly offensive to me, that many people in the West, US in particular, didn't really "get" what the war meant for Soviet people. There were dozens of battles of the scale of D-Day on the Eastern Front. But the blood of my people is worth less, I suppose.
My favorite Soviet movie about WWII is The Cranes Are Flying.
Arthur V. - I spent some time browsing lifesitenews.com. It seems to espouse typical fundamentalist Catholic ideas, e.g. the world is going to the dogs, Vatican II was a bad idea, and the West's Christian heritage is under constant attack. My favorite article was called "Why Recreational Marijuana Is Never Morally Justified (But Alcohol Is)". I tried to follow the author's argument, then came to the conclusion there wasn't any, just Latin phrases and tautology. You are right, it's not possible (or wothwhile) to reason with people who have such a Manichean world view.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/why-recreational-marijuana-is-never-morally-justified-but-alcohol-is
Gun violence has increased across American cities. Shootings and homicides are soaring.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.cnn.com/2020/07/01/us/homicides-shootings-spike-us-cities/index.html
Tom-
ReplyDeleteNow there's a surprise!
Tomiris-
Kazakhstan?
mb
“Whipping Of Easter Bunny Upsets Kids, Parents” (story from awhile back that went national): “People who attended Saturday's show at Glassport's memorial stadium quoted performers as saying, ‘There is no Easter bunny.’ Melissa Salzmann, who brought her 4-year-old son J.T., said the program was inappropriate for young children. ‘He was crying and asking me why the bunny was being whipped,’ Salzmann said. Performers broke eggs meant for an Easter egg hunt and also portrayed a drunken man and a self-mutilating woman.”
ReplyDeleteYesterday, from The Baffler, “the Trump campaign has made available for purchase a 100 percent cotton, ribbed-neck T-shirt with an emblem that looks exactly like the Nazi Eagle.”
al-Qa'bong, Mel Blanc’s family emigrated from Russia. You might enjoy Herr Meets Hare.
Kill the Wabbit!
By this time next year we may be six months into Kim in the White House!
ReplyDeletehttps://www.forbes.com/sites/hughmcintyre/2020/07/04/kanye-west-announces-hes-running-for-president/
When it rains in Waferdom, it pours!
Taber- oh, don't worry, they were gunning for Hamilton four years ago, just no one wanted to hear it. This is actually a well-written snide attack:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.currentaffairs.org/2016/07/you-should-be-terrified-that-people-who-like-hamilton-run-our-country
Dio-
ReplyDeleteGreat news. American collapse will greatly benefit from having douche bags in the W.H. (as we have seen w/Trumpalumpi).
Meanwhile, this looks interesting:
https://www.amazon.com/Slowdown-Great-Acceleration-Planet-Economy-ebook/dp/B086LK5KSL/ref=sxts_entity_rec_bsx_s_def_r00_t_aufl?crid=2KVT37TQSNUOB&cv_ct_cx=danny+dorling&dchild=1&keywords=danny+dorling&pd_rd_i=B086LK5KSL&pd_rd_r=5fd66036-79e1-415f-abe4-1d8cc65d9614&pd_rd_w=587FG&pd_rd_wg=ZPQ4P&pf_rd_p=1ef18a0f-7643-4ccc-add8-09ffed2c5a47&pf_rd_r=2QNS24GJC5DTEWKB1FAF&qid=1593916629&s=books&sprefix=danny+dorling%2Caps%2C223&sr=1-1-795edd5f-cc24-47c7-9173-701523fd4bcf
mb
There’s no time-honored American tradition like the use of military force against Native Americans protesting the desecration of their sacred lands.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.businessinsider.com/native-americans-blocked-road-to-mount-rushmore-before-trump-speech-2020-7
Thomas-
ReplyDelete'Time-honored' indeed. The country just doesn't seem to be able to stop being grotesque. Here's the background:
https://www.amazon.com/Indigenous-Peoples-History-ReVisioning-American/dp/0807057835/ref=sr_1_1?crid=27BQPTD3YLNJV&dchild=1&keywords=dunbar+ortiz&qid=1593920802&s=books&sprefix=dunbar+ort%2Caps%2C223&sr=1-1
mb
Nota bene: v. gd. article by Adam Gopnik on Josef Mengele in the New Yorker, June 22. Also discusses Goetz Aly's new bk, "Europe Against the Jews." Debunks notion that atrocities are the result of single deranged individuals, in favor of an examination of larger social context. Highly recommended.
ReplyDeletemb
The New York Times' David Brooks going half-Wafer?
ReplyDeleteThe National Humiliation We Need
Whatever else they might be, Americans are certainly resourceful:
People are blowing up, or just taking, ATMs in Philadelphia
Finally, now that Ghislaine Maxwell has been arrested, will she sing or also commit suicide? I don't think the progs are psychologically prepared for the realization that Bill Clinton is a serious creep:
Bill Clinton hung out with Epstein because of affair with late financier’s madame Maxwell, new book alleges
Dear Dr. Berman:
ReplyDeleteLeader of ultra-right militia The Three Percenters General BloodAgent predicts end of America by 2021 and warns of new civil war:
https://www.rt.com/usa/493727-us-civil-war-2021/
Given Trump's divisive Independence day speech in SD I wonder if secessionist movements might begin sooner than 2030?
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/03/us/politics/trump-coronavirus-mount-rushmore.html
Himanshu
Kanye West announces his candidacy. Elon Musk has backed him.
ReplyDeleteAnd, yes, this is Earth, we're not on Mars....
Antisemitism and homophobia, both on the rise in Eastern Europe, are a depressing and bad sign.https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/04/poland-president-plans-to-forbid-adoption-by-same-sex-couples
ReplyDeleteOllie-
ReplyDeleteHe might even win. If we ever needed proof that the US has become demented, this is it.
Himan-
Armageddon, on the way. There comes a pt where ecpyrosis is inevitable.
Malleus-
The core problem w/Brooks is that he's a jackass.
mb
Dr. Berman and All,
ReplyDeleteContribution for the day.
https://tsakraklides.com/2020/07/03/ameriggedon/
Peace,
Vince
Vince-
ReplyDeleteGood essay, altho Wafers have known these ideas/facts for some time now. Author is Greek; unclear why he didn't use the word 'ecpyrosis', or ηλίθιοι (idiots).
mb
Hello Wafers:
ReplyDeleteSpasibo, Tomiris. I knew I should have waited for a Wafer to answer, but I spent a lot of my Saturday night on Freegal, trying to find the song. I guessed that Klavdia Shulzhenko sang it, so I listened to her records, and eventually found someone else singing it on a compilation called Любимые фронтовые песни (all the titles I found were in Cyrillic, which I don't understand, which means a lot of googling).
I scouted around some more and found a 1947 (I think) version by Vladimir Nechaev that I'll use on the radio show tonight. Freegal doesn't have the 1941 Mark Bernes version, from what I found.
I agree about Western ignorance about the Soviet contributions to the defeat of the fascists. We keep hearing how D-Day was the turning point in the war, although following Stalingrad and Kursk, the Red Army would have been in Berlin without D-Day happening at all.
As an aside, try to imagine how the bubbas and boogaloos would react to being subjected to the siege of Leningrad.
MB and all, hope you are well.
ReplyDeleteI found this interview with Matt Stoller interesting https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsPjPmDzN8w (or https://invidio.us/watch?v=IsPjPmDzN8w). He candidly voices his frustrations with the American Left.
Dore explains the timeline of the amendment situation with the CARES Act: 2:00.
Matt comes in at 5:25 and explains the circus in passing the CARES Act.
6:55 on progressives, Warren, and Sanders.
Summary of the passing of the bill 11:09 "I'm embarrassed about the entire progressive space. ... I think it's disgusting that they work for Wall Street and don't even know it."
30:27 on supply chains
31:47 on "the Left"
32:56 what's really the problem
35:26: "I think there's a basic problem with a lot of these groups which is that they don't know anything."
38:29 onward - The most crucial part that connects firmly with Waferism. Stoller *does* see it, or at least the most critical part of it here, even if he's still trying to turn the ship around.
I feel I should add that Stoller doesn't like the Trumpers either (I think you call them Bubbas?). He seems to have a good set of morals and I admire his perseverance.
He has a book out I'm halfway through called Goliath that goes over U.S. corporate history and the nuts and bolts of the business practices that led them there. Recommended for those curious about that.
Sog-
ReplyDeleteIn future, pls watch length. Half pg max, thank you. This is just a bit too long.
mb
Vince: "Amerigeddon" = the most breathtaking summary of our political, economic, and ecological situation that I have seen, and in just a few paragraphs.
ReplyDeleteI have tried my best for 26 years to defy the system and practice things like altruism. Extremely difficult. Finally, some support:
"If there is no public space for other attributes of humanity, this bleak view will inevitably crowd out our capacity for generosity, selflessness, sacrifice and kindness. We know these things exist: only they are barred, proscribed guests from the sombre economic banquet, except for the crumbs of philanthropy of leftovers. Ruthless, self-centred, individualistic – if these characteristics are rewarded, who will not cultivate them, leaving human virtues to be practised furtively, in the secrecy of a private life where they have been incarcerated as spoilers of the economic game?"
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cif-green/2009/sep/24/capitalism-human-nature
Tim-
ReplyDeletePracticing altruism in the US is surely a waste of yr energies. Better to expend them on packing yr bags and arranging to leave the country. There was a recent article I read highlighting the emigration of black people to places where they are treated w/normal courtesy. They reported being happy, as they were not treated like dirt. The contrast can be found in the Civil Rts movement, and today in BLM. Turns out that economically speaking, black people are in the same position today as they were in 1950. As for BLM, it is of course impt to get white cops to stop killing blacks, but you can be sure that police depts. will not be abolished or defunded; the protests are now reduced to toppling statues and enforcing political correctness. And of course, you can kill a black person and get off in the courts--think George Zimmerman and so many others. Blacks trying to get better treatment from white America is a pipe dream, and again, they wd be better off closing the door on America and heading out for greener pastures.
Leaving blacks aside for a moment, how do white people treat each other? One can see the US in microcosm in various sitcoms. In "Seinfeld," the 4 individuals are cynical and narcissistic; they are constantly criticizing and attacking each other, and in no way constitute any kind of supportive community. It's only a little better in the case of "Friends." The one semi-exception I've found is "The Big Bang Theory." Yes, the central male characters are into put-downs of each other, but at the end of the day there is a certain authenticity and warmth that is very moving. In the case of "Seinfeld" or "Friends," I've always been conscious of their self-consciousness: you can tell these shows are staged, that the characters are acting. "Big Bang" has a v. different energy, a naivete and authenticity that is remarkable, almost anti-American. And I believe that a big part of this is that the central characters know and like each other off-stage, and that affection comes thru in the episodes. They aren't acting; rather, they are having fun. But the norm in America, whether in sitcoms or typical social interactions, is abt as far from caring, from altruism, as one can get. I think back even to high school: Jesus, what a horror show that was. Lord of the Flies, in a word. What a sad, destructive country we are; awful people, anti-human.
mb
Denver cops getting their creep on:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53287892
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/salvadorhernandez/denver-police-riot-instagram-fired
Here's how Trump wins in Nov, get out the popcorn gonna b one goddamn hell of a Fall! (Heads I win, Tails you lose) good times Wafers
https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/cnbc-founder-claims-trump-has-a-specific-plan-to-stay-in-office-no-matter-what-the-voters-say/
Dan Daniel - Great article thanks. The Founding Fathers (that phrase; yuk!) got the Hogan's Heroes treatment.
ReplyDeleteMB - Seinfeld is a snarky show, but I always got the impression that none of 'em would leave one of the group, if he fell on some misfortune, to sleep under a bridge. Seinfeld himself is Jewish, and I believe at least a few of the others in the cast are also? I never saw them as typical wypipo. Real, actual, wypipo are the WASP side of my family who are the coldest-hearted MF's one could possibly imagine. If a friend loses a job and their house etc., if a family member dies, they. do. not. care. I'm not sure if it's possible for someone from a coherent culture to comprehend the inhuman-ness of WASPS.
Greetings MB and Wafers,
ReplyDeleteDavid Shimer's new book, "Rigged: America, Russia, and One Hundred Years of Covert Electoral Interference" points out that the Russian tactics such as vote rigging used to interfere into the 2016 US election were underestimated by Obama and honed by the US during the Cold War. America, what a country!:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/30/books/review/david-shimer-rigged.html
Miles
Jeff-
ReplyDeleteI believe we interfered in the Russian election of 1996, because we wanted Yeltsin to win. So much for our indignation over Russian interference in *our* elections.
alex-
Only other Seinfeld cast member w/Jewish ancestry is Julia Louis-Dreyfus, distantly related to Capt. Alfred Dreyfus of the infamous Dreyfus Affair. I'm not sure it makes much difference. The 4 characters on the show--Jewish or not--are self-involved to the pt of pathology.
Jason-
Cdn't run it. We have a rule on this blog, of only 1 post every 24 hrs, max. Thank you.
mb
offer up a couple more sit-coms: Barney Miller, about a New York city police precinct falling apart along with the city. And, of course, my fav- Cheers, where everyone knows your name. Who doesn't know a know-it-all like Cliff Claven and a pompous ass like Fraser. And Norm, always sitting at the end of the bar. Where else could a WAFER feel comfortable.
ReplyDeleteHigh-IQ idiots: the work of the 'Best and the Brightest':
ReplyDelete"By intervening in societies of wh/they know nothing, western elites are advancing a future they believe is prefigured in themselves--a new world based on freedom, democracy and human rts. The results are clear--failed states, zones of anarchy and new and worse tyrannies; but in order that they may see themselves as world-changing figures, our leaders have chose not to see what they have done."
--John Gray, "The Soul of the Marionette"
Morris Berman: "The Soul and The Marionette" was a great read. His interpretation of Kleist and its application to free will is very interesting. I was so surprised it didn't make a splash when it was published. At least his "Straw Dogs" and "Black Mass" got some attention.
ReplyDeleteFerdi-
ReplyDeleteWell, unlikely to make a splash, since he shits all over the high-IQ intellectual elite (aka dummies, like Stephen Pinker and his devotees) and their worship of 'progress', who wd review the bk.
mb
Dr. B-
ReplyDeleteHere's the "Unity 2020 Plan"-
https://medium.com/@ArticlesOfUnity/the-articles-of-unity-f544f930d336
"We are everyone who believes that it’s not too late to course correct and save the republic."
"The Hidden Tribes of America" graph is interesting.
al –Qa’bong & Tomiris:
ReplyDeleteI totally agree regarding the Soviet contribution to WWII and how it is ignored by West. It was the Soviets who broke the German army on the Eastern Front, where the Germans had the best troops and equipment. Not to play down D-Day, etc, but Soviet Union lost more than 20 million people with immense civilian suffering. And both Stalin and Hitler were monsters.
You must read the two novels by Vasily Grossman, “Stalingrad”, recently published in English and the prequel to “Life and Fate” which has been out for a while, describing the horrific siege of Stalingrad. Grossman was a journalist who experienced the battle first hand, as well as covering WWII on the Eastern Front, the tank battle at Kursk, the Treblinka camps and the Soviet entry into Berlin.
The two novels center around an extended family from Stalingrad and Moscow, but follows the lives of young soldiers & officers, coal miners in the Urals, peasants near the front, inmates of prisons and concentration camps, party officials, and even historical figures like General Paulus and various Soviet commanders. The characters are treated with great humanity and sensitivity. Many of his chapters are short vignettes, some reminiscent of Chekhov’s short stories. Grossman was under severe censorship pressure from Stalin and some manuscripts were smuggled to the West.
Grossman is IMO one of the great Russian writers, along with Tolstoy & Chekhov. BTW, Tolstoy wrote “War and Peace” based on accounts some 50 years after the Napoleonic invasion – Grossman was at Stalingrad. Grossman’s translated works are available in NYRB paperbacks. Highly recommended.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasily_Grossman
Quercus
Searching for Consolation in Max Weber’s Work EthicThe German sociologist’s famous treatise on capitalism takes on new meaning amid a job-destroying pandemic.
ReplyDeletehttps://newrepublic.com/article/158349/searching-consolation-max-webers-work-ethic
Dr. Berman-
ReplyDeleteYou guessed correctly! Another proof this is the greatest blog online.
On an unrelated note: have you ever met John Gray? I would have paid to listen to a conversation between you two. Actually, which of the living thinkers would you most like to meet?
al Qa'bong-
I wonder how your listeners reacted to the Russian song? Do you get audience feedback? Very curious to find out. And nice to know you play Bernes.
Quercus-
Grossman is amazing. Another great writer/poet is Varlam Shalamov. Especially poetry but that doesn't translate as well.
99% of Americans have bat guano for brains, but even in the cesspool of Hollywood there was at least one good human being who could wax philosophical on the comic book character he played in the movies.
ReplyDeletehttps://youtu.be/For425Xm_UU
Christopher Reeve explains the real reason people liked Superman.
RE: soviets & WW2, this animated map of the Eastern Front is a staggering feat of data, and should put to rest any notion of who did the heavy lifting:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wu3p7dxrhl8
Seneca-
ReplyDeleteExcept at the end, he says the US was founded on the principle of giving yr neighbor a helping hand. In fact, it was founded on the principle of every man for himself. Here's the final result of all that:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vCc20i2aco
mb
What did I tell you folks? Bupkis, remember?:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/06/black-lives-matter-protests-change-demands
One humorous sidebar to all this is how well off right wing Americans like Thiel have no shame about running off to socialist paradises with good national healthcare etc. like New Zealand.
ReplyDeleteI was at an (small, outside, distanced) bbq celebrating our grand republic this 4th and the news of the day was that my friend the trump/bojo loving but polite closet republican (this being a coastal blue state) is considering relocating to Canada. Same guy who wouldn't agree when I told him that a pandemic is practically a tailor made argument for proper socialized healthcare like, oh, New Zealand and Canada have.
You'd think these guys would enjoy the paradise Trump has built for them, but oddly no.
re: the Richard Wolff clip,
ReplyDeleteI think this interview with prof. Wolff really encapsulates the reality of what's happening in the US. Even the prof is taken aback by the speed and virulence of US disintegration. It's rapidly becoming apparent that it won't matter who becomes president in November, or if there will even be an election. The decline is too far gone.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Wi2aLBdfdQ
Important point in the Guardian BLM and protests article, Dr. B, but I know from experience that few leftists will hear it. They fetishize the 1999 Seattle WTO protest in ways that put the Catholic Church and its saints' pickled fingers to shame. But no one recognizes the real lesson of Seattle: go ahead, go crazy, but the next day they replace the windows, hose the burn marks and blood from the pavement, and the WTO goes on without concern. Try to argue that organizing a large march needs to be accompanied by serious organizing and education and plans for work after the march? Ha! As the article says, that sounds like real work, and who wants to do that?
ReplyDeleteMy town has appointed a racial equity committee, and all are so excited that soon the problem will be solved. Because well, you know, a committee!!
Usually I use rock concerts as a simple example of repressive desublimation, but most marches and protests also fit the bill.
"By offering instantaneous, rather than mediated, gratifications, repressive desublimation was considered by Marcuse to remove the energies otherwise available for a social critique; and thus to function as a conservative force under the guise of liberation."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repressive_desublimation
The US has bought most of the world's supply of remdesivir. Here's what that level of selfishness means for everyone else via Medical Xpress
ReplyDeletehttps://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-07-bought-world-remdesivir-rest.amp
This picture says it ALL about the decline of the US, and just how unbelievably far that country has fallen....Note the fawning press.
ReplyDeletehttps://deadline.com/2020/07/kanye-west-presidential-bid-july-4th-donald-trump-elon-musk-joe-biden-kim-kardashian-1202977608/
Unfortunately I don’t share Mr Smiths optimism that the USA as a corporate entity will last until 2024
ReplyDeletehttp://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2020/07/what-makes-you-think-stock-market-will.html?m=1
Also I’ve discovered the Mandela Effect, I kept typing The Heart of Darkness into Amazon instead of the The Heart of the Matter, my apologies to Mr Mandela and his - or her, I don’t want to assume historical gender in case ‘The Woke’ are watching - effect.
You mentioned another person regarding the year 2026 with no another crash (but with no recovery) in an interview with Geopolitics & Empire on Sep 8, 2018. Also that there was this long document (25+ pages) explaining why.
ReplyDeleteCan you mention who this person is and that document as well? Thanks for your work!
reference: https://youtu.be/pXdEmdN67dU?t=1789
kenny-
ReplyDeletePerson was a businessman, does not wish to be identified. The document (I think) was Global Trends 2025, something like that--an internal gov't intelligence report.
mb
Hello Wafers:
ReplyDelete@ Tomiris: Nobody 'phoned in to comment last night. My show follows the Ukrainian show, so I wonder how many listeners who may have understood the lyrics heard the song. Right after "Огонёк" I played a clip by the Vichy government that derided the Judeo-Negroid decadence of jazz music and "Zazous," as well as a Johnny Hess number in French and one by Willi Stanke und sein Orchester that was recorded in Berlin in 1943 on the Columbia label.
I also played "Dusky Stevedore" and a 1939 song about a dame called "Fine Piece of Meat," so I'll keep you posted if my woke program director cancels the show.
For those who might be interested in the Global Trends report mentioned by GSWH, the most recent one was published in December 2012. The 2025 report he remembers was published in November 2008. A link to the latest report (projecting out to 2030) provided below.
ReplyDeleteThe Global Trends document is drafted by the National Intelligence Council (NIC). The Director of National Intelligence website offers the following definition for the NIC: The National Intelligence Council supports the Director of National Intelligence in his role as head of the Intelligence Community (IC) and is the IC’s center for long-term strategic analysis.
The NIC’s National Intelligence Officers (NIOs) are drawn from government, academia, and the private secto and are the Intelligence Community’s senior experts on a range of regional and functional issues.
https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/GlobalTrends_2030.pdf
MB: My monitor is large, so the page length instruction wasn't exact for me. I'll then place a cap of 20 lines of text in composing mode as my last post was 27 lines in said mode (at least in my browser). At the end of this post, there will be a mark for the new cap - please confirm if that is better for a maximum. Thanks - SC
ReplyDelete* End of post.
Sog-
ReplyDeleteStill a few lines too long.
al-
I love the Zazous, also Zazie. Plus, I'm deeply committed to Judeo-Negroid decadence. If only I had been living in Paris after 1945. I would sit around the Cafe Flore, smoke Gaulois cigarettes, and grunt Existentialist phrases, while wearing a black turtleneck and drinking espresso. I wd hang out w/Boris Vian and Juliette Greco. Gorgeous women wd throw themselves at me. Clearly, I missed the boat.
mb
Just dis: Mexican auto workers will now make $16 an hour, which is more than double the US federal minimum wage.
ReplyDeletehttps://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Automobiles/Japan-auto-companies-triple-Mexican-pay-rather-than-move-to-US
$16's also what my employer pays me, working half-time. In all fairness diddling around with electronics parts (only some of which are 40-lb pieces of test equip.) is easier than working on an assembly line.
This, I think, is a fine example of how the civilized world will route around the festering tumor that is the US.
"There are two types of sensitive intervention points. The first involves a kick to the current state of the system, moving it onto a new trajectory without any change in the underlying system dynamics...
ReplyDelete...The second type involves a shift in the underlying system dynamics, where the rules of the system itself change and trajectories alter substantially" J.D. Farmer et al., April 2019
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/364/6436/132
Sensitive intervention points in the post-carbon transition
Dr. Berman, I agree with you about 'The Big Bang Theory'. I was always a fan. In fact, I'm a fan of producer Chuck Lorre's work in general. And I always thought 'Two and a Half Men' had more bite and commentary on life than it was given credit for.
ReplyDeleteOn another topic, I read The Guardian article you referenced earlier. Interesting. Groups right or left can't seem to avoid infighting after a certain point. And did you see that a statue of Fredrick Douglass was torn down in New York. I don't know the details as I only saw a quick bottom of the screen crawl on my local TV station.
Big news from this morning. Philip Alston, the UN Special Rapporteur on Poverty and Human Rights, released his final report. It is a searing indictment of the "progress" narrative, and of the poverty line on which it is built. The "self-congratulatory" narrative promoted by Steven Pinker, Martin Wolf, Banerjee/Duflo and the World Bank is wrong, Alston argues. It relies on a poverty line that "is not based on any direct assessment of the cost of
ReplyDeleteessential needs."
"The IPL should not be treated as the basis on which to determine whether we are eradicating poverty, or as the benchmark for SDG1. The line is so low and arbitrary as to guarantee a positive result and to enable the UN, WB, and many commentators to proclaim a Pyrrhic victory."
If you think we've been eradicating poverty:
https://chrgj.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Alston-Poverty-Report-FINAL.pdf
cormorant... re: Wolff
ReplyDeleteThought you might be interested in another perspective which is C19 crisis is being used to accelerate the demolition of the capitalist economy and replace it with the new hi-tech economy. this is a more global perspective and supported by current projects to put all the central banks on the cloud, use our smart phones for all transactions, transition to crypto currency etc.
https://www.corbettreport.com/greatestdepression/
Arthur-
ReplyDeleteDouglass statue: this in my home town.
Jasmine-
There have been a # of hard-hitting critiques of Pinker, completely debunking his rosy view of modernity. Just google 'critiques of pinker' for a list. Pinker is so full of shit it makes one dizzy.
mb
Schmoe, I agree that Peter Thiel is a huge turd. As are most of the wealthy libertarians like him. They claim to believe in liberty but have no problem using their companies' software algorithms to scoop up user data from everyone on the planet. I'd like to think that at some point we could move past the inane idea that we need to "run government like a business", but it probably won't happen. I've never received a good answer from a libertarian as to how we would pay for things like public roads in their libertarian utopia. Mostly I've found they hate the idea that their taxes might be helping poor people - the horror!
ReplyDeletebtw, was trying to remember if this article has come up on the blog - https://www.strike.coop/bullshit-jobs/ . Really made a splash when it landed. Graeber argues that a lot of jobs today are bullshit jobs, because technology 'solved' the problem of how to make enough food or houses decades ago. The reason people still work 8 and 10 hour days is because of politics and economics, not a lack of resources. I would argue that most Americans live the most wasteful, inefficient way of life ever created. But I never see this discussed when all these job reports come out.
Wudu-
ReplyDeleteYou might find this relevant:
https://www.amazon.com/New-Prophets-Capital-Jacobin/dp/1781688109/ref=sr_1_2?crid=Z80OG6XTH299&dchild=1&keywords=nicole+aschoff&qid=1594083948&s=books&sprefix=nicole+aschoff%2Caps%2C220&sr=1-2
mb
"Few societies have been stable enough and resilient enough to renew themselves in recognizable forms over long stretches of time. History is littered with civilizations that have been utterly destroyed. Everywhere, the self-assured confidence of priests, scribes and intellectuals has been mocked by unexpected events, leaving all their prayers, records and treatises wholly forgotten unless they are retrieved from oblivion by future archaeologists and historians. Sudden extinction of ways of life is the human norm."
ReplyDelete--John Gray, "The Soul of the Marionette"
An article on the devastation wrought by the opioid epidemic among Native Americans. At the height of the opioid epidemic, Native Americans overdosed and died at rates similar to the hardest-hit regions of Appalachia.
ReplyDeletehttps://katu.com/news/recover-northwest/report-deaths-skyrocketed-as-opioids-flooded-tribal-lands
https://www.amazon.com/Good-Ancestor-Think-Long-Term-Short-Term/dp/1615197303
ReplyDelete"Here, leading public intellectual, philosopher, and bestselling author Roman Krznaric explains six practical ways we can retrain our brains to save our future—such as adopting Deep Time Humility (recognizing our lives as a cosmic eyeblink) and Cathedral Thinking (starting projects that will take more than one lifetime to complete). His aim is to inspire a “time rebellion”—to shift our allegiance from our generation only to all humanity, present and future."
Interesting looking book on Cathedral Thinking, Intergenerational Justice, Deep Time. "The Good Ancestor" comes out this month.
A “Karen” coughed on a baby during a dispute...Of Course she did...these are the things Americans DO!
ReplyDeletehttps://www.cnn.com/2020/07/06/us/woman-allegedly-coughed-on-baby-loses-job-trnd/index.html
Kenny-JamesAllen-MB:
ReplyDeleteJames - thanks for the info! it looks like that pdf is about 130 pages long and was last updated in 2012, but MB seems to be referring to a document around 20 pages long in 2018. Is there an updated doc, or is this the same resource MB?
Thanks guys!
MB, Alex: I know. I've had the added joy of almost constantly being viewed as a mental health case, including all of my childhood by my immediate family. Everything from allegedly being pathologically shy (eventually figured out that I am simply deeply introverted, but the damage had been done), to allegedly being antisocial, to allegedly needing Prozac.
ReplyDeleteApparently in the U.S to be treated like you are normal there is a set of specific behaviors you must display. Smoke weed, utter profanity every other word, + spend all your spare time on Grand Theft Auto and Netflix? You are normal. Keep mostly to yourself and ponder, oh, an issue brought up by Derrida? You're morally irresponsible if you don't see a shrink.
Some of us haven't been allowed to think clearly enough to see that we should leave the U.S. See "Power, Responsibility and Freedom", by David Smail.
Meanwhile, it turns out that Trump's "China virus" may have been everywhere all along in dormancy before suddenly awakening:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/07/05/covid-19-may-not-have-originated-china-elsewhere-emerged-asia/amp/
Amanda-
ReplyDeleteI dunno. I read abt one Global Trends document yrs ago, I think for 2025, but after that I didn't follow up. It said US influence was waning, and that there was no altering the trajectory. It cd have been called The Berman Memorandum. :-)
jj-
I'm confused. This is America. Why didn't the woman take out a .357 Magnum and blow the baby to kingdom come?
mb
Kind of like Tocqueville found a time machine and sent himself to 2020 USA... (apologies if I’ve accidentally sent this twice, I’m all thumbs on the phone)
ReplyDeletehttps://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2020/06/19/on-cultures-that-build/
Amanda/GSWH:
ReplyDeleteHere’s a link to the homepage of the National Intelligence Council, the body that prepares/coordinates the Global Trends reports. At the foot of the homepage you will find links to the various reports. An individual I know who teaches at Georgetown informs me that the original intention of producing a Global Trends report every four years was not able to be sustained. In any event, this should answer at least some of your questions.
https://www.dni.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=398&Itemid=776
Hi Wafers, while the BLM issue is in focus, wanted to share this piece with you: https://countercurrents.org/2020/07/black-lives-matter-a-lot-in-cuba-since-1959/
ReplyDeleteUnless there is a structural change, as happened in Cuba, little chance of anything changing for real.
Everyday, I feel short of appropriate adjectives and adverbs to think about and describe the happenings in the US. Your thought is limited by your language. In absence of appropriate words that capture your feelings, you become baffled, numb.
And finally, chickens have come home to roost: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/07/jair-bolsonaro-coronavirus-positive-test-brazil-president
Respectfully present to Wafers that this video below, is what the us empire was about. Exceptionalism, greatness, can do yankee spirit and risk-taking opportunity! The only question that perhaps Dr. Berman would ask, would be why did the USian driver take out a machine gun and waste him?
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gebM-3wfWA
Does this shit happen in any other "country"--rhetorical question obviously.
Dear Dr. Berman,
ReplyDeletePerhaps someone has asked this before, but what are the similarities and differences that you see between 1860 and 2020 US? In 1860 the division crystallized clearly into a north-south divide and physically manifested in the form the Mason-Dixon line. What might be the parallel in 2020 (Urban vs rural?)?
Thank you,
Himanshu
Dr. Shit-
ReplyDeleteBut he *didn't* take out a machine gun and waste him. This is what he *shd* have done. In general, as I've written to Trumpi and the Pentagon, everybody shd be shooting everybody else. This wd solve a lot of our problems. Yet they continue to dismiss me as a crank. Sheesh.
Himan-
Red vs. Blue states, I suppose.
mb
The fun for 'mur'ka will be how to buy off the vast underclass who are getting
ReplyDeletevery impatient about their guaranteed entry into the consumer society. The money
cannot come from internal sources, so the only other source is adding to the
national debt. By now, those financing corporate wealth must be wondering when
'mur'ka will not be able to service the interest. Maybe it can be arranged
that the growing underclass incorporates itself, then borrows the money to
buy the US bonds?
Oh, yes, the coming election reminds me of a tactic by Dr Ali with his rope
a dope strategy: Biden need do no campaigning and just let D punch himself out.
Dr. Berman & Wafers,
ReplyDeleteEnjoy watching yet another typical (likely conservative “patriotic” ) American explaining how he is “being threatened” and how he shouldn’t have to wear a mask. LOL. Check out also what it says on his shirt. At least that’s a somewhat truthful statement about longtime American hegemony, no?
https://www.newsweek.com/florida-man-yells-threatened-masks-costco-1515914?fbclid=IwAR2DjL3uw-e3VlvaUE-SkMhziYP6BSbPG_U_7NXeRV9BHp4z3LTJkwg_dqY
Joe-
ReplyDeleteO dem bubbas!
mb
Joe M- That guy looks like a Crossfit junky. And in Florida, by claiming to be threatened, he can 'defend' himself however he sees fit, up to killing the guy threatening him. And he would most likely get away with it, cf. Trayvon martin.
ReplyDeleteAnother great example of the American mind at work, Crossfit. A cult of beating yourself up day after day to prove how tough you are, so that you are ready to.... beat yourself up day after day to prove how tough you are in order to... Worth a brief study of the US physical fitness craze run amok. Everyone I have known involved with it ends up seeing every interaction as a confrontation to test their fitness as a human. As I saw said about Oracle's Larry Ellison, for Crossfit people it isn't enough that they win; you must lose and lose big.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CrossFit
Dan,
ReplyDeleteThis Crossfit thing is another example of Americans who have lost their marbles. In the industrial district where I have my shop there are numerous cross fit studios because they like to lease small industrial spaces that used to house useful things like tool and die shops or woodworkers. These spaces are too small to do all their workouts in, so frequently I see these Bozos running up and down the public sidewalks carrying a tire over their head or dragging a giant chain. When I was a kid on the farm we had to do this exact same stuff as work, and my father would warn us," get an education or a skill or you will be carrying tires the rest of your life." At least we got paid (a bit) to do it but these clowns pay someone else to let them drag a chain.
From to “Do as we say, not as we do” department:
ReplyDeleteAyn Rand Institute Took Government Bailout
https://politicalwire.com/2020/07/06/ayn-rand-institute-took-government-bailout/
Fischer-
ReplyDeleteWell why not? Ayn happily cashed in those social security checks they sent her.
"Atlas Sponged" !
@ Dan and Seneca,
ReplyDeleteTotally agree with the comments about CrossFit. You could apply them to a lot of Asian body systems such as yoga (the prime example), Tai chi, kung fu etc. Most of these were about being part of a traditio and cultivating your body/spirit over a lifetime, i.e they were arts.. In America, if they don't help you make quick money, get power/social capital, forget it, so they've just turned into anther hyper aggressive and injurious form of exercise. Witness the popularity of lunatic practices such as "hot yoga" or Bikram Yoga. Mad stuff.
One of the most remarkable features of Americans is the complete disregard they have for their bodies. They are completely out of touch with their basic physical sensations. How else can you account for doing exercises that only feel effective when they hurt? Or the absolute crap that they shovel into their mouths? Any self respecting Asian or Southern European is horrified at what passes for 'food' in the US (I will make an honourable exception for pastrami on rye, preferably a little toasted, with a little mustard and a few slices of tomato).
A wonderful film about the American way of taking anything worthwhile and turning it to shit is Stanly Tucci's "Big Night". Well worth a watch.
Highlights from Mary Trump's explosive tell-all book
ReplyDeleteOn the night that Donald Trump's older brother, Freddy, died from an alcohol-induced heart attack in 1981, Mary Trump alleges the family sent him to the hospital alone. She claims Donald Trump went to see a movie instead of staying by his brother's bedside.
In other words, your run-of-the-mill, all-American sociopathic family...
California relies on prison inmates to help fight wildfires. Now devastating outbreaks of COVID19 in the prison system have left the state short on firefighting crews.
ReplyDeletehttps://amp.sacbee.com/news/california/fires/article243977827.html
Hmm wonder what's broken here
Hi Dr. B and WAFERS
ReplyDeleteDozens of prominent writers and intellectuals have signed an open letter, to be published in Harper's and titled "A Letter on Justice and Open Debate": https://harpers.org/a-letter-on-justice-and-open-debate/
It's contents and signatories are described in this Guardian article
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jul/08/jk-rowling-rushdie-and-atwood-warn-against-intolerance-in-open-letter
What they have to say may be a limited in the larger sense - can these freedoms really be defended apart from a larger political and cultural project? - but it is still absolutely true nonetheless - both inside institutions and in public life.
-Northern Johnny
cor-
ReplyDeleteYes, that is a great film.
Johnny-
Impressive list, cautioning against runaway political correctness. Of course, the signers will be castigated as reactionaries by the p.c. crowd.
mb
Wafers, while celebrating a US collapse, we should also be alert of what might follow that. Here is an interesting piece: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/07/china-christopher-wray-operation-fox-hunt
ReplyDeleteRead it in light of the new security law passed by Beijing. In plain terms, it is illegal to criticize the Chinese government from anywhere in the world. Xi is taking cue from Putin who can assassinate his detractors anywhere in the world. I wonder if Modi will attempt the same, though most of the Indian diaspora are die-hard Modi fans. Imagine Putin+Xi+Modi+Bolsonaro+Orban+Rouhanis ruling the world.
Money can buy happiness: New study on income and happiness finds growing divide
ReplyDeletehttps://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-07-money-happiness-income.html
cormorant...
ReplyDeleteI left the US over 10 yrs ago because I felt the culture was spiritually bankrupt. After living in Ecuador I've seen it's not "Americans" it's Neo-Liberalism/excessive consumerism/profit that corrupts our souls and we become disconnected from ourselves, others and our planet.
Example: In Latin America we have mercados, full of little tiendas with fresh fruits,veg and whole cows hanging from hooks etc. The vendors teach you about their products, how to cook them etc. and you experience the sight and smell of the many gifts from Mother Earth. Nothing is wrapped in plastic or styrofoam and only the pork is refrigerated or frozen.
As soon as Ecuadorians have enough money to be middle class or higher, they wouldn't be seen in a mercado. They shop in the Corporate Grocery Chains where 90% of the food is in boxes or cans or the freezer.
The end.
Wanderer-
ReplyDeleteYou might enjoy a film called "Dersu Uzala".
Indian-
I myself doubt that the coming world of Chinese hegemony is likely to be an improvement over what we have now. You might wanna check my Preface to the Mandarin translation of "Why America Failed" (available somewhere online), as well as the 2nd story in "The Heart of the Matter." There is a 3rd Way, wh/we might call the Wafer Way, but I suspect very few Americans wd be interested in it.
mb
I wouldn't welcome Chinese hegemony, however, I find their disdain for SJW's, whom they derisively call "Baizuo, to be to be a welcome development. If the Chinese provide payment processors and social media platforms immune to censorship from the ADL or SPLC, I will happily support them.
ReplyDelete"Why try to escape from yrself? Accepting the fact of unknowing makes possible an inner freedom different from that pursued by Gnostics. If you have this negative capability [Keats], you will not want a higher form of consciousness; your ordinary mind will give you all you need. Rather than trying to impose sense on our life, you will be content to left meaning come and go. Instead of becoming an unfaltering puppet, you will make your way in the stumbling human world."
ReplyDelete--John Gray, "The Soul of the Marionette"
I'm loving these heavy John Gray quotes MB, and it looks like he has a new book out in the fall on philosophy and cats!
ReplyDeletehttps://www.amazon.com/Feline-Philosophy-Cats-Meaning-Life/dp/0374154112
I missed "The Soul of the Marionette" when it was published. Right now I have "Straw Dogs" "Black Mass" and "Immortalization Commission" under my belt. "Seven Types of Atheism" is on the shelf for my next conquest.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1250234786/
Hi Dr. Berman and Wafers:
ReplyDeleteIf one agrees with Umair Haque's assessment of the effects of Trump's lack of a coronavirus plan, the United States may face the reality of COVID19 becoming permanent (endemic?). The United States will be a world pariah not only because of our economic and political/military policies (for the US, maybe political/military policy is mostly determined by economic aims) but for COVID19 being out of control in most of America - COVID19 being in itself a reason to quarantine the United States. I don't know about the timeline to the development of a successful vaccine but 3 YEARS in Umair Haque's informed opinion would be "miraculous'! Maybe 2020 is America's Suez year!
https://eand.co/coronavirus-is-going-to-go-permanent-in-america-62c3c248a683
Indian and MB: Here's that preface:
ReplyDeletehttps://morrisberman.blogspot.com/2013/08/preface-to-chinese-edition-of-why_29.html
check out the comments, wow it seems like a different world we were posting about just 7 years ago...
“Extra! Extra! Read all about it! National movie theater chain suing the Jersey governor for not allowing them to reopen during pandemic!”
ReplyDelete“Extra! Extra! Read all about it! Louisiana Republican lawmaker claims that people refusing to wear masks are being treated like the Jews in Nazi Germany!”
Dr. Berman & Wafers,
That second fictional headline harkening back to the street corner newspaper sales days is hard to imagine. But Louisiana State Representative Danny McCormick said it! He of course also included the usual stale conservative bromide “assault on liberty” while comparing it to the holocaust! And according to the article, his constituents are praising what he said! What country am I living in? To me, this USA Today article really does elucidate what an appalling noisome dump the United States today really is.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/07/08/covid-19-us-3-million-cases-florida-new-jersey/5391309002/?fbclid=IwAR0xGPhZ4Hk5c82EN-uXkIuNrRFSR5TZaP53oqk3JFMXYP60MmsUdwIoA04
Film Rec: My Sweet Little Village
ReplyDeleteMichael Burgess:
ReplyDeleteGood article. There's a link within that led to another article, which is quite Waferesque:
https://eand.co/the-triumph-of-the-american-idiot-32d50a8357fb
The best paragraph:
"What would happen to a society of idiots — people who prized private gain over public decency? Four things. It would descend into economic poverty, as the most exploitative and brutal rose. It would implode socially, as trust and happiness withered. It would degenerate culturally, as aggression, cruelty, and hostility became norms. And it would collapse politically, finally, into demagoguery, as people sought safety from the very brutal, predatory idiots they themselves had become."
AN excellent article - it seems to me - on the ancient 5 highways of Japan. Resonates with your book, MB. A bit of Japanese history with which I was unaware. Smithsonian Magazine, July/August 2020.
ReplyDeletereflecting on his journeys, the author writes that "...the layers of tradition and modernity no longer felt at odds; in fact, the most striking thing was the sense of continuity with the ancient world."
Photos: Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter celebrate 74th anniversary. A look through the years.
ReplyDeletehttps://tucson.com/news/national/photos-jimmy-and-rosalynn-carter-celebrate-74th-anniversary-a-look-through-the-years/collection_91ad6bec-862b-5814-ae10-7beda04ff762.html
Compare the Carters' marriage. This is suppose to be about Biden's ineptitude but mostly covers Obama's megalomania and how he competitively smeared Michelle's book saying "well she had a ghost writer."
"Saagar Enjeti: Obama privately admits Biden BARELY up to job, tells him to cut interviews short" on YouTube
https://youtube.com/watch?v=rmoln-XK3Gw
"Individuals with this personality disorder will typically have no compunction in exploiting others in harmful ways for their own gain or pleasure and frequently manipulate and deceive other people, achieving this through wit and *a façade of superficial charm*"
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisocial_personality_disorder
This fuckin' guys pic outta be the avatar for this disorder
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/07/08/covid-19-ohio-lawmaker-says-residents-stop-getting-tested/3286517001/
Joe Biden picks his running mate, and the winner is Pete Buttigieg
China now our biggest military threat, says US
ReplyDeleteBeijing overtakes Russia as top Pentagon priority
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/china-now-our-biggest-military-threat-says-us-3xrdlbd0p
Also says FBI Director Chris Wray
https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-us-canada-53329755
32% of U.S. households missed their July housing payments
ReplyDeletehttps://www.cnbc.com/amp/2020/07/08/32-percent-of-us-households-missed-their-july-housing-payments.html
I forsee a great homeless crisis
Been spending a lot of weekends amongst the bubbas and bubbettes and I heard this song over and over again, everywhere, now I'm obsessed.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUVDmVM9RtA
Despite being from Canada, it rather sums up the pandemic ennui among the great unwashed in the fly-over states ... at least they think so.
Gunnar-
ReplyDeleteSchmiden hasn't chosen anyone as yet.
Argen-
I cdn't find any ref to Michelle.
Thank you all for various refs. I'm still waiting for 'buffoons' and 'ecpyrosis' to become part of the regular dialogue.
mb
Many things I could comment on the past few days, but I will let that pass. But I do have a question to pose to Dr. Berman and Wafers. I have been thinking about Trump's apparent desire to reopen the schools no matter the cost. I wonder how many parents are going to willing send their children into possibly unsafe situations. And what will happen if they do and thousands get sick? I always wondered what would be the breaking point for blind trust in rightwing crackpottery. Will this be it? Stay safe all.
ReplyDeleteArthur-
ReplyDeleteI doubt there is a breaking pt; we are on the edge of "Idiocracy" (film), and will probably just slide rt into it. 38% of Americans won't drink Corona beer, because they think it's related to the virus. Progs believe they can turn America around, focusing on Schmiden (a senile clown) and political correctness. The country is weaponized, moronized, digitalized, monetized, bubbafied, and buffoonized, with much worse to come. Rest assured: fast or slow, the country is coming unraveled b4 our very eyes.
mb
Speaking of "Idiocracy," I remember sitting at a bar with a few colleagues from my department, other PhD students, and mentioning this film as one of my favorite comedies. First, silence fell upon our table. Then, all turned their faces towards me, suspicion and even fear in their eyes. And eventually, something I totally didn't expect: it was implied that it was not in my best interests to support a "eugenicist" premise of the movie. Oh, well, it was impossible to try and explain what satire is supposed to do.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I might soon be kicked out of the US, for good or ill. Still sucks if this will affect my studies since I worked hard for it, coming from a post-Soviet backwater town with a few hundred dollars in my pocket. The news:
Coronavirus: Anger over US decision on foreign students' visas
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53320336
Germany announced Wednesday that it would partially disband the country’s special forces, because it has become so infested with far-right extremists.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/01/world/europe/german-special-forces-far-right.html
More damn extremism & anti-semitism in E Europe. Increasingly frightening.
Mb: Re: Argen's link -- the Obamas critique is found in that second link of his post, the news show "The Hill Rising" rips into Barack.
Not a bad program, actually.
Nicholas-
ReplyDeleteHere's the coverage:
https://freebeacon.com/democrats/obama-two-volume-memoir/
Trashing his wife: class act. In "The Hill Rising," Enjeti calls the Obama presidency "an aesthetic con job." That captures it perfectly. Of course, he is worshipped by millions of Americans, because they don't know shit from Shinola.
Tomiris-
Young Americans tend to be grim, and politically correct. Americans in general cannot grasp satire, nuance, paradox, irony, or any of that sort of stuff. As I suggested in the Twilight bk--20 yrs ago--any expression of intelligence in the US is met w/incomprehension (or fear). Another thing I've discussed over the yrs is the difference between intellectual knowledge and ontological knowledge. Your colleagues and fellow grads may be intellectually sharp, but grasping ontos--being, in Greek--is typically beyond their ken. This includes human emotional and psychological life, as well as satire and all the items mentioned above. It amounts to a failure to grasp reality. John Gray devotes an entire bk, cited above, to demonstrating this ontological cluelessness. They are blocked on that level, wh/is why discussions w/academics are more often than not useless.
As for the current visa problem, I'm hoping you can finish yr grad work b4 you get kicked out (if that happens).
mb
Michael Lind argues that the 2020s will likely be a terrible decade for American workers even if Joe Biden and the Democrats win this year.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/coronavirus-pandemic-working-class
Wanderer/MB: I second the Kurosawa film "Dersu Uzala"! One of his most subversive, least known works.
ReplyDeleteI also recommend "Embrace the Serpent". Incredibly important film in the same vein. You can watch it on Amazon and I think on Netflix.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQnwo3vGR_k
https://www.amazon.com/Embrace-Serpent-Jan-Bijvoet/dp/B01E9ACOQE/
TH
More on Evergreen and pc:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRIKJCKWla4&list=TLPQMDkwNzIwMjBp6CNMa7pbBw&index=2
No comment needed, sadly...
ReplyDeleteDrivers target Black Lives Matter protesters in 'horrifying' spate of attacks
Has John Quiggin been mentioned in the blog before? He seems to do a pretty convincing job of exposing one of the English sacred cows:
John Locke Against Freedom
Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, fulfilling the prophecies of Dr Berman:
‘No Way I Can Lose’: Inside China’s Stock-Market Frenzy
Tim Zhao said he learned his lesson in 2015 after losing an “astronomical” figure in the stock crash. He is back in the market for a rally he sees lasting as long as five years. “Everything is different this time,” said the 44-year-old from his office in Beijing, where he runs a movie equipment business.
“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.”
ReplyDeletePastor Martin Niemöller, at the Confessing Church, Frankfurt, West Germany, 6 January 1946
Are you woke?
The North American Scrabble Players’ Association have called for the ban from tournament play of 238 words deemed offensive “slurs.”
“First they came for the statues of slave traders and confederate generals, and many of us applauded. Then they came for the name of the Dixie Chicks — and most of us were pretty relaxed about that too. But now the cultural moment is coming for, of all things, Scrabble.”
https://unherd.com/2020/07/why-the-woke-are-coming-for-scrabble/
Woe betide any admirers of Jonathon Swift! Cannibals, all!
ReplyDelete@Tomiris
Would love to hear more about your experiences in grad school. Drop me a line at diogenesreads at gmail.com.
(Sorry if you are getting this post multiple times MB, my browser malfunctioned and I don't think the earlier ones went through, but apologies if they did.)
Thanks MB. I had read the preface of the mandarin version of WAF earlier. Read it once more (one of you 2013 posts). Things have progressed quite a distance in the direction you had forecast. Wallerstein had written in one of is last commentaries, the next 30-40 years will be hell. Who knows, it can end up being much longer given the state of the climate. Civilizations come and go, 'Cities and Thrones and Powers // Stand in time's eye, // Almost as long as flowers, // Which daily die'. But this time it looks different. It's not that only the US empire is in decline. The whole of human 'civilization' is in peril like never before.
ReplyDeleteIn the meantime, is this a distinct possibility, or simply a conspiracy theory of the liberals? Can those with an understanding of the US political system comment?
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-2020-us-election-third-term-tim-wirth-white-house-a9600486.html?fbclid=IwAR1bU6cRjk3-cYwDxOVWHQxhkpn4g6tQ2dwYqOftQHMePkLxd7gznA2YKvs
Mike Judge, who gets Wafer Kudos for his masterwork, "Idiocracy," is rebooting his animated series from the 90's, "Beavis and Butthead". He probably thinks the time is right because he won't have to hire writers and can just pull examples of crass behavior from the daily news. Americans will think it is an animated reality show and strongly identify with the two idiot characters.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/beavis-butt-head-returning-two-new-seasons-spinoffs-at-comedy-central-1301344
Indian-
ReplyDeleteThe US will collapse under Schmiden, who might conceivably win in Nov. But to ensure and accelerate the collapse, we need Trumpi at the helm, in Nov. and in 2025.
Jas-
The dumber the better.
mb
Carlos - practices sound like something NMI-Cs might consider dedicating their lives to.
ReplyDeleteI don't encounter many people on my daily errands around town. But the ones I do seem to be asleep. Or to have been hypnotized. Either that or they are robots in human flesh programmed with cliched responses that they utter at appropriate times. I know the lines by heart. I find myself completing their sentences (if you can call them that). In hopes of having a real conversation on topics worth considering, I sometimes snap my fingers in hopes that they will wake up. No luck. They continue on as if I had not done or said anything. Stepford wives/husbands/partners on every corner and in every grocery store and in every gym. Perfectly following their programming. Programmed by 400 years of American history and culture with their warped values and vacuous souls.
At other times I feel that I am surrounded by aliens visible only by those few who can see them for what they really are. (see sci-fi movie I can't remember the name of). Beam me up, Scotti.
Hello Wafers:
ReplyDeleteOn the subject of that 2013 thread, I can't believe it's already been seven years since I sat in the synagogue eating latkes at Folkfest.
Every summer I treat myself to reading a Raymond Chandler novel or two. I just came in from reading this Waferian passage in The Long Goodbye:
"The average man is tired and scared, and a tired, scared man can’t afford ideals. He has to buy food for his family. In our time we have seen a shocking decline in both public and private morals. You can’t expect quality from people whose lives are a subjection to a lack of quality. You can’t have quality with mass production. You don’t want it because it lasts too long. So you substitute styling, which is a commercial swindle intended to produce artificial obsolescence. Mass production couldn’t sell its goods next year unless it made what is sold this year look unfashionable a year from now.
We have the whitest kitchens and the most shining bathrooms in the world. But in the lovely white kitchen the average [person] can’t produce a meal fit to eat, and the lovely shining bathroom is mostly a receptacle for deodorants, laxatives, sleeping pills, and the products of that confidence racket called the cosmetic industry. We make the finest packages in the world, Mr Marlowe. The stuff inside is mostly junk.”
Req-
ReplyDeleteTry this:
https://www.amazon.com/Briefing-Descent-Into-Hell-Psychological/dp/0307390616/ref=sr_1_1?crid=TFYOYADTOWFZ&dchild=1&keywords=briefing+for+a+descent+into+hell&qid=1594334564&s=books&sprefix=briefing+%2Cstripbooks%2C312&sr=1-1
mb
(Hopefully this isn’t too long. If it is, I apologize)
ReplyDeleteHe came out of absolutely nowhere in the early 1980’s claiming that he was this rich billionaire playboy. He charmed both women and men alike. He always had a front row seat at huge boxing matches and N.Y. Yankee playoff games, thus making sure he always was seen on television.
He’s been featured on A&E Network documentaries, along with Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, and other opulent individuals that portray the lives of billionaires. He got listed in Forbes Magazine as part of its illustrious 400. Yet he has declared bankruptcy numerous times; he has admitted losing over a billion dollars in his businesses; and his tax returns never have been shown. He quite possibly is one large lifetime fraud.
But he nevertheless had his very own reality television show. He has his very own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He ran the Miss Universe Pageant. He has been a special guest at countless black tie events. He even was invited to White House presidential dinners. And now he has reached that ultimate pinnacle: he was elected President of the United States and now lives in that same White House. A few of his accomplishments as president are: meeting with world leaders, seeing the Taj Mahal in India, and even strolling jocularly and insouciantly across the Korean Demilitarized Zone! His lifetime feats certainly are astounding when one comes right down to it!
And so, Dr. Berman, with all that’s going on now, especially with this worldwide plague that especially is affecting the country he now rules, I have a serious question to ask you. Will Trump go down in history as one of Hegel’s “world historical individuals”?
Joe-
ReplyDeleteHe already is one, but not esp. for the 'accomplishments' you cite. History chose Trumpi to upend the neoliberal/globalized world order, and this is what he has been doing. Also to terminate the US, end its reign. This too (unwittingly) is what he has been doing, under the ironic slogan of making America great again. I'm not arguing that what will follow that world order, and the US, will nec. be better, only that it will be different. It cd conceivably be worse. But just as feudalism collapsed at the end of the Middle Ages, so is capitalism collapsing at the end of the Modern Age. Rise and fall is how History works, period. I'm hoping that what follows will manage to recapture those aspects of the pre-modern period that were holistic, and beautiful--as discussed in my Reenchantment book. But you don't get History for free, as it were; there's always a down side. Good and evil always seem to be dialectically related (see WAF ch. 4 on the antebellum South, for example), and utopia literally means 'nowhere'. Trumpi is merely History's agent for the enormous transition that is currently taking place, and it is a good thing that capitalism implode, and that the US pass from the scene. That he is a jackass and a boor is just History's way of winking at us. Meanwhile, there is no perfect place that we are evolving toward; as John Gray points out, that is a Christian salvationist fantasy, imported into secular schemes of redemption and 'progress'. Fools believe that, and the US has no shortage of fools. (Just check out the op-ed columns of the NYT, for starters.)
mb
Joe, I also agree that Trump is def. a world historical individual, just for all the wrong reasons. Sometimes I try imagine what future historians will say about people now living during our time, like 50 or 70 years from now. I have a feeling the historical record will be unkind to Mr. Trump - he is an amalgamation of all of our presidents worst traits. As dumb as warren harding, as angry and vengeful as andrew jackson, and as paranoid as richard nixon.
ReplyDeleteOf course this is all assuming that historians will exist 70 years from now, or even that civilization itself will exist. But if they do, I think his election will be regarded as one of America's greatest blunders. Still, if you regard America's foreign and domestic policy over the last 70 years as one giant blunder, which I do, its kind of hard to separate these things out.
Wudu-
ReplyDeleteTrumpi is much more a symptom than a cause. As you say, the last 70 yrs have been one gigantic blunder; karma is just catching up to us rt now. As for list of presidents: maybe Millard Fillmore, altho I suppose he's more an Obama type.
mb
Megan-
ReplyDeleteCdn't run it. We have a half-pg-max rule on this blog. Pls edit down and re-send. Thank you.
mb
Finally someone has a real solution to America's troubled racial history: put Obama on Mt. Rushmore:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-don-lemon-proposes-fixing-mount-rushmore-by-adding-obamas-face?%3Futm_source=twitter
This man is paid close to $2 million a year.
$2,000,000.
In 1988, Zonker of Doonesbury fame was at the GOP convention and saw Papa Bush and an Elvis impersonator walking by, and remarked, 'Who needs drugs any more?' (can't find copy on the web). This is another sign of collapse- 40 years ago, drugs were often for fun, inspiration, exploration. Now, as the opioid epidemic spins out of control again, drugs are for escaping the crushing reality of the sh**hole this country has become.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/09/coronavirus-pandemic-us-opioids-crisis
Another proposed entry for the already famous Wafer songbook:
ReplyDeleteCOVID-19's Coming To Town
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/07/10/covid-19s-coming-to-town/
Sorry about that. In my overlong post, I mentioned that I find Coleman Hughes (a young African American man), to be the most intelligent, sensitive, and informed commentator on the whole BLM movement. What is interesting to me is that he completely shuts down (With lots of hard data and scholarly studies) the notion of any "pervasive or systemic" violence against black people by the police. He likewise opposes the view that there is any widespread unfairness in incarceration rates, arrests, economic disparity or employment practices with regard to black people. Here is an example of some of his ideas:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1C2HrbQTzwk&t=364s
What is really interesting to me is that Hugh's cites many of the exact same studies and statistics that "race realist" (as he designates himself) Jared Taylor refers to in his book,"Paved With Good Intentions". I don't like Taylor or accept his race-based worldview, but he's a good writer, and a methodical scholar. And facts are facts. Like Hughes, he points out, for example, that more unarmed white people have been killed by police from 2014 to 2109, than unarmed black men. And that interracial violence is 85 percent black against white. At any rate, I think any informed person should know these sorts of things (Many of which I would never have guessed before I looked into it. The media certainly never mentions them.)before deciding whether or not the media hype is based on reality. Here are a few examples:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lq-OisXVWGs
Megan-
ReplyDeleteThat 2nd link is to American Renaissance, wh/has been identified as a white supremacist organization. How reliable their info is, is open to question. As for yr 1st link: wd be gd to have a public debate on the subject, because his own info seems to be contradicted by everything we know abt race relations in America; tho of course, 'everything we know' cd conceivably be wrong.
mb
Greetings MB and Wafers,
ReplyDelete.
A Bay Area doctor who was on an off-roading trip w/his 15-year-old son was shot and killed after he stopped to ask a man for directions:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ari-gershman-california-doctor-shooting/
Re: Trumpo
Trumpo is no historical fluke. Trumpo is ending the American era, and matters will *not* improve. Trumpo will not learn, will not moderate, and will not settle into a normal pattern of behavior. The rot which is America is being exposed at every level, and the crazy is spreading beneath the surface. Thus, if it's all the same to you guys, let us marinate in the decay, and congratulate Trumpo on a job well done!
Miles
The media certainly never mentions them.)before deciding whether or not the media hype is based on reality.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, Megan, we live in a world where the facts don't matter. The Hughes interview is good, and I have listened to him before on Dave Rubin's show. Jared Taylor, no matter what anyone thinks of his views, is extremely intelligent and well spoken.
Jeff-
ReplyDeleteThings have apparently gotten to the pt. that if you look cross eyed at someone, you run the risk of being killed.
mb
Face of America HOF. I guess six weeks of training wasn't enough for him to learn not to do drugs and try to drive a tractor trailer...no animal wld do something like this.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.pal-item.com/story/news/local/2020/07/09/fiery-crash-closes-portion-70-near-cambridge-city/5410766002/
Apropos of nothing:
“I consciously choose the dog’s path through life. I shall be poor; I shall be a painter...”
— Vincent van Gogh
Obviously, the corporate/noelib "progressives" have adopted the facade of BLM, but come on, guys... Coleman Hughes? Dave Rubin? American Renaissance? And the current iterations of Linh Dinh and Kunstler, arent much better. Who's next? Ann Coulter?
ReplyDeleteIf you have mauradering police force in a majority-white country, a majority of the victims will be white. The argument is that police violence is *disproportionately* visited upon black ppl... and flagrantly so.
There are many manipulative forces at work right now in US, but how can one claim to be a Wafer w/o a baseline understanding that systemic anti-black racism exists in America?
Duppy-
ReplyDeleteI agree w/u; the problem is threading one's way thru the assorted data. For example, check out this debate:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5AQyWAWHU4
Gunnar-
What's HOF? Pls unpack esoteric acronyms, thanks.
mb
Hi, Dr. B. --
ReplyDeleteI'm writing to recommend Fenton Johnson's "At the Center of All Beauty: Solitude and the Creative Life," to which I referred in my previous post (in a different thread). It's similar to "Genio" in that it features ten short biographies of artists/writers that embraced the contemplative life, including Cezanne (my favorite chapter), Thoreau, Henry James, Eudora Welty, Tagore, among others. He describes his own childhood in rural Louisville, near Merton's monastery at Gethsemani, and even how his family knew Merton. Merton isn't one of the ten figures he profiles but rather serves as a guiding spirit for the book.
So the book is very much in the vein of NMI. The former academic in me wished he had put in footnotes, or at least a bibliography, and sometimes I thought his vignettes were too brief - and his choice of Rod McKuen as one of his ten I felt was a bit odd. Overall, though, the book in its gentle way encourages the contemplative life as the one true purposeful kind of life, just as your kind quote from Merton did. (And purposeful not in the sense of utility and productiveness, but in the sense of achieving a fully realized life).
I just acquired Zena Hitz's book. It will be interesting to see how the two compare. (
Take care and have a nice weekend.
The Capt.
Duppy -
ReplyDeleteI agree, the bar has really fallen. If people want to understand the issue, then I'd recommend Sandy Darity's work on reparations and a look at the wealth data that Matt Bruenig and Antonio Moore put together.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMOIiPiDuBQ
A very interesting article: "Around eleven p.m. the night before the winter solstice of 2016 I unplugged my laptop and turned off my phone for what I hoped would be forever." https://www.plough.com/en/topics/justice/environment/not-so-simple
ReplyDeleteI sent this video to 26 friends and relatives. Many were surprised by what they saw. Some expressed amazement at how far the nation had fallen in just 50 years (since their graduation from high school). "My God, what has happened to our country?" was a typical example. Everyone who visits this blog knows the answer to that. But everyday I am reminded of how many remain in ignorance of their nation's ignorance. Where have they been? What have they been doing with their time?
ReplyDeletehttps://youtu.be/NzDhm808oU4
Req-
ReplyDeleteThey've been beating off, both literally and figuratively. "Idiocracy" is here! It's a pleasure, at least for me, to see such stupidity up close.
Capt.-
Cf. Jenny Odell.
Ya'qkub-
I just hafta add this, regarding the race issue, regardless of who is rt in this endless debate: America will never, ever solve its race problem. The problem will undoubtedly contribute to doing us in; but it will never go away, and will not get substantively ameliorated over time.
mb
Not much to offer ... homeless scumbag stole my entire bag and pannier system off of my bike, so they got, among other things, a book called "How To Cook A Wolf" which I'd just picked up from Amazon. What they didn't get was my glock-19 paperwork I was carrying the day before, and what they'll not get is the copy of WAF I'm picking up tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteTruly, it's the 95% of "the homeless" who ruin things for the theoretically good 5%....
I'm not sure what kind of cataclysm it will take to rid the planet of "The America" but I'm not sure I want to be around for it.
"Narcissist", "narcissism", "narcissistic", etc. are now used with great regularity it seems.
ReplyDeleteRarely does the speaker explain what he/she means by the words.
During the 2016 election it wasn't uncommon for people to assert that Trump met the criteria for Narcissistic Personality Disorder. It was supposed to show that he was dangerous and unfit for office. But, as I recall, the DSM describes NPD with the words "the sufferer". It's a personality disorder. People who have it suffer like those with anxiety disorders and mood disorders. So does Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder disqualify someone for office? Last I checked it is morally repugnant to use a person's suffering as a weapon against him/her. Empathy, compassion and care are the morally right responses to suffering, I thought.
I don't recall Christopher Lasch ever saying that narcissism was on the rise in the American population. He only said that late capitalism rewards narcissistic behavior.
Ken Wilber in "A Brief History of Everything" says that a narcissist sees everything as an extension of him/herself. Correct or incorrect, at least he explains what he means by the word.
Do people think about what they say?
alex-
ReplyDeleteYr planning to shoot someone? All Americans need to be armed! Rx: read WAF, then contemplate ecpyrosis. Yr rt, it won't be pretty.
mb
Sorry to hear Wafer Alex, hang in there, keep reading, and take walks alone.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, 98.7% of US-ians were hu$tling scum bags who were ontologically and spiritually vacuous.
The best thing that could happen is for The shit hole 'nation' to become further irrelevant, marginalized, and trivialized. There will always be US-ians and non-US-ians who still think the US empire was amazing, "opportunity," one long Friends Episode/Vegas trip; however, the stink of reality is pretty strong as Americans are banned from the EU due to all that "exceptional" handling of Tom Hanks Disease.
F em. Let them all go down with the ship.
MB: As you said to Req that "Idiocracy" is here, do you think things have entered the "kafkaesque" yet, will in time, or already have for some time?
ReplyDeleteRandom thought, I know, or is it?
- Reahgan
RW-
ReplyDeleteYou might check out an earlier post called "What a Shit Pile." I think this is where we're at. The country is pretty much finished, and the population consists of degraded buffoons. This is beyond Kafka, imo. In a nutshell, we've been making wrong decisions since the late 16C, and karma has finally caught up w/us. Read my new book, "Morons Out Of Control".
mb
So for the argument over crime and racial animus in policing I would have to bring in Michael Javen Fortner.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.city-journal.org/hearing-what-black-voices-really-say-about-police
https://www.amazon.com/Black-Silent-Majority-Rockefeller-Punishment/dp/0674743997
I have more but I can't fit it on the page.
Dr. Berman & Wafers,
ReplyDeleteEnjoy some entertaining videos. The first one shows a doctor getting one up on a cop who illegally parked his patrol car in his complex. The doctor actually owns the complex. And of course, as usual in America, the cop had his gun drawn.
The second one shows your typical bellicose, foul-mouthed Trump supporter shouting obscenities at someone while driving.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8510353/Colorado-cop-pulled-gun-doctor-trying-park-refugee-center-operates.html
https://occupydemocrats.com/2020/07/10/furious-trump-fan-unleashes-obscene-tirade-after-seeing-another-drivers-black-lives-matter-sign/?fbclid=IwAR1WxX9xyjgcsgvTTs7UQM_gNLslVNChxW4lXhhGjsPTD3uQ4RtwQ_VKVpY
p.s. Dr. Berman,
I just want to clarify what I meant by Trump’s “accomplishments” in my previous post yesterday. By that I meant the amount of con jobs he has been able to pull off, both as president and before he was president, on the stupid, gullible, celebrity culture-worshipping, dumbed-down American public. You have to hand it to this guy with all the amazing things he has done and gotten away with his whole grifting life. The factual examples I provided reinforced my opinion on him.
Hello Wafers:
ReplyDeleteGeez alex; it's great that you ride a bike, but a Glock? Amazon?
Just out of curiosity I checked amazon.ca, and sure enough, they have Proudhon's What Is Property?: or, an Inquiry Into the Principle of Right and of Government
"La propriété, c'est le vol!"
Joe-
ReplyDeleteI got it, actually.
Nesim-
You actually had more room available.
mb