March 21, 2021

422

Wafers-

Time to continue our spirited discussion, this time sans topics of trans and racism, which have become so off the subject of this blog that I'm ready to beat my head against a wall. The only trans I want to hear about at this point is the Trans Siberian Railway. In any case, I was very cheered by the link posted on the last thread to Bill Maher, correctly identifying the American people as dumb as dogshit. Duh! I've been pointing this out for 21 years, in the tradition of Gore Vidal, George Carlin, and H.L. Mencken. Finally what's obvious gets a public hearing. Maybe some other public figure, if not Bill himself, will say: "Gee, do ya think that's why the country is going down the toilet?" Duh once again. Cultural suicide isn't pretty, but as I've said b4, there is something funny about it. You watch people who could do something about it if they had half a brain, but at this point, we are talking about very small prefrontal lobes. They can't even spell "buffoon".

-mb

193 Comments:

Blogger Ajay Singh said...

Dear Dr. Berman,

Greetings again from too-sunny LA (not to be confused with a crocodile state where forced finger phuking is not considered rape). I have a question: Is it possible to have a normal country full of people who are completely clueless? Mao believed that to right a wrong it is necessary to exceed the limit of the right, i.e., which means, I suppose, engage in limitless good. Yet when he considered the monumental task before him, he must have seen his own country as wafers see theirs: only a total overhaul could save it. Kill off the uneducatable, and educate the worthy. Those of us reading your post may perhaps want to thank God—or any deity—that they aren't leaders among men. (Apologies for being presumptuous!) Otherwise, heads would roll, right?

3:20 PM  
Anonymous Democritus said...

A new twist on toilet training:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/6-year-old-girl-fatally-shot-relative-over-spilled-water-n1261660

A man shot a 6-year old (a relation of his) twice in the chest because of spilled water from a clogged toilet.

4:54 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Demo-

Who cd blame him, really? A clogged toilet is clearly beyond the pale. He was just being a true-blue American.

Ajay-

Well, I'm not terribly interested in killing people off, but in any case, it's not terribly necessary: there is a massacre in the US at a rate of more than once a day, if you can believe it. Just one thing to add: always, always, capitalize Wafers. Thank you.

mb

6:09 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Stab! Shoot! Kill! This is what has made America great!:

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/03/21/us/detroit-hookah-stabbing/index.html

7:53 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Hate mail sender-

Yr aware that in the case of messages such as yours, I don't read past the 3rd word, yes? Are you also aware that yr a complete asshole? You have 0 better to do w/yr life than attack a minor intellectual figure who isn't even on the radar screen? Talk abt an empty life, amigo. Exactly what r.u. contributing to the world, beyond hateful and pathetic hit and run attacks? Do other people refer to you as human garbage? (I'm guessing yes) Honestly, if I were you, and I realized what I was, I'd go out, get a .357 Magnum, and end it all. What dreck you are, my friend. And how terribly sad.

mb

9:33 PM  
Anonymous Nadine Bupkis said...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/randalllane/2020/07/08/kanye-west-says-hes-done-with-trump-opens-up-about-white-house-bid-damaging-biden-and-everything-in-between/?sh=4452f1d347aa

Clearly, this is what America needs: Kanye West in the Oval Office. Maybe his speeches would consist of gangster rap.

9:52 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Nadine-

Of course this goes back to last July. But I keep wondering what his fans see in him. I look at his face, and what I see is a jackass and an idiot. A total buffoon. I believe he's given up his bid for the presidency, wh/is a shame, because he wd be even more absurd than Trumpi. If he decides to run in 2024, I will return to the US and work actively on his campaign.

On another note, suitable for Wafers but not for acolytes of Kanye Douche Bag, we have this from Johann Gottlieb Fichte:

"The sort of philosophy one chooses depends...on what sort of man one is; for a philosophical system is not a dead piece of furniture that we can reject or accept as we wish; it is rather a thing animated by the soul of the person who holds it."

ps: An additional note to the Hate mail sender: Shithead, have you ever wondered why there are no women in yr life? Why you can't get a girlfriend? It's not rocket science, fuckface: you have no testes. Yr a coward, a ball-less coward, and women spot that rt away. This is why you can't get laid (besides being quite ugly). All you are is a wanker, beating off in yr sad and stupid isolation. Yr whole life is and will be sexless, and I think you know that, and are haunted by that fact. This is why you attack someone who is so much above you: you think if you tear him down, it will build you up. Uh uh. The problem is that I'm on my own (meaningful) track in life, whereas you are just a lost soul, w/o balls or meaning. This for certain, you sad little piece of goat shit: YOU ARE NOT A MAN!

mb

10:53 PM  
Anonymous Reader in Dubai said...

Greetings Dr Berman and Wafers,

Came across this description of US Americans:
“This tragic combination of serious mental imbalance and distressing emotional immaturity creates an existential problem for these hysterical pre-pubescent Americans. On the one hand, they desperately must feel good to be an American because it is their only source of emotional sustenance. But on the other hand, the fact of being American contains nothing in itself to make anybody feel good about anything. Even worse, it isn’t sufficient for them to merely feel good about themselves; it is crucially necessary to feel they are better than others, which is why they need an external comparison to illuminate their superiority. In spite of their imaginary exceptionalism and professed overwhelming moral superiority, there is also an inner recognition that these claims are false, evidenced by their constant attempts to prove a superiority which, if real, should be so obvious as to require no proof.

“But Americans have nothing valuable of their own, not in themselves, nor in their national identity, history or culture, so they compensate by denigrating those who do have. This is why they so vigorously blind themselves to their own faults, crimes and atrocities, and focus only on the sins of others – even if they have to create imaginary ones. This is in part why hypocrisy has become a defining adjective of Americans: they cannot permit their national identity to collapse from a revelation of their current faults and historical crimes. When overlaid with their malignant Christianity, this combines to produce their imaginary and marvelously-warped self-image of moral superiority. The end result is a nation with little intrinsic self-worth and few genuine human values, unable to see itself as it really is: empty, superficial, vacuous, ignorant, mean-spirited, hysterical, envious, aggressive, self-obsessed, and hypocritical.”

This from an essay by Larry Romanoff - http://thesaker.is/captain-america-the-man-with-two-brains/ - who explains this is in large part a result of US Americans being heavily propagandised into a schizophrenic state. I’m not sure a society can collectively be schizophrenic so I view this ‘explanation’ as yet another way of saying “it’s not our fault, it was done to us, we’re victims”.

12:45 AM  
Anonymous Dogheart said...

MB-

Apologies in advance if I missed this in any of the Wafer trilogy...but why do you think your clear delineation of the myriad parallels with the Roman empire in Twilight has been so absent from the progressive academic analysis of imminent collapse? You'd think the likes of Chris Hedges or even Chomsky would be sounding that Roman cornu anytime the topic of dystopic American idiocy was brought up - even if just to sound like the supreme academic by saying "well, we've seen this before..."

I don't mean to call out those two exclusively either. Since I read Twilight in 2005, I've been looking for this narrative anywhere I can find it in public discourse, but it's nowhere. It can't be endemic irrational optimism so fervent that it's in denial of the Dark Ages 2.0, right?

I've been meaning to ask you this for a while, but this thread seemed like a reasonable opportunity as the Roman parallel of the dumbing of the masses was so well covered in Twilight.

PS - I hope you can find the peace to simply ignore the trolls. They're not worth a moment of your precious thought, let alone the time it takes to respond. You let their toxic misery touch your harmony by even giving them that little slice of time.

Eternally in gratitude for your work...DH

3:00 AM  
Anonymous Art Baker said...

Wafers have to reconsider their view of D.J. Trump, who promised
to Make America Great Again. If he gets the chance again in 2024,
his energies should be directed to these hellholes/shitpits. If
he transforms them into being great again, then he deserves full
praise. It is highly unlikely that he could make unbearable at
best.
https://www.moneypail.com/these-are-the-most-unhappy-cities-in-america-ranked-according-to-u-s-census-data/?utm_source=yg&utm_campaign=ca.yahoo.com&utm_medium=unhappy-cities-yg2-jb-m-ios-mp-v1&copy=36477431313&mp=2

3:59 AM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Dog-

The comparison w/Rome does occasionally come up, but mostly to reject it. Paul Krugman, for example, ran such a piece in the NYT once. But I suspect that the main reason it's not a subject of discussion is that Americans, including smart ones like Hedges or Chomsky or Krugman, are ultimately not very bright, in an ontological sense. These 3 guys, for example, are patriots; they believe, or want to believe, that the US is simply going thru a bad patch, and can ultimately be turned around. Like Trump, their goal is to make America great again. Parallels w/Rome, wh/shd be obvious at this pt, are not obvious to them, because as soon as you accept the parallel, it becomes clear that such recovery is not in the cards. And almost all Americans, smart or dumb, prefer to live in Disneyland.

As for the trolls, you shd know that I ignore more than 90% of them. But once in a while it gives me a bit of joy to crush one of them like a roach, make him feel 2" tall. This is actually loads of fun. I like to underscore the fact that they have no testes, and are not real men. And also, that trying to defeat me is a waste of their time--it can't be done. They keep coming, of course, but I think they know they've lost the war.

Dubai-

I ran your post because the source you quote is so insightful and accurate. But it does exceed our half-pg-max limit. In future, pls stay w/in that boundary. Thank you.

The emptiness of Americans, and the resulting need to attack others, to lash out, is well stated. And I do think that they have been victimized by a huge propaganda machine, but only in part, because they eagerly embraced this 'victimization'. In short, the model is more accurately presented as one of consensual sex, rather than rape. Also keep in mind that they are a people who don't really have the gray matter sufficient to see thru the whole miserable drama. In a word--I can't say it enuf--they just aren't very bright. Eventually, stupidity lands you in a whole world of unresolvable problems, and that's where we are today. Check out Xair's citation of Bill Maher (in previous thread), on how dumb Americans are. H.L. Mencken, Gore Vidal, and George Carlin all said the same thing, over and over. But of course, the irony is that Americans are too dumb to understand this.

mb

7:03 AM  
Anonymous Bence said...

MB:



In Ancient Rome: Stabbing, crucifixion, eaten by eels: learn all about murder the Roman way

https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/03/stabbing-crucifixion-eaten-by-eels-learn-all-about-murder-the-roman-way/

What a whacky country we live in..

7:45 AM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Bence-

Thanks for the ref. As far as stabbing etc., I doubt the US is doing a whole lot better.

mb

7:59 AM  
Anonymous Ennis said...

https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/mar/17/why-cant-britain-handle-the-truth-about-winston-churchill

Why can't Britain handle the truth about Winston Churchill?

Excellent piece

9:10 AM  
Anonymous Mendelia said...

“Exclusive photos from inside a U.S. Customs and Border Protection temporary overflow facility in Donna, Texas, reveal the crowded, makeshift conditions at the border as the government's longer-term child shelters and family detention centers fill up.”

https://www.axios.com/photos-overcrowded-border-patrol-migrant-tents-0525a96b-0dc8-473f-b59c-38b0b3e52760.html

Kids in cellophane so much better than kids in cages?

Fuck our government.

9:21 AM  
Blogger Krakhed said...

Good Piece on Global Research about US military unable or unwilling to reign in endless wars:

https://www.globalresearch.ca/how-us-military-subverted-afghan-peace-agreement-prolong-unpopular-war/5740248

I doubt this will get any coverage or even raise peep among Americans and their out of control military. They could be gathering to protest the endless wars that their government is engaged in.

The below links describe what Americans care about. When will they be allowed to party on the beach for spring break?

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/03/20/us/miami-beach-crowds-clevelander-covid/index.html

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/spring-break-no-other-miami-beach-extends-curfew-control-crowds-n1261696

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/miami-beach-declares-state-emergency-over-spring-break-crowds-n1261673

1:14 PM  
Anonymous Baggs said...

Kathleen Raine
"The World"

It burns in the void.
Nothing upholds it.
Still it travels.

Traveling the void
Upheld by burning
Nothing is still.

Burning it travels.
The void upholds it.
Still it is nothing.

Nothing it travels
A burning void
Upheld by stillness

1:34 PM  
Anonymous Gavin said...

"The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America is Tearing Us Apart"

https://www.amazon.com/Big-Sort-Clustering-Like-Minded-America/dp/0547237723/

The Civil War Never Ended Department

4:07 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Krak-

Popeye's chicken is also very impt to them.

Latest Hate mail sender-

What's it like, for yr life to be a complete failure, so that it's reduced to sending hit and run hate attacks to people? Yr a coward; and yr certainly not a man. A man engages in real dialogue. You, a coward with undescended testicles, aren't capable of that. A life of trash, is what you'll have on yr deathbed. Yuck. Doesn't who you are, what you are, bother you at all?

mb

4:27 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Ho hum, what else is new?

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/03/22/us/boulder-colorado-shooting/index.html

6:32 PM  
Blogger Mohamed said...

Alfred McCoy is so refreshing
https://tomdispatch.com/washingtons-delusion-of-endless-world-dominion/

8:20 PM  
Anonymous Modernity said...

Hi - Dubai though I agree with you I think most people around the world seek mediocrity. They just haven't had the chance to do that on the scale the Americans have had. As far as thinking skills critical thinking has been removed from the system for a long time. Writing my first essay in college I remember my professor, a woman, kept telling me to write in a non-logical or not even a reason oriented way in my opinion. The country is rotten to the core. College liberal arts resemble high school - just a corporate prison for un-needed youth.

9:29 PM  
Blogger TKR said...

Hi: TKR here again about Hedges.
Have you ever wondered why the security state has not come down on Hedges? He has called for many times to overthrow the corporate state. I wonder why that have not tried harder to silence him.

Just a thought.

10:46 PM  
Anonymous Dr. Shithouse said...

Dear Dr. Berman and Wafers--Regarding another massacre in the greatest, most amazing place on Earth.

Preaching to the choir- get ready for- "we're better than this, our thoughts and prayers are with the victims' families, we can do better, this is not who we are, we need to have a blue ribbon panel, it was a crazy lone wolf, etc.etc." Rinse, lather, repeat. Americans never learn, it was part of their charm (Vidal).

What a fucking joke. Can ANYONE say US empire with a straight face? And if so, what type of medicine are they taking?

11:06 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Dr. Shit-

Not being v. bright, Americans don't connect the dots. They certainly don't know how to think in sociological terms. The 'lone wolf' theory means it's accidental; sociological analysis says it's systemic. But once you realize the latter, then these massacres can be seen as the product of an entire way of life...which then implies that (a) that way of life is sick, and (b) that 0 can be done abt it. Even hi-IQ Americans can't tolerate these conclusions. Better to live in fairyland. But what other country on earth has more than one massacre a day? A day, for fuck's sake! (Lotta 'lone wolves' out there, apparently)

TKR-

I'm guessing the govt understands that he's no threat at all. It's all just blowing smoke, after all: Hedges sits in a warm apt. in Princeton, an elite enclave if there ever was one, w/millions of dollars in his bank acc't, calling for revolution. My god, what utter horseshit. Nor is he even mildly embarrassed by this grotesque incongruence (one hasta wonder if he's even aware of it). Meantime, you will not find him in the streets, leading the weaponized (or civilly disobedient) masses to the Pentagon or Wall St. or the Capitol. (During OWS, yrs ago, he acted as a reporter, not a front-line organizer.) One might argue that in a convoluted way, Hedges actually serves the purposes of the govt, because if they want, they can pt to him as an example of how 'vibrant' our 'democracy' is, in that it tolerates extreme dissent. (I'm not saying that the govt is necessarily thinking that, but it may have occurred to some folks in the Power Elite that the guy might be 'useful' in that way.) One might also pt out that altho Hedges has a large following, its 'largeness', in the context of 331 million unintelligent and nonrevolutionary Americans, is in fact quite small.

This reminds me of the 1980 presidential election. Jimmy actually believed, in his 1979 Annapolis speech, that Americans were eager to reject consumerism, and to stop blaming the Soviet Union for all of our problems. Ronnie, on the other hand, had the true pulse of the nation: Americans were interested in pursuing the American Dream, and had no interest in any serious introspection regarding our foreign policy or our way of life. In electoral terms, Ronnie won by the greatest landslide in American history. Duh!

Modernity-

Yr college experience says it all, n'est-ce pas?

Note to AMyos-

This is a blog that is interested in evidence, not pure (bloviating) opinion. Opinion by itself is unimpressive: so what that you think what you do? Personally, I regard much of what you wrote as grossly inaccurate, conspiracy-theory-type stuff. The problem is that you provided no substantiation for your views, such as links or refs to trustworthy sources, in the form of bks or articles. Once you can give us that, you can participate in this discussion. (Note that the stats are not on yr side; masks save lives--this is well documented.)

Mohamed-

Great stuff, thanks for the ref. Once again, as regards China (among other things), I refer Wafers to the link provided by Xair (previous thread) to a short talk given by Bill Maher, abt how just plain stupid Americans are--and this includes the US Gov't--as your own link to McCoy clearly demonstrates. Top to bottom, it's shit for brains; and the result (among other things) is an ongoing Suez Moment, and the accompanying disintegration of the nation. The hi-IQ people McCoy cites, "the brightest and the best" (wh/includes the admins of Obama and Biden), are dumb beyond belief. A declinist's wet dream, we might say.

mb

12:56 AM  
Blogger alex carter said...

Not been writing much because there's not much to talk about. Rode around downtown San Jose this weekend and man, lots of crazies and screamers and every type of "street people" out there. Maybe it's the warming weather.

The 1985 BBC series End Of Empire is interesting. It's on YouTube.

1:01 AM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

ps: This just in:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/22/boulder-colorado-active-shooter-supermarket

Another lone wolf, obviously. Meanwhile, on all fronts, the nation continues to beat off w/a vigor that is terrifying.

1:02 AM  
Blogger Dellafella83 said...

In response to the shooting, a friend posted about how all of this insanity needs to end. Not surprisingly, a numbskull soon chimed in, commenting that the solution is “more guns” and “more good guys with guns”. Having long since abandoned the idea that people like that are capable of thinking about anything rationally, I simply called him a moron. A useless reply if there ever was one, but at this point, I get more of a kick out of calling people morons than I do trying to convince them of anything. Perhaps deep down inside I still hope that, if you can’t beat ‘em with logic, maybe you can beat ‘em with shame. At any rate, today was yet another reminder of why I left America for Japan...a country with no guns and, wouldn’t you believe it, no mass shootings.

1:16 AM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Della-

You might find this of interest:

https://www.amazon.com/Neurotic-Beauty-Outsider-Looks-Japan/dp/1621342107/ref=sr_1_11?dchild=1&keywords=morris+berman&qid=1616481033&s=books&sprefix=morri%2Cstripbooks&sr=1-11

mb

2:33 AM  
Anonymous Rollo Dice said...

Easily forgotten are two true patriots Timothy McVeigh and
Terry Nichols trying to save America in Oklahoma City. There's
no shortage of armed crazies who need only proper guidance
concerning whom they kill. The proper leader armed with the
Bible, patriotism, and charisma could be the next news item
while Trump waits for re-election.

3:42 AM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Rollo-

If yr talking abt svg America, I hafta say that in recent yrs we had only 2 chances, and we blew both of them. The 1st was Herman Cain, w/his 999 Plan. The 2nd was Tulsi Gabbard, w/her workout tape. We foolishly rejected both of these great visionaries, and now we are paying the consequences.

mb

4:00 AM  
Anonymous Clayton said...

Michael Strevens

The Knowledge Machine: How Irrationality Created Modern Science

https://www.amazon.com/Knowledge-Machine-Irrationality-Created-Science/dp/1631491377

This is very good & pulling no ounches. For years it's annoyed the hell out of me to see certain prominent science communicators—Richard Dawkins, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Bill Nye, and others—aggressively belittling philosophy and performatively showcasing their own ignorance of the discipline.

For those that enjoyed MB's couple books, highly recommended!

10:03 AM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Clayton-

I do my own take on this subject in the Reenchantment bk, and in one chapter of CTOS.

mb

10:47 AM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Wafers-

This is from an article in today's LA Times:

"Those who study extremism said the transition by QAnon story peddlers is expected, but also signals that lies, racism and propaganda in American politics will continue to have staying power."

I'm guessing this will be a contributing factor to our ongoing disintegration.

mb

11:55 AM  
Anonymous John S said...

Dr. Berman, Wafers. We all know there are two Noam Chomsky’s. There is the scientist Chomsky and the political activist Chomsky that seems to be much better known, even though his original claim to fame was his work on universal grammar. Found an interesting recent dialog from the scientist Chomsky which is actually fascinating to listen to, the man still has quite a mind even at his age. At the same time scientist Chomsky can be almost as cranky and dogmatic in the dialog as political Chomsky.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUWmTXkpHjE

Scientist Chomsky is also not too charitable with competitors. Here are a couple of articles about his visceral dislike of another linguist Daniel Everett who proposes a competing theory on language origins. I’m not competent to judge which theory is better, but it is clear that Chomsky does not value competition at all in linguistics.

https://www.chronicle.com/article/angry-words/

https://www.economist.com/books-and-arts/2017/10/05/an-argument-over-the-evolution-of-language-with-high-stakes

12:19 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Mohamed-

Cdn't run it (24-hr rule).

John-

I met Noam ca. 1982, and we tangled rt away over the role of cultural factors in imperialism. He was certainly cranky and dogmatic; only a material interpretation was possible, end of story. He dismissed Gregory Bateson (a hero of mine) as 'incoherent'. In politics, but also in linguistics, it's his way or the highway. In both, he's basically a Cartesian type of mechanical thinker.

Regarding linguistics, I never understood why he was hailed as a great breakthru. The universal grammar theory is a recap of the French Port Royale (16th century) theory of language; old, and in my view, wrong. The weakness of the theory was pointed out by Norman Malcolm in his book "Wittgenstein: A Religious Point of View?". What Malcolm says is that we don't need to use a fancy 'universal grammar' theory to understand why German children grow up speaking German. They speak German because they are living in a German-speaking society. Imagine that!

I never read Daniel Everett's bk, but he did a long article in the journal "Current Anthropology" as a prequel to it, explaining that he had lived w/a tribe whose language did not conform to Chomsky's formula; and he gave explicit examples. Made sense to me. If Noam were not so rigid a thinker, he could have embraced Everett's work and perhaps the two of them cd have come up w/a more expanded/flexible linguistic theory. To switch back to politics, Noam's belief that we (who, exactly?) will get past American capitalism and move on to democratic socialism reflects the same kind of rigidity (and in this case, borders on dementia).

All of this, esp. meeting Noam in the flesh, has been a downer for me, because I really do revere him as a voice crying in the wilderness, scoring the evil of US foreign policy across 30+ years and as many books, during which time he was hated and reviled. Of course, there are no perfect people, I know that. But I just can't help being more than a little disappointed at how Noam turned out.

mb

1:05 PM  
Anonymous Tom Servo said...

Firearm suicides are increasing among elderly Americans. "Between 2010 and 2018, firearm suicides by Americans 65 years old and older increased by 49 percent, according to the study."

https://www.krwg.org/post/las-cruces-researcher-firearm-suicides-rising-among-elderly-americans

1:38 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Ordinary-

A bit too long. Pls edit down to half a pg and re-send. Thank you.

Someone Else-

I think I may have accidentally deleted someone's post. If this is you, pls re-send. Sorry!

mb

1:43 PM  
Anonymous Nadine Bupkis said...

Dr. Berman,

Some of the links and stories shared on this blog indicate that Americans are obsessed with sexual purity and punishing criminals. The popularity of shows like "To Catch a Predator" and "Cops" says a lot about the American mindset. So does the fact that so many Americans love genocide and torture:

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/01/26/americans-divided-in-views-of-use-of-torture-in-u-s-anti-terror-efforts/

https://www.defenseone.com/policy/2019/09/do-americans-really-want-end-forever-wars-survey-says/159760/

I think I know why Americans love war and torture as much as they do. Americans are thoroughly Puritanical; they would rather kill sinners than build friendships or read novels. As a result, they lead loveless, joyless lives filled with conflict. I don't believe the official data that says 20% of Americans are mentally ill. From what I've seen, something like 80% of Americans are mentally ill; most are just undiagnosed. What do you think?

2:04 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Nadine-

80%, better estimate.

mb

4:52 PM  
Blogger dermot said...

COS keeps writing, consistent & calm, on the energy / peak oil / resource topic.

https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2021/03/23/when-one-cargo-cult-fails/
QUOTE: there is a huge risk that Britain is about to spend a lot of its dwindling energy and resources on a cargo cult which cannot, in and of itself, create the export goods that the wider world market will want ... just as the UK now has millions of unneeded graduates, a decade from now we may well end up with thousands of business export advisors, without any actual exporters to advise.

https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2021/03/22/upsetting-a-delicate-balance/
QUOTE: Even before the pandemic, the oil industry was unable to raise oil prices to a level that would allow further growth. Nevertheless, even at prices far too low for the industry to remain profitable in the long-term, they were too high for consumers...Far from helping to resolve this predicament, government attempts to buck the market and impose the partial solution of battery and hydrogen powered vehicles is likely to prove more lethal than the climate change they claim to want to ameliorate ... it is impossible to feed 8 billion humans – at least not on any time scale that matters – without the diesel-powered industrial machinery and oil-derived fertilisers, herbicides and pesticides which – for better or worse – we all depend upon.

4:55 PM  
Anonymous Noura said...

The link below includes various videos, including Biden’s comments about the event.

Suspect in Colorado shooting incident charged with first-degree murder, Boulder Police confirm
https://twitter.com/i/events/1374127215747551233
- On Tuesday, Boulder Police named all 10 victims, including deceased officer Eric Talley. They range in age from 20 to 65.
- Officials confirmed that a suspect, 21-year-old Ahmad Alissa, has been charged with 10 counts of first-degree murder. The motive is still unclear.
- President Biden delivered remarks on the shooting and also ordered flags flown at half-staff until March 27.
- Colorado Governor Polis ordered flags to be lowered to half-staff until April 1.

Biden talked about the need for more gun control laws. These might help but the root cause, which is the American way of life will not be addressed. My experience of being in America is like being in a delusional bubble where anyone who dares to provide constructive criticism is perceived as a heretic and is pushed aside. We are witnessing the psychotic breakdown of an entire country. I never imagined I would live to witness such a thing. Incredible! I wonder if the country is becoming more violent or we’re hearing more about violence thanks to the media.

7:36 PM  
Anonymous Democritus said...

Slander and libel are often crimes. In the old days, you could, at the very least, expect an invitation to duel. Nowadays, at Smith College, you get a letter of apology from the college president and several employees (one of whom was not even on campus the day of the "incident") are compelled to resign:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/24/us/smith-college-race.html?smid=em-share

The young lady in question obviously did not feel threatened, but like any good American, she smelled opportunity and pounced. I seriously doubt she has ever--or will ever--think about the larger implications of what she has done. The only good to come out of this is the letter sent to the craven Smith College president (who automatically sided with the student) calling on the college to end their new Stalinist anti-bias training. The letter was written by...forty black intellectuals:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/black-intellectuals-demand-smith-college-151454228.html

Cultural suicide??? Yep.

8:02 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Demo-

There's going to be a lot more of this as time goes on. In some ways, the crucifixion of Woody Allen is similar. It's a sick nation, and it's going to get sicker. We get increasingly hysterical abt race and gender because the real problems of America, and therefore the real solutions, elude us. Nor cd we solve them even if we understood what they were.

Noura-

If guns were to be banned, Americans wd start killing each other w/knives. If knives were banned, then w/stones. Etc. I do have a question abt this particular massacre, however: Is Alissa a Muslim, and if so, what might happen next?

mb

8:25 PM  
Blogger Gunnar said...

Here’s a plan I cld get behind, build a new unit @ Federal Penitentiary and then take Dylan Roof, Jack the Ripper in Georgia, now Boulder and Dr Mengele their ass to Florence, Colorado for “further study.” I’m thinking human trials, let the chimpanzees off the hook. Dr Mengele with better anesthetic, call it the George Orwell Room 101 - Studies in Death and Recovery

9:44 PM  
Anonymous Seneca’s Cliff said...

Occasionally a ray of sunshine falls on us here in the remnants of the USA. This week I discovered the great guitarist Jim Hall’s album “Concierto” which contains a 13 minute version of the classic song “ Concierto De Aranjuez”. I have played it 4 times this week and each time it brings tears to my eyes. The interplay between Jim’s guitar and the trumpet of Chet Baker and saxophone of Paul Desmond is too wonderful to have come from this planet let alone this country of Dunces.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concierto

10:27 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Seneca-

A great piece of music, thank you.

mb

10:34 PM  
Anonymous Megan said...

Well, I'm happy to say that I'm getting my new internet provider today, so next time I will be able to post links. But if I can get away with it, let me give the (linkless) info for a really fascinating and engaging discussion I found on YouTube (lest I forget later.). Just look under "Tom Holland: How I lost my faith (in liberalism), How Christianity gained dominion". I've read most of Holland's books, and I just started on "Dominion". It is really quite good. I'd love to know what John Gray thinks of it, as it seems like his kind of thing.

At any rate, Holland argues the rather bold thesis that Christianity (and Paul in particular) has so radically shaped the way that we in the modern West see the world, that it is almost invisible to us today (like water to the goldfish). Almost everything we take for granted, he argues, like supposedly secular human "universals" (human rights, the equality of women, etc.), is actually nowhere present or easily discoverable in objective reality (Pace people like Dawkins, Hitchens and Pinker, who clearly think otherwise.). I find his reasoning pretty compelling, and the discussion was fascinating, so I wanted to share. Check out the video to whet your appetite for the book, if this interests you. I will post some other excellent links that this led me to next time.

4:47 AM  
Anonymous BB Communications said...

The recent article by Umair Haque on potential Brexit aftermath made me think about a Jared Diamond conclusion in Collapse…the inability to reevaluate societal values to avoid decline. The US shares so much of this type of unsophisticated, inadequate thinking. Blissfully stupid.

https://eand.co/what-does-it-look-like-when-a-society-commits-suicide-brexit-23d96e64fb9b

10:29 AM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

BB-

In all fairness to the US, there has never been a civ or empire that I know of that, in its dying phase, examined its trajectory and thought abt how to reverse it. What they all do, the US included, is double down: i.e., exacerbate those very factors that are taking it into the grave. All along, as I show in WAF, there were cautionary voices that counseled an alternative path to hustling. These voices were systematically vilified, or, mostly, ignored. I guess I can claim to be in that alternate tradition.

mb

11:34 AM  
Blogger Ordinary Indian said...

@mohamed, Thanks for the link. Very interesting read.
@Seneca, thanks for the suggestion. Wonderful music.

Just wanted to share some headlines which, in a saner world, would seem bizarre. But not in these unstable times, even when so many of them stare at you at the same time:

Saudi official threatens UN Khashoggi investigator (guardian)
Sidney Powell says don't believe me (guardin)
'America ruled India for 200 years'. https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/america-ruled-india-for-200-years-uttarakhand-chief-minister-tirath-singh-rawat-2395794
Protesting becomes more difficult in the UK. (BBC)
Turkey pulls out of European treaty on violence against women.(cnn)
Boulder is the 7th mass shooting in 7 days (cnn)

Can't give all the links due to lack of space. But you can find these easily.

Cannot

1:19 PM  
Anonymous Northern Johnny said...

Hi Dr. B and WAFERS:

David Swanson, "At Least 36% of Mass Shooters Have Been Trained By the U.S. Military," Counterpunch, March 24, 2021:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/03/24/at-least-36-of-mass-shooters-have-been-trained-by-the-u-s-military/

-Northern Johnny

3:01 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Johnny-

Chickens coming home to roost. This was also the case with 9/11 (we funded/trained the mujahideen in Afghanistan). The US is on a very large self-destructive trajectory.

Ordinary-

Send the rest in a 2nd post, 24 hrs later. Thank you.

mb

3:22 PM  
Anonymous Yugen said...

"Will Biden push to control drug prices & share coronavirus vaccine intellectual property w/ the developing world?

His inner circle -- WH science advisor, UN ambassador, State Dept, closest domestic policy advisors -- have financial ties to vaccine makers" https://theintercept.com/2021/03/24/covid-vaccine-stocks-biden-conflict/

Shocking!

7:03 PM  
Blogger Michael Burgess said...

Hi Dr. Berman and Wafers:

I know this article is mostly opinion and observation but any article that connects America's mental illness with their leader's state of mind is worth a read. Doesn't happen very often!

https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/03/24/bidens-and-americas-mental-illness-is-on-full-display/

7:07 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Yugen-

In the US, if something corrupt can be done, it will be done.

Michael-

I imagine it's hard to think clearly when you have dogshit in yr head instead of gray matter. Which describes 331 million Americans + politicians in office.

mb

7:30 PM  
Anonymous Noura said...

Dr. Berman

Here's what we know about the Boulder, Colorado, mass shooting suspect
https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/23/us/boulder-colorado-shooting-suspect/index.html
“Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa was taken into custody after the mass shooting.
Alissa, whose family emigrated from Syria, may have been suffering from mental illness, according to his 34-year-old brother, Ali Aliwi Alissa.
Michael Dougherty, Boulder County district attorney, said Alissa is a resident of Arvada, between Boulder and Denver, who has ‘lived most of his life in the United States.’”

The article also talks about how he was bullied in school, was known to have a quick temper, and was arrested at some point for a minor act of violence. There doesn’t seem to be anything in his past to indicate that he could ever commit such an act. They’re looking for a clear motive.

US sinks to new low in rankings of world's democracies - The US has slipped 11 points in a decade – below Argentina and Mongolia – according the latest report by a democracy watchdog
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/24/us-world-democracy-rankings-freedom-house-new-low Another Suez moment? “The report offers three recommendations for improving American democracy: removing barriers to voting, limiting the influence of money in politics, and establishing independent redistricting commissions.”

America is in denial and I think that denial is the most primitive defense: https://www.simplypsychology.org/defense-mechanisms.html

7:59 PM  
Blogger Penny Lane said...

I’m late in my appreciation of Lawrence Ferlinghetti, but since today he would have been 102, I re-read my notes from “Inside the Magnetic Fields - Surrealism at 100,” a festival of surrealism put on by City Lights in November 2019, just as covid was seeping into the land. https://twitter.com/CityLightsBooks/status/1191431206518177794

A world-class and hugely enriching event with 20 days of lectures, films, symposia, exhibits and installations throughout San Francisco, but mostly at the bookstore, it provided a respite from my soul-destroying day job, a deeper understanding of my surrealist self, and a frame of reference for the impending pandemic, if not the whole violent collapse of America.

Snippets: A response to the world after the death of God // to process the horrors of WWI // up to WWII when Europe became a center not of culture, but of barbarism // a backdrop for the emergence of psychoanalysis and the stream of consciousness // the destabilization of identity // dissolving the boundaries of consciousness // supporting that ability to externalize our soul so that others may hear our word and see our light // both in fear and enthralled at the idea of being unbound // dedicated to anti-idealism in all its forms

Waferish, no? And there's this: Andre Breton declared, after visiting Mexico, that “Mexico is surrealism par excellence. They have no need for our program.” Thank you City Lights bookstore and Mr. Ferlinghetti!

9:38 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Penny-

Sounds pretty fab; wish I could have attended. Yr in my ears and in my eyes.

mb

10:56 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Wafers-

Here's what an antisemitic trollfoon looks like. Do ya think he has a lotta dates?

https://nypost.com/2021/03/24/man-facing-hate-crime-charge-for-nazi-salute-yelling-white-power/

What a doofus.

mb

11:51 PM  
Anonymous Sybok said...

Michael Moor on the latest mass shooting:

Now that we know who the Boulder killer is, we will soon see the pundits & bigots harp on "Middle Eastern" & "Islamic." But make no mistake: a young man with anger issues & easy access to semi-automatic weapons who shoots up a nice town in Colorado is as American as apple pie. pic.twitter.com/KhJlx9aMVm

— Michael Moore (@MMFlint) March 24, 2021


And this:

The life of Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa shows that people can come from all over the world and truly assimilate into our beloved American culture. pic.twitter.com/snDMnGUG0i

— Michael Moore (@MMFlint) March 24, 2021

11:56 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Wafers-

The cry for gun control legislation is heard after every serious massacre; after which, 0 happens. In other words, the standard response is a lot of meaningless talk (= beating off). Can anyone tell me why this time around will be any different?

mb

2:30 AM  
Blogger NeilW said...

Talking about beating off, the Australian Parliament has been populated by several Liberal MPs who were literally caught beating off in parliamentary offices. (or should I say orifice?)

4:18 AM  
Blogger alex carter said...

Seneca's Cliff - Beautiful piece of music! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzEFQW9CXGc
I did quite well, and was happy, playing bits of this on trumpet. I'm a real "ear player" and the drawback is that I can have whole pieces memorized that I have no idea of the title or origin of. Also, this "Orange Juice" is played at the beginning of the movie "Brassed Off" about a British brass band, a must-see.

BB Communication - thanks for the angry, brilliant Umair Haque article.

Sybok - Where I grew up, Hawaii, a Japanese-American guy shot up the Xerox building. This is someone at or near the top of the social hierarchy there, yet he did it. American culture is plug-and-play or maybe I should say, plug-and-pray. https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/2019/11/01/hawaii-looks-back-worst-mass-murder-its-history-xerox-shooting/

4:43 AM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Neil-

Link?

mb

6:41 AM  
Blogger NeilW said...

Let the Beatings (off) begin https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/nationalpost.com/news/world/australian-political-staffers-have-allegedly-been-filming-themselves-masturbating-in-parliament/wcm/5c3f3047-ad7a-4e52-b5c8-c8e7581489bd/amp/

8:33 AM  
Anonymous Michaela said...

Facebook is now the biggest-spending federal lobbyist, with Amazon a close second.


https://www.citizen.org/article/big-tech-lobbying-update/

9:36 AM  
Blogger Janet D said...

And today a man was caught in a Publix market carrying 6 guns (4 handguns, 2 long guns, including an AR-15) and wearing body armor. https://abcnews.go.com/US/atlanta-man-arrested-guns-body-armor-publix-grocery/story?id=76667213

I used to be a proponent of moderate gun control....like, 25+ years ago, when it actually might have made a difference. While I rather admire the Dems for being willing to try something (anything) as opposed to the Repukes - who have *no* answer & couldn't care less, their "thoughts & prayers" notwithstanding - I'm also annoyed at the Dems, because they are too naive/stupid to recognize that there's no fixing this. It is *absolutely* possible to create a situation that is so fucked up (in this case: so many guns in so many places so readily available to so many fucked-up people) that even if guns were magically declared illegal tomorrow, NOTHING would change.

But that fact doesn't stop the GOP from doing even more to get more guns in more (untrained) hands in more places. Montana (currently one party rule) recently passed a bill that will allow college students(& all others) to do concealed carry without a permit on campus, *including dorms*. Universities are allowed to make only minor restrictions to this law. https://www.npr.org/2021/03/02/972742656/montanas-governor-says-conceal-carry-law-bolsters-self-defense-rights

10:29 AM  
Blogger Jack Lattemann said...

Greetings Wafers everywhere, here’s your headline story from Cascadia:

In Seattle, a 74-year old retiree is suing the city after he awoke one night to find four Seattle cops armed with assault rifles in the home he’s owned for 48 years. The cops showed up after a passerby in the neighborhood called 911 to report a front door ajar. The city says the cops were just “following protocol” in handcuffing and holding the guy on the stairs at gunpoint as he cried (What'd I do?") while they “searched” the home. Apparently he was guilty of conspiracy to commit existence. You do not have to commit a crime to be the recipient of a police “welfare check” (love that euphemism). Note that the surviving homeowner was Caucasian. Police home invasions – just the new normal as U-S-A! U-S-A! slides into banana-republic-dom. The embedded video in this Seattle Times report is worth watching:

www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/welfare-check-by-spd-turns-into-ordeal-for-74-year-old-retiree-who -was-handcuffed-held-at-gunpoint-in-own-home

11:34 AM  
Anonymous Kevin said...

The Umair Haque article on the Brexit aftermath is fascinating and not surprising. But what does this mean w.r.t. a vision for creating sustainable economies, degrowth economics, etc.? We're in "the long descent" (per JM Greer) - how do we get to an endpoint that leads to a more flourishing human society? Reaction to Haque's article of "oh, that's terrible" - which is clearly Haque's view - is understandable, correct (the direction and endpoint certainly don't appeal to me), but perhaps also inevitable? Maybe Brexit is just Greer's aphorism "Collapse now and avoid the rush" in practice?

12:37 PM  
Anonymous S. Chodosh said...

New study finds rich people cheat hugely on taxes--"unreported income as % of true income rises from 7% in lower 50% to 20+% in the top 1%"

http://gabriel-zucman.eu/files/GLRRZ2021.pdf

Congress doesn't give IRS the $$$ to catch them. In other news, 50% of Congress are millionaires

https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2020/04/majority-of-lawmakers-millionaires/

1:07 PM  
Anonymous Nadine Bupkis said...

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

Also, the number of American COVID cases is no longer decreasing, and will probably start increasing within the next few weeks. Keep in mind that America has been hoarding the world's COVID vaccines for quite some time now...and that despite most of its most vulnerable citizens already being vaccinated, a new wave of COVID cases and COVID deaths will probably occur very soon. It seems Americans stupidly think the pandemic is over, and have stopped taking safety precautions against the virus. I've recently noticed lots of people eating in large groups without masks in restaurants and cafes.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/mar/17/rich-countries-hoarding-vaccines-us-eu-africa

Also...America and the UK haven't exported a single vaccine dose to other nations, and probably never will. Meanwhile, Israel, that humanitarian marvel, has decided to prevent Palestinians from receiving *any* doses whatsoever. On the other hand, China and Russia have exported 800 million doses to other nations. It seems China and Russia are now the world's leaders, for better or for worse.

1:54 PM  
Blogger Gunnar said...

I'm a Colorado native who honestly doesn't know what I should feel about the Boulder shooting. 2012/13 - I lived off of Arapahoe Ave two blocks north of Naropa Univ, way too limousine liberal for me but it is, or was, a special place The Peoples Republic of Boulder, the Boulder bubble, hippie town. This is the 4th mass shooting event for me, here is what I think - government is irrelevant (failed state), it's just the cost of doing business, and it might as well have happened in Kabul for all I care. I do half hope Neil Gorsuch' family shops at this store - only a conservative from Boulder would be considered a great legal mind by straining to interpret a document that's been out of date for at least 80 yrs and more likely was DOA by 1792

3:27 PM  
Blogger Ajay Singh said...

NeilW: Regarding Aussie self-fornication in Parliament, not for nothing is politics an aphrodisiac! A few decades ago, a "liberal" member of India's Parliament told me that he often has a hard-on during parliamentary proceedings—whether out of sheer boredom or just as a base expression of his sheer power, I'm not sure.

As the link below, to an article about masturbators' political affiliation, highlights, a 2020 poll revealed conservative males are "more than twice as turned on by hitting and choking their partner, while liberal males prefer to be on the receiving end of those aggressive behaviors. Conversely, conservative women are nearly twice as aroused by choking and being choked, and more than twice as turned on by striking their partner than their liberal counterparts."

The poll, which echoed a 2017 study published in The Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences, also found that male and female conservatives both report "significantly higher rates of arousal regarding rape role play compared to liberals (38 vs. 8 percent for men; 38 vs. 16 percent for women), as well as the idea of real rape (25 vs. 2 percent for men; 23 vs. 5 percent for women)."

Given the close relationship between sex and politics, Joe Biden's effort to bridge America's political divide is bound to be full of kinks if not also a kinky affair.

https://www.insidehook.com/article/sex-and-dating/what-political-affiliation-says-about-sexual-preference

4:15 PM  
Anonymous John S said...

Dr. Berman, Wafers. Sometimes I run across unusual books that catch my attention, a review of mystic/philosopher Peter Kingsley’s new book “Catafalque”, which is supposed to spell out the actual intent of Carl Jung’s “Red Book” linking it to presocratic Greek philosophy and the dehumanizing mechanization of our culture. So, it deals with collapse in a “spiritual” sense. At 848 pages, at the very least it might help block insomnia, probably pass on this one though. Seems to be in the vein of Robert Graves “The White Goddess” – an artist carried away with his eccentricity & going a bit over the deep end. I’ve read Jung’s “Red Book” which reads more like a long impressionistic Joycean dream novel. Dr. Berman, curious if you covered any of this material in your “Wandering God” book.

https://appliedjung.com/catafalque-carl-jung-and-the-end-of-humanity/

6:58 PM  
Anonymous Loyd said...

"Human social organization during Late Pleistocene: Beyond the nomadic-egalitarian model "non-agricultural people often live in groups more sedentary, unequal, large, stratified, capable of large-scale cooperation & resource management than normally assumed"

https://ecoevorxiv.org/vusye/

For those who enjoyed MB's "Wandering God"

7:12 PM  
Anonymous Terri said...

I Have Come to Bury Ayn Rand
A prominent evolutionary biologist slays the beast of Individualism.
By David Sloan Wilson

http://nautil.us/issue/98/mind/i-have-come-to-bury-ayn-rand

Looks like an interesting book too. I liked his "Darwin's Cathedral" a lot.


- Terri

7:32 PM  
Anonymous Rockwell N. Role said...

If he needs character witnesses when he's in court, can he count
on Wafers to appear?
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/trump-organization-controlled-employees-giving-205556376.html

7:41 PM  
Anonymous MarcusO said...

Gunnar - I've always been amazed at how limousine liberal Colorado in general became. I wonder what percentage of Boulder has a concealed carry but anyway the values of the West, having spent a lot of time in Wyoming, I have definitely associated as being very conservative - except when areas became ultra-wealthy like Jackson. Montana has changed this way as well. I wonder when the culture of Boulder began to shift to ultra-liberal and I know first hand Boulder is as you describe. How much do these political affiliations break down to wealth, types of professions, and other demographics? The wealthy definitely seem to be predominately left of center across the Western States for a while now.

Anyway I just wanted to post this discussion on the state of academia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5vvBiF333g

9:24 PM  
Anonymous Magistrate said...

What is your opinion of Ann Boleyn being culturally appropriated?
Let's just have no real history, statues, no memory - for the new world order?

2:23 AM  
Anonymous Art Baker said...

This Aynus Rand was truly a piece of American Pop Art in the form
of escapism from the 1950s world of the organization man. All
her nonsensical blather about the virtues Capitalism in a world
dominated by monopolistic megacorporations is fantastic blend of
white Russian regrets and Victorian optimism for an economy gone
forever. Have a few cold beers with popcorn while you see her
pitching her slop.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ayn+rand

4:41 AM  
Anonymous Malleus Maleficarum said...

Nadine, personally I've learned to treat what I read in the Guardian with a large pinch of salt. The Guardian masquerades as a progressive newspaper but it is an establishment newspaper (I know from experience that if you try to post a comment criticising the monarchy, for example, it will be removed before you can say "censorship") and it contains plenty of biased articles.

From the link you posted:
The European Union has exported 34m doses to, of all places, Singapore, Saudi Arabia and Hong Kong – countries that have no problem sourcing or paying for vaccines.

Well, if these countries don't have production capabilities they have to import vaccines, and surely they're not going to get them from the US or the UK. Also funny how the author didn't mention that more than 3 million doses of vaccine have been exported from the EU to Mexico, for example.

And the Guardian is no stranger to casual racism (which usually goes together with wokeness, by the way):
‘You can’t get close, yet you can’t stay away’: Latino cultural beliefs clash with pandemic safety
Once Covid-19 enters a Latino home, it’s found an especially hospitable environment.

I find deeply racist to assume that if Latinos live in “cramped quarters” it is because of cultural beliefs, frankly.

5:36 AM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Magistrate-

Do you have a reference for that?

Art-

She has been lionized by millions of Americans, as she fits in well w/the philosophy of Every Man for Himself.

mb

7:21 AM  
Anonymous James Allen said...

As Herbert Hoover said, “The business of America is business.”

And, demonstrating that you can be both a douchebag and an evil douchebag, this item, reporting that the former director of emergency management at the University of Pittsburgh—he was fired in July—has been indicted by a federal grand jury for the interstate transport of stolen merchandise.

This worthy stole over 13,000 pieces of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) (N95 and other masks) from the university and sold it on his eBay site, netting over $18,000.

https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2021/03/26/former-pitt-official-indicted-selling-stolen-ppe

10:03 AM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Jas-

It was Calvin Coolidge, actually. As for the worthy Pittsburgh gentleman: hey, he knows how to hustle! A true American; let us all salute him.

mb

10:08 AM  
Blogger Joe McIlnen said...

Dr. Berman & Wafers,
“American Exceptionalism”. The “Yankee Can Do Mentality”. “American Ingenuity”. Yes, this certainly applies to hustling in the Dystopian States of America LOL! America certainly is “exceptional” when it comes to Madison Avenue and making a quick buck, even if it’s from getting a vaccine. Ya gotta love it! LOL!

https://www.insider.com/krispy-kreme-free-doughnuts-for-vaccinated-people-analysis-2021-3

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/24/business/covid-19-vaccine-krispy-kreme-donuts.html

12:15 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Joe-

Exceptional in cruelty, maybe. I have written the Mint abt changing the legend on legal tender from IN GOD WE TRUST to WE HURT PEOPLE. No reply as yet.

mb

2:21 PM  
Anonymous Magistrate said...

Regarding Ann Boleyn being caste as black as J. Kunstler says, "Anything goes and nothing matters". Let's just make things up - Beethoven apparently was black too.

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/515434-black-actress-anne-boleyn-history/

2:47 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Magistrate-

Beethoven was not only black; he was also female and handicapped (deaf). In fact, a true history of the world, free of patriarchal bias, wd reveal that everyone in the past was black, female, and handicapped. Just to set the record straight.

mb

2:54 PM  
Blogger Gunnar said...

wtf?...how do you carry 6 loaded guns into a supermarket including two “long” guns!!! The pic says it all I had to laugh - Robo Killer

btw, since a police officer was killed in Boulder doesn’t this disprove the “good guy with a gun” theory?

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rico-marley-charged-atlanta-publix-guns-body-armor/?ftag=CNM-00-10aag7e

4:40 PM  
Anonymous Noura said...

Psychological Science Says Trump Is a Four-Year-Old
Looking for the source of Trump’s appeal.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/insight-therapy/201705/psychological-science-says-trump-is-four-year-old
“The experience of observing Trump is akin to that of noticing the strangeness of a painting from the Middle Ages before realizing that the oddity is due to the fact that the children are depicted with adult body proportions. And therein lies the key: The core Trump dissonance is that he’s an elderly man who possesses the outward appearance and trappings of adulthood—and who occupies the public role we most strongly associate with adulthood—but who is on the inside predominantly infantile. It is that specific dissonance that is wholly novel on the political scene.”

If this article had said that Trump was elected because he is a representation of what America is becoming, the article might not have been acceptable for publication. The cognitive dissonance this article talks about is something I experience on a regular basis. I couldn’t make sense of it at first because I didn’t realize it was a national phenomenon.

7:04 PM  
Anonymous John S said...

Dr. Berman, Wafers. Ellen is losing viewers, what a tragedy. The only question is, why is it popular at all? Like all related talk shows these days, it is all entertaining fluff, signifying nothing. The show should be renamed Ellen DeEmptiness or Ellen DeGenerateCash. Her biggest claim to fame is making George W Bush her new buddy, all that Aftganistan Iraq war stuff & lies, no biggie, nobody cares. Shows like Seinfeld are funny only because they aren’t exactly parodies or ironic but close to mirror images, Americans really are that superficial!

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ellen-degeneres-loses-viewers_n_60591f41c5b66a80f4e9e283

7:17 PM  
Anonymous Birney Zouave said...

Dr. B:

I wonder how many Wafers have ever read Wilbur J. Cash's "The Mind of the South," published by Knopf in 1941. Cash was a newspaperman, and his book is available free, online-

https://archive.org/details/TheMindOfTheSouthW.J.Cash/mode/2up

The following linked reviewer (the late Louis D. Rubin, Jr.) says- "...if I wish to get a sense of the workings of that elusive but very real entity known as the 'mind' of the Southern community, and how it operated at those and other points in history, Cash’s book will offer certain kinds of insights that no other study can provide."

https://www.vqronline.org/essay/wj-cash-after-fifty-years

7:38 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Birn-

I think I discuss Cash in ch. 4 of WAF.

John-

Fluff is exactly rt. I always regarded her as a douche baguette, but the crucial pt is that millions of Americans love her. Why? Because they are *also* douche bags and baguettes!

Noura-

I once thought of wrtg a bk called "Empire of Children," but then worked on other things instead.

Gunnar-

I've said it b4: the 'problem' of America can be solved by giving every single person an arsenal (including a nuclear device), and telling them to go out into the street and just have at it. I mean, we're practically at that pt already, no?

mb

8:27 PM  
Anonymous Magistrate said...

Thanks for setting the record straight.

3:43 AM  
Blogger Systems Crash Go said...

Greetings Dr Berman and Wafers

I can't help but share a random thought that came into my mind while reading the comments about America today.

I feel that America has ceased to be a place but has become the state of things. The cruelty and narcissism noted by the many worthy Wafers and our host on this blog is not only found in USA but also all over the world for example India. The lack of self doubt and introspection too is present here in huge helpings with its own local twists.

Whatever may be said of Americans or humans in general, I can't help but notice that MNCs have been particularly successful in all their ventures and are able to destroy or circumvent all national constitutions and laws.

https://dissidentvoice.org/2021/03/walmart-amazon-and-the-colonial-deindustrialisation-of-india/#more-114693

Here one can make the observation that environmental laws, consumer protection laws, labour laws are only observed in the breach. In other words, the common man has been hung out to dry.

4:02 AM  
Anonymous Keith Hayes said...

Our myths are so many, our vision so dim, our self-deception so deep and our smugness so gross that scarcely any way now remains of reporting the American Century except from behind the billboards.

A wordsmith named Nelson Algren hammered that out decades ago. He was around when I was half sperm which means my entire life has been one of futility. Like a dino who took up astronomy as a hobby I am. Fucked.

5:01 AM  
Anonymous Roland said...

“Banks provide the financial oxygen that allows the fossil fuel industry to breathe. The report reveals the shocking fact that lending has grown since the Paris Agreement” https://amp.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/24/big-banks-trillion-dollar-finance-for-fossil-fuels-shocking-says-report

7:27 AM  
Anonymous Nix said...

: Bill Gates Backs Geoengineering to Block Sunlight From Reaching the Earth's Surface https://www.sciencetimes.com/amp/articles/30341/20210327/bill-gates-backs-research-blocking-sunlight-reaching-earths-surface.htm

Sure, what's the worst that could happen?

7:50 AM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Nix-

Historically spkg, techno-fixes don't usually work, because they evade the underlying problem rather than addressing it.

Roland-

Gee, what a surprise.

Keith-

Any link to Algren? (Simone de Beauvoir's lover, BTW)

mb

8:34 AM  
Anonymous Christopher Beckham said...

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/03/26/aoc-m26.html

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez denounces socialists and praises Biden administration, Democratic Party

Hahah!

12:00 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Chris-

That woman is so full of shit. Everything is What's better politics for my career? (never, What's right?). It's all theater by now, and never forget it: the elite are trash.

mb

12:45 PM  
Anonymous Aeris said...

a graphic created by the National Museum of African American History & Culture , it might be of interest to y'all
https://i.redd.it/l7u0425oufp61.png

1:34 PM  
Anonymous Malleus Maleficarum said...

Did I hear "elites"?

Harvard closes evolution center after finding connections to Jeffrey Epstein

It seems that, apart from prepubescent girls, Epstein was very much into "science," so I suspect this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the relationship between the "Lolita Express" and la crème de la crème of the US academic elite.

What the fuck is "evolutionary dynamics," by the way?

2:28 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Aeris-

Actually, a lot of the descriptions are correct. But the focus on whiteness at a black museum seems somewhat peculiar. I *would* like to see a similar graphic for black culture, however.

mb

2:43 PM  
Blogger dermot said...

Malleus, the Guardian is pondscum - purging anti-war columnists for years. Even cartoonist Steve Bell is being purged. https://pressgazette.co.uk/steve-bell-leaves-the-guardian/
Guardian then begs for reader donations while they sit on a 1 BILLION $ trust.

https://mronline.org/2019/05/07/beholden-to-corporatism-how-the-guardian-sold-out-the-working-class/

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/five-reasons-why-we-don-t-have-free-and-independent-press-in-uk-and-what-we-can-do-about/

https://www.jonathan-cook.net/2011-09-28/the-dangerous-cult-of-the-guardian/
QUOTE:The Guardian’s discrediting of the “left”...is far from taking place in a fair battle of ideas...the Guardian is backed by the huge resources of its corporate owners. When it attacks dissident writers, they can rarely, if ever, find a platform of equal prominence to defend themselves...it prefers to play the man, not the ball.

https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2015-03-03/hsbc-and-the-sham-of-guardians-scott-trust/
QUOTE: The Guardian is not owned by a trust at all. In 2008, “the trust was replaced with a limited company” that was accordingly re-named “The Scott Trust Limited.” ...a profit-making company, it is still referred to frequently as ‘The Scott Trust,’ promulgating the widely-held but mistaken belief in the Guardian’s inherently benign ownership structure.

2:44 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Only in America: The girls are 13 and 15 yrs old:

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/03/27/us/washington-dc-uber-eats-carjacking-homicide/index.html

2:52 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

This is also nice:

Maryland police video shows officers threatening, screaming at crying child | Maryland | The Guardian

3:26 PM  
Anonymous Chance said...

"French literary theorist, essayist and philosopher of the everyday Roland Barthes died on this day in 1980.

Listen to five writers celebrating this playful, provocative author."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06qhlqk/episodes/player

5:16 PM  
Blogger Brian said...

@Berman (Police story)
Well, If a child “misbehaves”, the answer is always more pain and more humiliation. If only we, in the United States, had more obedience, identification with the aggressive victor, and conformity to traditional values we’d be able to get out of our current socialist nightmare. For god sakes, they shoulda just thrown the 5 year old in maximum security and been done with it!

5:27 PM  
Blogger Michael Burgess said...

Hi Dr. Berman and Wafers,

If you trust wikiquote, scroll down the attached linked article to the book title "Nonconformity" and you will find Keith's quote.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Nelson_Algren

There is a more interesting quote from the same book, "The American middle class's faith in personal comfort as an end in itself is, in essence, a denial of life. And it has been imposed upon American writers and playwrights strongly enough to cut them off from their deeper sources. The shortcut to comfort is called “specialization,” and in an eye-ear-nose-and-throat doctor this makes sense. But in a writer it is fatal. The less he sees of other writers the more of a writer he will ultimately become. When he sees scarcely anyone except other writers, he is ready for New York."

5:40 PM  
Anonymous Nadine Bupkis said...

Christopher,

That's because Ocasio-Cortez never actually wanted socialism in the first place. She wanted a woke administration that virtue signals all day long while doing nothing to change how America operates on a fundamental level. The Biden Administration is precisely this, so of course she would defend it and condemn those who want something different.

It should be noted that Hedges is, or at least was, a huge fan of Ocasio-Cortez at the time he wrote this article:

https://www.salon.com/2019/03/14/chris-hedges-on-the-failure-of-the-democrats-and-the-rise-of-the-trump-cult/

I guarantee you won't see Hedges publish any articles discussing AOC's betrayal of the left. He isn't willing to publicly admit he misjudged someone's character, especially if that person is a woman of color. This just goes to show you that nearly all Americans, no matter how ostensibly liberal, are completely full of shit.

5:56 PM  
Blogger Vince said...

Hello Dr. Berman,

I was just reading about the Suez freighter situation.

I couldn't help thinking that this incident is a perfect convergence of some of your core ideas.

1. Freighter Overloaded = More is no way of Life.
2. Chances of turning things around are the same as turning around an aircraft carrier in a bathtub = Freighter too big and heavy to turn around in the canal.
3. Global Capitalism suffering from blocked key transport route = Suez Moment.

Your thoughts?

Peace,
Vince

6:21 PM  
Blogger Jason Tower said...

As a civilization collapses, those in power loot and steal as much as they can before the end. Here are two recent examples of corruption in the US:

The Kealohas- Hawaii
https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/news/investigate/kealohas/
Cincinnati City Council
https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2020/11/19/timeline-cincinnati-city-hall-corruption/6337638002/

Neither of these stories got much attention in the national media. People in the US act as if corruption and graft are things that only happen in other countries.

7:04 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Vince-

Yeah, sounds rt!

mb

7:07 PM  
Anonymous Noura said...

AMERICAN FARCE: THE BIDEN NEWS CONFERENCE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWD0Jzjxrj4
Favorite part quoting Biden at time stamp 13:20 “when I came to the United States Senate 120 years ago.”

Biden's first press conference was a 'whole lot worse' than most media will tell you
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l175F8kTZvQ

Interesting comments from people who watched the videos:
1. This is surely scary for the world. Very worried that he would accidentally press the nuclear weapon self-destruct button.
2. Putin wishing him good health was not just a random act of kindness, he probably knows something I don't.
3. We are sitting ducks here in the United States. May God protect us.
4. The fact that someone with no intellectual capacity makes it into "power" makes you wonder who's really driving
5. For me, watching Biden's "solo" appearance was like watching a small child mess up their lines during a Christmas play. It was painful to watch and I truly have sympathy for him.
6. Scripted questions, selected journalists, what a farce. Not one hard question, it was the usual media love-in.
7. American here. I'm having to rely on news from another country to learn the truth about my own president. Thank you.
8. The only honest thing he has said "I have no idea"
9. I watched the conference live and it seemed fine to me. Good editor though.

7:45 PM  
Anonymous DVictim said...

The lets discriminate against whitey with all the institutions continues - particularly white straight men. The pogrom against Europeans continues as refugees are aided by NGO's and Federal policies. Where are my reparations for being a diversity victim in this non-linear war? Europeans are not allowed an ethnic identity or ethno-state. We are being forced to host all these people - in affect destroying our heritage, future and manifest destiny.

Oakland’s project is significant because it is one of the largest efforts in the U.S. so far, targeting up to 600 families. And it is the first program to limit participation strictly to Black, Indigenous and people of color communities.

https://ktla.com/news/california/oakland-launches-guaranteed-income-program-to-give-low-income-families-500-per-month/

1:32 AM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Victim-

What 'pogrom' are you talking abt? How are you a 'diversity victim'? Most Europeans have an ethnic identity. Are you aware of what, historically, 'whitey' did to black people and Native Americans? Etc. And note that you cite no sources for yr assertions in your 1st paragraph; which means that it amounts to nothing more than angry bloviating. Wrong approach for this blog, amigo.

mb

3:17 AM  
Blogger Joe McIlnen said...

And never forget in the age of Covid here in our Dysfunctional States of America that it’s never a dull moment with our beloved Karens! LOL!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcYEnjzC-xs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbb76BeOS7s

8:18 AM  
Anonymous Malleus Maleficarum said...

Noura, that video is great. Clearly, Biden has dementia, although I'm not an expert to tell how advanced. Sorry, but I can't help myself, here is The Guardian drooling over the Biden's press conference, basically saying Biden is the next FDR:

He ran as a moderate but is governing as a transforming radical.

Can't be bothered with CNN or MSNBC, as they're too predictably pathetic, but that article is beyond embarrassing.

The fact is that at some point the establishment media will not be able to hide from the masses any more that Biden is literally demented, and many people in the US will feel they have been sold a lemon (in addition to the many that already consider Biden illegitimate). Since Americans are so thoughtful and rational, the reaction will probably be very measured, I'm sure...

9:33 AM  
Blogger Ordinary Indian said...

@Systems, thanks for sharing the article. A good but depressing read; things I already know, only details are new.

The corporate imperialism captured Brazil (installing Bolsonaro) through such an elaborate plan. Modi's ascendence was pretty much supported by an elaborate planning. Can't go into details due to lack of space. See this link 2016 for Brazil: https://www.globalresearch.ca/regime-change-in-brazil-right-wing-protest-movement-funded-by-us-billionaire-foundations-training-in-us/5515204

Just wrote to a friend that we are (globally) moving towards a world system whose economic character could very well be a corporate imperialism based on slavery on a limited scale at least: Remember uighur camps in Xinjiang and Amazon guys having to pee in bottles: https://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/amazon-workers-pee-water-bottles

12:19 PM  
Anonymous John S said...

Dr. Berman, Wafers. Part of America’s alternative tradition is Walt Whitman. Pick a random line from “Song of Myself” (below) or numerous other poems and you read the unmistakable celebration of American striving, call it what it is hustling. As truly an inspired a poet as he was, even Whitman and other greats like Twain imo have been delusional about what America is and always has been really about even at their best. America even makes it greats look like fools read back retrospectively in light of decline.

“One of the Great Nation, the nation of many nations, the smallest the same, and the largest the same;
A southerner soon as a northerner—a planter nonchalant and hospitable, down by the Oconee I live;
A Yankee, bound by my own way, ready for trade, my joints the limberest joints on earth, and the sternest joints on earth;
A Kentuckian, walking the vale of the Elkhorn, in my deer-skin leggings—a Louisianian or Georgian;
….
At home on the hills of Vermont, or in the woods of Maine, or the Texan ranch;
Comrade of Californians—comrade of free north-westerners, (loving their big proportions;)
Comrade of raftsmen and coalmen—comrade of all who shake hands and welcome to drink and meat;”
….

12:58 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

John-

True...he also adored American technology. Of course, those were different times...yet Hawthorne, for example, did see the larger picture.

Ordinary-

In the yrs leading up to the Civil War, the South accused the North of wage slavery. Lincoln argued that most Americans were involved in independent businesses; this was totally inaccurate.

mb

1:56 PM  
Blogger ccg said...

Noura et al.

So here's Maureen Dowd of The New York Times propagandizing on the mental state of Joe Biden:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/27/opinion/sunday/biden-press

This, of course, was to be expected from the Times. According to Dowd there's nothing wrong with Joe. He's just being calm and thoughtful. Yeah, right. He's probably wondering where he is most of the time. I've known people in the early and not so early stages of dementia and I have no doubt he's suffering from that condition.

Someone has put together a video compilation of his recent gaffs. But I've come across people who claim that these are all due to Biden's stuttering. Well here's a video of Joe Biden "stuttering":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_wlQZ5N_2k

1:59 PM  
Blogger Quercus said...

John S.

Regarding Mark Twain, although he may not have criticised the American hustle directly, he certainly had no illusions about the nature of humanity (see his posthumous writings such as “Letters from the Earth” and note the general sarcasm and wit throughout his writings).

But more importantly, he was a vocal critic of American imperialism, and campaigned vigorously against the Spanish -American War and the Philippine–American War. See his “War Prayer” for example.

The War Prayer - Wikipedia

In fact, given his outlook and considering the time he lived in, one might even regard him as a “proto- Wafer.”

Quercus

4:30 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Marcus-

Sorry, cdn't post it. Boulder massacre was fully real, as far as I'm concerned, and Jews don't rule the world. Apparently you are into conspiracy theories. Thousands of blogs are, and that's where you'll find full appreciation for your posts. Good luck.

TKR-

Broadcasting opinions, no. Providing evidence, yes.

mb

5:42 PM  
Anonymous Bozia said...

Total jackass.

Trump wanders into Mar-a-Lago wedding reception, proceeds to run through a laundry list of his own personal grievances instead of toasting the happy couple: “Do you miss me yet?” https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-crashes-mar-a-lago-wedding-to-whine-about-2020-election-loss

10:09 PM  
Blogger Krakhed said...

Sadly, I’m not surprised

https://theglobepost.com/2020/10/15/us-military-base-poisoning-okinawa/

1:18 AM  
Blogger alex carter said...

Aeris - I think it's a neat graphic. Nothing snide, just a gentle summing-up of white values in the US. People from some other, intact, culture could find that very useful.

Jason Tower - Hawaii is truly the New Orleans of the Pacific. Look up a character named Miske. I think he's in jail now but he was well-connected with the powerful and did things like spread poison liquid on the floor of a rival's dance club while it was full of people.

Quercus - Twain was great. His "Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court" shows he was skeptical about technology and is a haunting book,

I read Lewis Thomas' The Medusa And The Snail today, which like his Lives Of A Cell was a bestseller. It's amazing that as recently as 1980, books like that could be best-sellers. Graduate-level writing with interesting ideas, no pandering to the reader.

1:25 AM  
Anonymous Sybok said...

I don't think Biden has dementia, he's just a terrible public speaker & always has been. If anyone wants to verify this for themselves they can find old videos of him on YouTube where he constantly has his foot in his mouth. Contrast Biden with Ronny Raygun, who was actually diagnosed with dementia & yet remained an eloquent speaker throughout his presidency.

My grandfather had severe dementia, so bad that he couldn't recall something that happened 5 minutes ago, & yet he never slurred his words or indeed had any difficulty expressing himself or speaking coherently.

Don't get me wrong, I didn't vote for the guy, but to me Biden seems to have a much better head on his shoulders than the Trumpalumpa. At least Biden knows that there were no aeroports in 1776.

5:13 AM  
Anonymous Nadine Bupkis said...

Bozia,

How very American of Trump to crash a gathering and make it all about him. This is pure narcissism, and is similar to what America does on the world stage.

8:40 AM  
Anonymous Malleus Maleficarum said...

Sybok, Rita Hayworth had dementia as early as in her 50s. The fact that old crooked Joe has been embarrassing himself for many years doesn't mean he is not a demented psychopath. That is exactly what he is.

Now for something that you may not believe but it's real nevertheless, satanic worship in the US:
Nike distances itself from Lil Nas X 'Satan shoes' containing human blood
Thanks to a canny social media presence – which has included messages to Chelsea Clinton – and progressive politics, satanism is an unlikely spiritual antidote to the Trump era
F.A.Q. Fundamental Beliefs
Our position is to be self-centered, with ourselves being the most important person (the “God”) of our subjective universe, so we are sometimes said to worship ourselves.

How very American...

11:26 AM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Malleus-

Too strong. I doubt Joe is a demented psychopath. Mentally enfeebled is more like it. Still, he seems to be carrying out his agenda. As for blood in the Satan Shoes: I can't help wondering if it's the blood of small Christian boys, whom the Jews killed so that they cd have blood for their matzoh. But then Lil Nas X is black, so maybe Jews weren't involved this time around. But then, perhaps the Jews are behind it, as part of the World Jewish Conspiracy.

mb

12:06 PM  
Anonymous door said...

Their are two articles posted on the website "Strategic Culture".Both were posted on March 26 2021 one by Alastair Crooke titled Blinken's Piece de Theatre Failed;Its Script was Passe and a article by Finian Cunningham titled Crashing Saudi Oil Economy Explains Urgent Yemeni Peace Offer both articles are excellent and give insight into the situations they write about. Thanks

12:08 PM  
Anonymous John S said...

Quercus, Dr. Berman, Wafers,

Mark Twain was obviously a great humorist, of the type not to be funny but to express the painfulness of human condition, and as social commentary that through humor disguises the sting, similar in a way to the methods of recent contemporaries like Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Woody Allen, etc. But at the same time, Twain lived and wanted a life let us just say - far beyond his material means and bought into the latest technology fads of the time that eventually forced him to go on an exhausting road trip at the end of his life to pay off his debts. Twain was quintessentially American, his entire life was devoted to hustling to advance himself, even if it is seeming contradictory to say at same time, as you say - he was and is an enduring and vocal critic of American Imperialism as well as other things like race and religion. Anyway, enough said!

https://time.com/4297572/mark-twain-bad-business/

1:43 PM  
Anonymous turnover said...

Door, in their "about us", the Strategic Culture Foundation doesn't describe where their funding comes from. Wikipedia calls them a Russian government institution. That certainly doesn't mean they don't publish worthwhile info. The US institutions, the NYT the WaPost etc all have good info mixed with propaganda. It's sometimes a lot of work to vet articles in these publications. It's good to know something about a source, but pretty much all of it is caveat emptor.

2:28 PM  
Anonymous Tom Servo said...

Deaths of despair are increasing among minority groups in the United States.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/03/deaths-of-despair-have-surged-among-people-of-color.html

An article on the rise of alcoholic liver disease among young American women.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/03/16/973684753/sharp-off-the-charts-rise-in-alcoholic-liver-disease-among-young-women

3:46 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Tom-

What is the definition of an American buffoon? An American buffoon is someone who thinks these are individual problems. S/he never imagines that all of this is the product of a certain way of life.

mb

5:16 PM  
Anonymous Jorge Renya said...

Social justice for toddlers: These new books and programs start the conversation early https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2021/03/18/social-justice-antiracist-books-toddlers-kids/

Can't imagine this not having some unintended consequences

6:16 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Jorge-

I suspect all of this stuff will backfire in a big way. It's precisely this sort of thing that propelled Trumpi into the W.H. America will continue to swing between extremes, because it is not an intelligent country and it doesn't know what else to do. The current Biden emphasis on diversity is a reaction to the Trump admin; in 2022 and 2024, I suspect we'll see the pendulum swinging in the other direction. It's all theater; it's meaningless; and it certainly won't save America, whichever end of the pendulum we are on.

mb

6:27 PM  
Anonymous Rockwell N. Role said...

Available here is a pictorial approach to what is wrong with
America, formerly The Beautiful. Much cutting and squeezing will
be required.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=dr+pimple+popper

7:50 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Rock-

Yuck!

mb

8:42 PM  
Anonymous Dr. Shithouse said...

6-year-old Texan girl shot multiple times and killed over spilled water.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svPKXhD05zU

Must be yet another lone wolf....never, ever the culture of the us empire.

9:10 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Dr. Shit-

Check out the pic of this fine, upstanding individual. He does look very American to me. The country is drowning in events of this sort, not to mention the daily massacres.

mb

9:43 PM  
Anonymous WuduFugel said...

MB, I agree, unfortunately. The sentiment behind a lot of this stuff is admirable, and imo, historically validated. But at this point its taken on a religious overtone, like John McWhorter says https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGJbrLs_8_0 . A more nuanced approach would probably take some of the wind out of the sails of the maga-hats and their European equivalents, but its not going to happen.

Thats kind of what we are good at though, strangely enough. Americans can take any ideology and cover it with the all the trappings and fervor of a religion. I've known people who were not religious in any sense and yet could speak with a righteous anger about the opposing football team on sundays, or whatever the latest twist was on their favorite TV show. Or the free market worship. Read an essay years ago about Ron Paul and how he hung portraits of Ludwig Mises and F. Hayek in his office, and how they inspired him to go into politics.

Who needs Saints? We Americans can craft religion from anything.

10:16 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Wafers-

I'm trying to figure out the sociology of hate mail. Ya hafta wonder. It'll be quiet for 2-3 wks, and then suddenly, I'll be deluged w/10 "yr a kike" messages in 2 days. This is w/o even provoking the shmucks. In addn, I don't get it: What part of "I'm not rdg yr messages" don't these sad buffoons understand? It takes me abt 2 seconds to recognize a hate message, and then I just hit Delete. I guess the whole pt is to discharge venom, rather than to actually get read. Haters gonna hate, as the saying goes.

Of course, venom is hardly limited to the antisemites targeting this blog. Venom is now coursing thru the entire bloodstream of America, whether we are talking about bubbas, Karens, Trumpites, progs, 'woke' idiots, Bidenites, or whomever. To cite Jim Kunstler's slogan: "It's all good." And it is, from the viewpt of a declinist. Schmiden keeps talking abt 'unity', but there is no unity; there is only hatred and divisiveness--a de facto civil war, if not an actual one. The process we are now undergoing is the tearing apart of America at the seams--by Americans!. Which is why I have mixed feelings abt the antisemitic trollfoons. Sure, they are a bunch of sick losers, but on the other hand, they are instrumental in bringing the curtain down on the American experiment. So altho I delete their stuff w/o rdg it, I can't help feeling some sort of kinship w/them. For in their own twisted way, they too are declinists, whether they realize it or not. I tell ya, life is strange.

mb

10:25 PM  
Anonymous Democritus said...

What's not to love--Christian values, diversity, marital bliss:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/ada-pastor-david-evans-killed-wife-kristie-and-lover-kahlil-deamie-square-charged-with-murder?ref=scroll

These are our neighbors.

11:48 PM  
Blogger alex carter said...

Sybok - I get your point. A stutter or stammer does not necessarily mean dementia. My uncle worked for JPL on the space probes, yet a real rocket scientist. He had an awful stutter right up to the end. He was also, as a young adult, quite outstanding at an Olympic sport that takes a lot of work and not just muscle-work. If a g.d. rocket scientist can't get rid of a stutter, then I'm pretty impressed that Joe worked hard and trained his out.

Satanism just sounds like Ayn Randism/Americanism just with cooler clothes. Christians have done far, far more damage to the world and some see Satan as one of their God's employees, sort of a good-cop bad-cop routine. I'll stick with a belief system that doesn't need a God to lean on and questions the idea of, or at least the supremacy of, the self so you-all have fun fighting it out and hopefully I'll be out of the area of the fray.

2:25 AM  
Anonymous Sybok said...

Alex, that's interesting about your uncle. I've noticed that, ironically, most of the people I've known who had/have speech impediments tend to have high IQs & I wonder if it's a meaningful correlation or just coincidence. Ditto on Satanism. To make any sense at all, Satan would either need to be on God's side & just pretending to rebel or "God" isn't what he claims to be.

Malleus, I'm interested in why you think O'Biden is a psychopath. I have no decided opinion on this either way other than that he's a politician, which might necessitate embracing certain psychopathic traits. But on the other hand he seems to lack the charisma & invincible confidence that I've come to expect from psychopathic politicians. As a reference point I'd regard Ronny Raygun as almost certainly psychopathic, though I'm not aware of him ever being diagnosed as such. Here was an incredibly persuasive & articulate man who nonetheless lied constantly & was responsible for monstrous atrocities which he never took any responsibility for himself, but allowed the sword to fall on lackey-pawns like Olly North.

5:04 AM  
Anonymous Malleus Maleficarum said...

I don't want to dwell on this, as it is not that important, but we're not talking about creepy Joe stuttering but completely losing his train of thought sometimes, or getting unexpectedly angry at some questions. Anyways...

Alex, I'd say you're a bit late to the the party; the gnostics had it all figured out thousands of years ago. Although he's not considered a proper gnostic but a Christian heretic, Marcion of Sinope, for example, viewed the god of the Old Testament as an evil deity (or even a warlord), a distinctly gnostic belief. As a matter of fact, it's an absolute tragedy that so much knowledge and traditions were exterminated as heretic by the Roman imperial church when it took control of "Christianity," an irreparable loss we'll never be able to assess properly (the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Nag Hammadi library etc. are just the tip of the iceberg).

Also, consider how the doctrine of the salvation of the individual soul is profoundly selfish and egocentric (as Nietzsche put it, "the world revolves around me" in other words). In a way, it is akin to Satanic philosophy, with the difference that it is intended for the masses, who are not afforded the material privileges reserved for the elites.

6:24 AM  
Anonymous JD said...

Hmmm -- quite the takedown! I thought Vlad was a ruthless killer and not very smart! Why didn't we see this on the evening news?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uO6ptqMSVzU

Something is not adding up here

(btw -- looooonnngg time lurker -- I have all your books)

9:14 AM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

JD-

Don't lurk; live!

Malleus-

Fyi, check out the chapter on the Gnostics in CTOS.

mb

9:33 AM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

"Hey, not my problem!":

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/30/asian-american-woman-attacked-new-york

9:41 AM  
Blogger Michael Burgess said...

Hi Dr. Berman and Wafers:

This speech by Martin Luther King delivered a year to a day before his assassination demonstrates clearly King's deep criticism of the United States policies and social/economic/spiritual malaise. Very telling.

https://www.transcend.org/tms/2021/03/special-dr-martin-luther-king-jr-in-his-own-words/

11:10 AM  
Blogger Alan said...

Dr. B and Los Waferinos,

More evidence that there is no difference between Republicons and Democraps. Schmiden will continue Trumpi's space farce program while the country collapses. Onward and downward!

https://scheerpost.com/2021/03/29/lee-camp-why-bidens-choice-to-bomb-outer-space-is-so-damn-exciting/

12:01 PM  
Anonymous John S said...

Dr. Berman, Wafers. Maybe Andrew Cuomo should be known as Governor Georgie Porgie, we just need the accompanied libretto.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/another-woman-accuses-andrew-cuomo_n_60621111c5b66d30c747001c

Also, a certain prominent NFL quarterback seems to have gotten in a lotta trouble with his private visits/habits with masseurs.

https://sports.yahoo.com/deshaun-watson-civil-suit-total-reaches-19-with-new-allegations-of-instagram-deletions-and-settlement-pursuits-192951379.html

2:06 PM  
Anonymous al-Qa'bong said...

Hello Wafers:

"Canada's public broadcaster" (it's operated by the federal government, which occasionally leans on it to support its agenda), the CBC, currently has two articles on Daesh on its website's front page. Aren't articles about ISIS more-or-less as relevant today as articles about the Viet Cong?

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/operation-impact-isis-canadian-forces-1.5969851

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/raqqa-reuild-isis-syrian-civil-war-1.5966299

In any case, I suspect this propaganda attack is a precursor to a renewed US offensive in the Middle East.

3:09 PM  
Anonymous JUS said...

Hi Dr. Berman and Wafers,

Here's the new American hustle: NFT's. It's all the talk in the art world at the moment. Just when I thought we reached peak absurdity, narcissism and greed something new comes along and shatters that ceiling.

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/wtf-nft-why-care-150400496.html

take care.

3:35 PM  
Anonymous Mikey said...

https://braveneweurope.com/branko-milanovic-license-to-kill-the-world-turned-upside-down-a-laudatory-review

New book with "The World Turned Uoside Down" as the title. Looks good, enjoyed C. Hill's version from MB's recommendation.

3:38 PM  
Anonymous Heidi A. said...

As UK, EU, Canada and US impose sanctions on China… https://www.theosthinktank.co.uk/comment/2021/03/24/global-britain-and-the-clash-of-civilisations

4:05 PM  
Anonymous Arnie said...

NEW: Federal lawsuit claims sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein raped a former South Florida real estate broker, forced her to have sex with a local judge, then threatened to feed her to the alligators. https://amp.miamiherald.com/news/local/crime/article250316759.html

Crazy late stage plutocracy stuff.

6:26 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Arnie-

A terribly swell guy. Obviously, misunderstood.

mb

6:53 PM  
Blogger alex carter said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

7:14 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

alex-

Yr posts are coming thru just fine.

mb

8:31 PM  
Anonymous Malleus Maleficarum said...

Yes!

Hunter Biden calls Trump 'vile' in new book and denies Ukraine allegations

Hunter Biden for president! He would be like an American Heliogabalus, filling the White House with crack dealers, hookers and cocaine parties. Imagine finding him one morning in one of the presidential bathtubs dead from unexplained causes.

4:52 AM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Malleus-

r.u. sure that's a fair description of him?

mb

8:05 AM  
Blogger Mike Kelly said...

Hi MB and Wafers,

Very sad story, even for declinists.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/george-floyd-murder-trial-firefighter-blocked-from-helping-returns-to-stand/RYJ7G2LNAV5OPH5WYIUNSYFQIU/

8:42 AM  
Anonymous Sybok said...

A man kicked a 65 year old woman to the ground, stomping on her several times before police say he made anti Asian statements. All I can say is "Welcome to America."

G. Gordon Liddy is dead. What a character he was! I'll miss this guy almost as much as Rush Limbaugh.

Seven year old charged with rape By law you can't consent to sex until you are 18, but for some reason you can still be raped; or was the victim over 18? I wish someone could explain the reasoning behind this.

Concerning Jeff Epstein, watch this 60 Minutes Australia Doc. According to the victims, Epstein would pay them extra to bring their friends into his service -- a classic pyramid scheme. How very American!

9:12 AM  
Blogger Gunnar said...

The University of Phoenix is @ least grounded in some kind of “reality,” can’t say the same about Harvard. Seriously how does this 32 yr twit slither into the “top” one percent and then support Trump? Opus Dei? McEnany for president 2028!

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/03/30/mcenany-gets-fox-news-promotion-478470

in 2050 she’ll be 52, I find this comforting (it’s all good as long as she and her family are safe)

https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2020/02/06/557679.htm

https://biblehub.com/hosea/8-7.htm

1:13 PM  
Blogger Miles Deli said...

Greetings MB and Wafers,

Did scientists cause the unthinkable?: a man-made virus:

1. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/coronavirus-lab-escape-theory.html

2. https://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/health/2021/03/26/former-cdc-director-robert-redfield--my-opinion-is-coronavirus-started-in-wuhan-lab

Meanwhile:

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/us-news/man-beats-up-ex-wife-23805671

This, over a McDonald's Quarter Pounder instead of a Big Mac.

Miles

4:16 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Jeff-

Didju see the guy's pic? A face only a mother cd love.

mb

4:28 PM  
Anonymous John S said...

Dr. Berman, Wafers. Another all-American phenomena is the guru. I’ve already mentioned self-help and money management guru’s like Tony Robbins. But there are also countless other types of gurus, the the health guru who sells his abdominal machine as the only one that will get you six pack abs, and the health gurus who have their own one of a kind diet that is the only one in all of history that really works and spiritual guru types that if you follow them will grant you enlightenment. The other day I glanced at PBS and there was one of those health shows presented by Steven Gundry, who has come up with the magical claim that lectins are what kills us. He actually went on a rant that tomatoes of all things are really bad for you, give em’ up and you’ll live to be a hundred. Of course, he sells pills too if you can’t follow through with his diet. He wouldn’t do well in Italy. What a bunch of crap (see review below).

Then there are the numerous spiritual gurus like Deepak Chopra on the east, to complement televangelism. One example, is Eckart Tolle, who was apparently floundering until one day Oprah Winfrey happened to discover the wisdom of his book. Now he is an enlightened multimillionaire. As far as I can tell it is a watered-down pop version of Buddhism, easily digestible to Americans who want a breezy pop spirituality that doesn’t require a lot of work according to the review below.

https://theskepticalcardiologist.com/2018/07/14/why-you-should-ignore-the-plant-paradox-by-steven-gundry/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPr5mm7R1u0

4:48 PM  
Anonymous Gillan said...

Wealthiest 1% of Americans Account for One-Third of Unpaid Taxes to IRS https://www.voanews.com/usa/wealthy-americans-dodge-175-billion-taxes-each-year

5:26 PM  
Blogger Auriel Ragmon said...

Something else to worry about!

http://www.dailyimpact.net/2021/03/20/genocide-by-spermicide/#more-4667
Evidently we are doomed, unless we invent parthenogenesis!!

6:03 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Gillan-

O surely not. How can this be?

John-

Here's what it comes down to: internal or external validation. Americans are desperately empty people; they don't have the resources to pursue the former, so chasing this diet or that exercise program or this guru or that spiritual program is all they are able to do. And when the dust settles? Amazingly, they are still miserable! A hustling nation is a meaningless nation.

mb

6:45 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

ps: And it is *this* way of life that we seek to spread to the rest of the world!

6:46 PM  
Anonymous Ryssdol said...

A Concert of Powers for a Global Era
Mar 25, 2021
Richard N. Haass , Charles A. Kupchan

In the nineteenth century, the Concert of Europe successfully preserved peace for a half-century in the absence of a dominant power and amid ideological diversity. Something similar would be a boon to global governance today.https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/concert-of-powers-for-global-era-by-richard-haass-and-charles-a-kupchan-2021-03

Kind of a Wallersteinian idea?

7:14 PM  
Anonymous Rollo Dice said...

Urgent warning to Wafers!! The last thing America needs is more
Hindus or others being lead away from The Bible.
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/alabama-yoga-bill-stalls-conservative-192907055.html

8:19 PM  
Anonymous Pastrami and Coleslaw said...

Noooo! You're gonna need a vaccine now MB to frolic on an ice floe amongst the Meese.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/31/sarah-palin-coronavirus-positive-wear-masks

9:30 PM  
Anonymous Noura said...

This Women Weighs OVER 620 POUNDS! | America's Fattest City | Curious
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toFrlaOWbDM

This seems like an attempt to fill the emptiness of the American culture. Definitely a cautionary tale for those thinking of copying America! It’s interesting how in denial some of these people are about their weight issues. This is like a snapshot of what’s wrong with America. If I tried to eat like this, I am pretty sure I would get sick. Maybe they’re already so sick that they can’t feel pain anymore, maybe they’re numb. If we destroy our systems to the point that we can no longer feel pain, we lose the ability to self-correct.

21:00 He was banned from two all-you-can-eat restaurants. These restaurants were not designed for people like this. Similarly, the world is not designed for the American way of life.

35:40 At eight years old, lady already weighted 133 pounds!

36:28 Denial: his being fat has nothing to with the fact that he eats so much that he was banned from two all-you-can-eat restaurants. It’s destiny.

This video is hilarious. “Misfortune is usually the crime of folly” Robert Greene. Freedom and responsibility are deeply intertwined. People who believe that freedom means doing whatever they want will likely find themselves imprisoned by the consequences of their actions.

12:11 AM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Pastrami-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Meese

mb

12:33 AM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Gee, what a surprise!:

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/03/31/us/orange-california-shooting/index.html

mb

12:46 AM  
Anonymous Malleus Maleficarum said...

My post about Hunter Biden was a bit tongue-in-cheek. There are enough lurid stories about Hunter in the press for everybody to make up their own mind, anyway.

Microsoft to supply US army with augmented reality headsets

Hey, there is money to be made from making killing people like a video game! On the other hand, maybe that will get antiquated soon, with killer robots taking over. Isn't technology wonderful?

5:09 AM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Malleus-

Sorry, this won't fly. You did the same thing w/Jas Levine: "well, everybody knows." The name for this is slander. I ask you not to engage in it, at least not on this blog.

mb

6:28 AM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

ps: I thought you had referred to Levine, but I cd be wrong. As for as Hunter Biden goes: not clear it was a joke, and slander is not too strong a word. Try to be careful in the future.

11:36 AM  
Blogger Arthur V. said...

Good afternoon Dr. Berman and Wafers:

It seems to me that woke prog morons just can't help giving ammo to the right. Apparently, it is now verboten to compliment someone on a weight loss.

huffpost.com/entry/dont-compliment-people-on-weight-loss_n_6062086ccb67593e05affc8

As the good doctor says at the end of The Bridge on the River Kwai: "Madness, madness."

Stay safe, all.

2:53 PM  
Blogger Miles Deli said...

Greetings MB and Wafers,

Americans are essentially a lost cause. They're so mentally broken, so regressed to an infantile state pretending that everything's gonna be okay. It's not! Take this person, Michael Boatman. Boatman was found walking on the side of the road in Spartanburg, SC completely naked except for a clear bag covering his genitals. Really? Granted, Boatman might have been stoned on weed, but what kind of individual actually does this? Oh, yeah, and American:

https://wlos.com/news/local/naked-man-doing-walk-of-shame-arrested-spartanburg-deputies-say-michael-reid-boatman

Miles

3:36 PM  
Anonymous Holcomb said...

President of the European Commission Ursula von der Layen said:

“At last the great European project of wandering around in olive groves drinking wine all day - begun by Socrates - is being realized.”

https://www.idler.co.uk/article/world-idleness-day-declared/

I like it! A Waferesque holiday!

6:27 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Jeff-

The thing that always gets me when you or another Wafer posts something like this are the faces of the people involved. What doofuses! They look so stupid, you cd almost choke (after gasping). This, you say to yrself, this jackass is going to make the Hedgean revolution? (To the barricades, Michael Boatman!) It's bad enuf that these clowns *are* stupid; but to *look* this stupid--I dunno, it ought to be declared a class A felony.

Recently Bill Maher achieved heroic status (imo) w/a 5-min video in wh/he declared that Americans were just plain dumb. (No shit, Sherlock) This is a politically incorrect no-no. Altho it's too obvious to even warrant comment, nevertheless, yr simply not allowed to say it. What Maher failed to add was that this was why America was going down the drain. Also a no-no. I mean, there are by now a few social critics that say the jig is up, but they never connect this to the sheer stupidity of the populace. Only 4 great thinkers have dared to do this: H.L. Mencken, George Carlin, Gore Vidal, and moi. To all of whom, no one listens. Only Chinese historians, 50 yrs from now, combing thru the ruins of the NY Public Libe, will stumble across my bks and say: "How is it that no one paid any attention to this guy Belman?"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassandra

Arthur-

Link didn't work.

mb

6:39 PM  
Blogger Mohamed said...

https://consortiumnews.com/2021/03/31/nato-expanding-its-theater-with-china-in-its-sights/

Is war with China what will break the American empire? If they can’t defeat the taliban after 20 years how are they going to defeat China . There are a billion of them.

9:13 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Mo-

You hafta realize that if Americans aren't very bright, it's also the case that America isn't very bright. So doing what is self-destructive is a very likely scenario. And by now it shd be obvious that our military is no great shakes. Consider Vietnam, for starters.

mb

9:55 PM  
Blogger Jamie said...

I don’t feel I can contribute much in the way of articles because I rarely read the news. Call me a snowflake but scrolling through NYT, CNN etc makes me feel like I’m going insane. I keep informed by reading articles vetted by Wafers and Dr B. I also try to read two or three books per week, though this isn’t always possible. I savored my way through Neurotic Beauty, a book too perfect to rush.

I think Graham Greene and Evelyn Waugh are two authors who are Wafer reading material. Waugh was so horrified when Brideshead Revisited was a success in the US that he wrote, “ I should not think six Americans will understand it.” Though I am sadly (much to my regret) not religious, I found Lord Marchmain’s deathbed Catholic conversion to be deeply moving. I recently read Waugh’s satirical novel, The Loved One. It’s a hysterical account of Hollywood, the American funeral industry and tons of acerbic insight into American stupidity. https://www.amazon.com/Loved-One-Evelyn-Waugh/dp/B002IVV3PA

Greene’s The Quiet American (an oxymoron if even there was one) is a classic Wafer novel and one I’ve enjoyed several times. Written in 1955, it predicts with terrifying accuracy the suffering the US will ignorantly inflict on Vietnam in the name of progress. As far as I can tell, Alden Pyle is one the best composites of “American values” ever written. https://www.amazon.com/Quiet-American-Graham-Greene/dp/0142001384

6:05 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Jamie-

Glad u enjoyed my bk on Japan, and I agree w/u on Greene. That he never got a Nobel is a scandal (same goes for Philip Roth). Note that in future, pls send messages to most recent post. No one reads the older stuff. Thanks.

mb

6:31 AM  

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