423
Well guys and gals, not much new under the sun. Massacres, foolish foreign policy moves, one scandal or revelation of corruption on a daily basis, plus the relentless and unstoppable self-destruction that is America. I'm slowly working on a new book, and also helping a Mexican friend translate Are We There Yet? into Spanish, which should be finished in a few weeks. I'm still thinking about the 7th Annual Wafer Summit Meeting in DC on May 22; will let y'all know more about it in 2-3 weeks. Hope you all are safe and healthy, and ready for yet another exciting thread. :-)
posted by Morris Berman at 11:21 PM
191 Comments:
Cheers to the new book pursuit!
Any hints as to the subject?
My contribution for today in the War is Hell Dept: "Some 2.2 million acres of natural and manmade forests in the Kurdish region have been destroyed in the past two decades. This represents nearly half the forests of the region, with most of the damage occurring in the last five years."
https://today.rtl.lu/news/science-and-environment/a/1648997.html
Feud between Musk and Buffet. Not sure who's the bigger horse's ass
https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/tesla-ceo-elon-musk-slams-warren-buffett-crazy-texas-power-2021-4-1030269640
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9426381/Conservationists-fury-SpaceX-rocket-exploded-sending-debris-wildlife-reserve.html
In a move sure to fix at least some of what ails us as an American society, the Board of Overseers, the governing body of the Rutgers University Foundation, will be dropping the word “overseers” from their name, pointing to certain objectionable overtones. What the new title will be hasn’t been decided, apparently. Perhaps this offers an opportunity for interested staff, alumni, and friends to put forward their suggestions.
https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2021/04/02/rutgers-foundation-board-drops-%E2%80%98overseers%E2%80%99-name
Jas-
Douche bags? That shdn't hurt anyone's sensibilities...
Chad-
And most Americans admire these turkeys.
mb
Breaking News! Another breach of the Capitol building has been attempted. Today a car tried to ram through the barricade that guards it. Whether a conservative Don Trump supporter or a progressive was driving the car is unsure.
https://www.npr.org/2021/04/02/983861176/2-u-s-capitol-police-injured-at-capitol-checkpoint-suspect-in-custody
And speaking of the Don, he’s about to have more financial troubles.
https://www.npr.org/2021/03/31/982928605/2-capitol-police-officers-sue-trump-for-injuries-sustained-during-jan-6-riot
There’s never a dull but always an entertaining moment for us Declinists here in the Dysfunctional States of America. Ha!Ha!Ha!
Good piece by Kenn Orphan
https://kennorphan.com/2021/04/01/we-are-here-to-awaken-from-the-illusion-of-our-separateness/
US Capitol lockdown after two deaths. A police officer died and another injured after a vehicle rammed into a barricade at the US Capitol that left the suspect dead.
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/uk-news/live-updates-capitol-lockdown-after-20313413
Gee golly another one in the most amazing, bestest place on God's green Earth.
Must be another lone 'crazy'; never, ever the culture of the us empire...Onward and downward.
U.S. Sanctions Are Killing Innocent Syrians
The Caesar Act isn’t hurting Assad; it’s harming civilians.
BY HASAN ISMAIK | APRIL 1, 2021, 7:59 AM
https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/04/01/caesar-sanctions-killing-innocent-syrians/
Hola MB and Wafers,
"Give me bacon, or give me death!"
~Shaneka Torres, February 9, 2014
Well, it's been 6 yrs almost to the day (April 21, 2015) that Shaneka was convicted and sentenced to 3-7 yrs for storming a Michigan McDonald's upon discovering her baconless burger. Imagine if Shaneka's would have been successful? Imagine if she had triggered armed McWarpaths across the nation? I often find myself lying awake in bed at night contemplating the fact that she had a much better chance at overthrowing the bourgeoisie than Chris Hedges and the 99%.
Meanwhile:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-capitol-security/police-officer-killed-in-vehicle-attack-on-u-s-capitol-idUSKBN2BP1BD
Did the Trump Army (TA) just murder another cop today?
Miles
ps: Time for some music. This one is for u, Shaneka:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bcnO3VQ_fc
https://theintercept.com/2021/04/02/female-soldier-sexual-assault-22-troops-fort-sill/
Female soldier was allegedly sexually assaulted by *22* other troops at the Army training base in Ft. Sill, Oklahoma, Pentagon official tells me.
Video of the incidents has been circulating among servicemembers.
Terrifying.
Sullivan-
But these brave men are defending our freedom, at home and abroad! (So the report must be false)
Jeff-
Shaneka Torres, a great Burger Warrior. Is she still in the clink?
mb
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTJa_SwHcTE
More US theatre as it circles the drain.
We should, we oughta, we need to be "nicer" "kinder" to each other....Good luck with that Mr. Wong.
Also, what do you think of the Mỹ Lai massacre? Was that "patriotic?" What scars do you think the Vietnamese have? Or other sovereign countries that the US empire has attacked, pillaged, raped, destroyed, murdered, etc.?
‘America is dead’; why your passport could be seized by the government - Doug Casey
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAeQDVordhI
“American values are dead, and the government sees citizens simply as subjects, said Doug Casey, who said that the decline of the country is already underway. The safest thing for investors to do, if they could, is to diversify geographically, Casey said. ‘Your main risk today is political, it’s political risk. Your financial risks, your economic risks are huge. Greater than them is your political risk. Even the people that have passports don’t understand that that’s the property of the U.S. government and it can be taken away from you for lots of reasons,’ he said.”
https://www.usdebtclock.org
US Debt: 28 Trillion at the time of this post and counting ….
Ray Dalio Explains Why 2021’s Economy Is Worse Than 2008
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KR9ZDgp69vk
Ray Dalio discusses the stock market, stimulus, bitcoin, China, and taxing the wealthy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJ82qABNWQA
DERIVATIVES COLLAPSE at Archegos! Failure Sends Shockwaves Through Financial System https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ccr-gpnBK2c
James Allen - that reminds me of reading about radio history, and those new "Disk Jockeys". Stations wanted a more respectable name and were open to suggestions, and as the book said, "Some were even printable".
Joe McIlnan - Seems it was a Farrakhanite; see, Nature is healing and we're back to Before Times type attacks...
Miles - Jesus Christ people, learn to fry your own burgers. Admittedly it's hard to match the gaminess of a McBurger but in my experience those gamey buffalo burgers from Trader Joe's are a good stand in.
Noura - I never doubted that as it's written right on my passport. I think most of that channel is fearmongering but you probably don't want to try leaving the US if you owe it much money, and we're all on the "no fly" list by the end of the year unless we get the "RealID".
Wafers-
We have an anniversary on our hands. This blog was launched in April 2006; it has now lasted 15 years. 15 years of being a beacon of light in a very dark, and darkening, America. It's a dirty job, but someone had to do it. Atually, it hasn't been a dirty job at all, leaving the antisemitic trollfoons aside (and whom I've actually enjoyed; they are so dumb). We now have 177 designated Wafers, and as many as 90,000 hits a month. Total hits for the 15 years: in excess of 5.5 million, if you can believe it.
It has also been the locus of honest, and high-level, intellectual discussion. While the Internet is full of 'flaming', we manage to avoid it. While it is full of useless, bloviated opinion, we provide evidence for our views. There simply is no other blog like this blog, and no other people like Wafers. We exceed all others (tho I hafta admit that the bar is rather low, considering the fact that we are living in Dunceville). And we will persevere. TODAY THE BLOG, TOMORROW THE WORLD!
O&D, my friends; O&D.
mb
CONGRATS ON 15 YRS!!!!
https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-woody-allen-is-getting-a-raw-deal-20210403-5lslqeqcqzdnljrxyty4yvsb6e-story.html
Woody Allen is getting a raw deal: A new documentary doesn’t present a fair picture
Grimmer-
Thank you. As for Woody, that video of 'investigative journalism' was hardly an investigation; it seems pretty clear that the journalists began it w/their conclusion already preformed. In the case of Harvey Weinstein, it was he said/she said/she said/she said, etc. But in Woody's case, it's only he said/she said. Only 2 people were present, and they alone know the truth. This public taking of one side, w/o any concrete evidence, is the result of the climate of our times, in wh/the alleged victim is always rt. So Mia's attempt to destroy Woody's reputation has largely succeeded, w/the exception of a few honest dissenters. Personally, I'm ashamed of those actors who decided, on the basis of one side's testimony, to never work w/Woody again. Fuck 'em; there are lots of gd actors out there who will.
Let me also add that a victim culture willing to destroy the reputations of talented people, ones who have given the nation so much of their talent and creativity, is another nail in the American coffin. A country in wh/everyone is walking on eggshells has no future at all.
mb
Hello Wafers:
Douche bags, Dr. B?
Believe it or not, that Canadian prog site to which I sometimes refer forbad the use of "douche bag" in its comments section about ten years ago because it was a gender-specific insult. I'm not kidding.
MB,
Speaking of unfounded accusations, the #MeToo movement is a movement that claims all women who say they were sexually abused must be believed regardless of what the evidence, or lack thereof, indicates. This would, of course, reduce criminal trials involving men accused of sexual abuse to Stalinist show trials, but they don't seem to care. However, now that Biden, their woke pseudoliberal president, has been accused of sexual impropriety, the people pushing the #MeToo movement are engaging in Orwellian historical revision, as shown in this article:
https://reason.com/2020/05/19/believe-all-women-me-too-feminists-biden-reade/
The #MeToo movement is clearly a political power play. It's a way to destroy the lives of men hated by the woke mob. It's a 21st century version of the Salem Witch Trials, complete with a moral panic, a disregard for evidence, and ideological zealotry.
Nadine-
It's amazing how Americans, whether male or female, consistently engage in B&W thinking. As tho the words 'some', or 'gray', were not part of the American vocabulary. Also note how Americans believe that an emotion is the same thing as an idea, or an argument.
al-
Jock Straps, then?
mb
Machiavelli would probably say Trump's too stupid to be evil.
"Trump's last blunder. Small pizzeria in Italy sanctioned instead of a Venezuelan oil exporter"
https://www.businessinsider.com/italy-trump-sanctioned-a-pizzeria-in-final-blunder-2021-4?amp
Bart-
That he is a jackass is beyond question. Hence, the American people elected themselves to office.
mb
Greetings MB and Wafers,
MB-
Congratulations on the blog anniversary. What a ride it's been. Somewhere along the line (from the beginning?) Americans suffered a loss of spiritual vision, and someone had to say it. You did, and I certainly appreciate it. It's really the only thing that's *real* going on. I mean Hedges's quasi-theological progressivism certainly can't turn things around. Nor will Meghan's insistence on light-hearted summer hats and breezy outfits. Both have fallen short of remedial, I'm afraid. Strangely, Shaneka's nearly Zen ability to find the eye of the burger hurricane seems to be the most evolved of all. I would think that she's been paroled by now, but I've seen no evidence of it. In any case, long live the blog.
Grimmer-
Mia Farrow essentially coached Dylan to lie about being sexually assaulted by Woody. That is Woody's contention, in any case. The fascinating thing is that Mia got the entire idea about childhood sexual assault from a pop song, "With My Daddy in the Attic," written and recorded in 1970 by Dory Previn, the ex-wife of Soon-Yi Previn's father -- whose marriage fell apart because of his affair w/Mia. It's a classic case of projection and ego protection on Mia's end:
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/09/opinion/sunday/woody-allen-speaks-out.html?
Miles
Jeff-
Thanks for yr support. In terms of what can save us, now that Herman Cain is no longer available, I wd suggest Tulsi + Oprah--a winning combination. Both ladies believe in the power of positive thinking, wh/wd be the key to our national recovery. But while we're waiting for these visionary thinkers to step up, let's contemplate another Ho Hum event:
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/04/03/us/wilmington-shooting-house-party/index.html
Ho Hum.
mb
Unknown-
Sorry, I don't post Unknowns. You need a real handle to participate in this blog.
mb
https://www.wmcactionnews5.com/2021/04/02/angry-customer-shoots-burger-king-employee/
What is it about fast food that can cause an American to pop off some rounds?
Krak-
Gd question. It's time we erected a bronze statue of Shaneka Torres, the godmother of all this activity, in Times Square.
mb
Hola a los Waferes,
Thank you Dr. Berman for 15 years of learning, reading The only blog worth following.
Miles - as we like to say, now for a little music:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NleFEDHmdhs
Check out the buffoons in the companion video to this song link. The Doors were hip to empire's decline back in 1967.
Rave On!
Nobody Likes Ted Cruz
We need this man to run for prez in 2024 and win!
I know what some Wafers must be thinking: considering how disagreeable he is & how all the the other politicians feel about him, how could Ted Cruz do more damage than Trump? Trump barely accomplished anything because he was constantly being obstructed from day one even though he generally enjoyed the support of his party. Imagine the resistance Cruz would experience from both sides.
But that's the point! If you want to tie up the executive branch of the US government for the next 4+ years & reassure the world that Trump wasn't a monstrous anomaly but a bellwether president, vote for Ted Cruz. He's what the world needs. He's what America deserves!
Sybok-
Have you abandoned Tulsi this quickly? O ye of little faith!
mb
Would you recommend Guadalajara, or Ajijik, or Lake Chapala for a couple of wafer-anthropologists currently stuck in senior tenured positions in the United States? Leaving this country is a paramount concern. No need to see the Titanic hit bottom to know it's on its way down. She is a linguistic anthropologist, fluent in Spanish, who specializes in the indigenous languages of South America. He is a psychological anthropologists with a focus on divination and spirit possession in south India. We are both in our mid-60's. Time to head south, we figure. Your opinion? Charles & Janis Nuckolls.
Hello Dr.Berman and all,
It's been a couple of years since I posted a comment,but I read the blog faithfully. I am wondering if any of you are familiar with the documentary films of Adam Curtis? He released his most recent film, I Can't Get You Out of My Head, in February. It is a terrifying history of the world from wwII to the election of Joe Biden. It reminds me of many of the themes in Dr. Berman's American Trilogy, too many to note here. I highly recommend it. It was released by the BBC.
All best wishes, Ben
benb-
Cd you give us a link? Thanks.
Charles-
1st, always, always, capitalize Wafer. Very impt. 2nd: congratulations on planning yr escape. Handwriting on the wall, and all that; not a moment too soon. Finally: Guadalajara is a nice town, very large, w/a flavor of relaxed elegance, and lots of fine suburbs (like Zapopan, for example). Ajijic and Lake Chapala are expat havens; if you wanna spend all of yr time talking to American retirees abt the weather, Mexican prices, their houses, etc., while never having a real or intelligent conversation, and while trying not to kill yourselves as you smile and nod, those 2 places wd be perfect. Frankly, since Janis does research in South America, I'd recommend Buenos Aires. Gd luck!
mb
Here's a long-read on Abraham Maslow and how he tried to solve the crisis of meaning and values with an empirical spirituality of self-actualized people. It argues there are deep problems with the attempt, not least it is highly elitist.
https://julesevans.medium.com/abraham-maslow-empirical-spirituality-and-the-crisis-of-values-34148b775f1a
https://youtu.be/MHFrhIAj0ME
I concur, the 6 part BBC doc is a wild ride of underlying decline themes. All 6 parts are available on Youtube. Excellent use of BBC footage and great soundtrack. Highly reccommended.
As the froth of American domestic politics continues the beat off, Biden and the Empire are looking more and more like they may stumble into war. Not the ersatz wars of the last 30 years... but real wars where they might kill us all.
https://youtu.be/Okhgsdezpk0
https://tomdispatch.com/stumbling-into-war/
And if they don't kill us all there's always 1984 updated.
https://youtu.be/G4mDx2XitJw
Let’s check out our latest Karens “spreading the love” in our Dysfunctional States of America. Ha. Ha. Ha.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yo2PwQ5T4nM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpyICiwiJVc
p.s. Dr. Berman & Wafers,
Unfortunately there shall not be an episode next week of Karen Sunday since I’ll be out of town for a few days. Karen Sunday shall resume April 18th. I’m sure then there shall be plenty of our newest “all American” ladies giving us some good hearty laughs here in The Laughing Stock of the World. :)
Thought you might enjoy this if you haven't seen it: Native Americans tried to help the starving Donner Party, research shows. They faced gunshots. Somehow this seems like the most American thing ever.
Maybe "they eat each other" could be amended to "they shoot each other".
Thank you for your response. No, we have no interest in living in close proximity to other Americans. Our reasoning was simply that we need to be near a major airport, and not more than five or six hours from our children. Compromise is inevitable. But as to South America, if we were to go there, it would be to the jungles of eastern Ecuador, where we have been going for 40 years. My wife speak Quechua, the indigenous language. The catch is that it takes a couple of days - at least -- to get out of the jungle, and then another few days to make it to a major airport, like Quito. So we must evaluate our options. Thanks again for all you do. Charles & Janis Nuckolls.
escape-
Thanks for the ref. This is quintessentially American behavior, no? The Washoe finally began to refer to the whites as "non-people." I wd hafta agree. And this hostility toward others, even ones trying to help you, pervades all of American society. I look back on my high schl yrs, for example: it was like an American version of "Lord of the Flies." This same put-down and attack behavior can also be seen in contemporary sitcoms, such as "Seinfeld" or "The Big Bang Theory." What a depressing, and unconscious, way to live.
mb
Charles-
As for major airports, Guadalajara has one; you might also consider Mexico City, wh/is more or less like Paris in Spanish. Let us know how things turn out.
mb
Escape and MB,
Yes, that is quintessentially American behavior. This is why I don't bother trying to help Americans anymore. You'll receive ingratitude at best, and run a high risk of being brutally betrayed. Moreover, America interacts with other nations the way its citizens interact with other people. America broke every treaty it ever signed with the Native Americans, and betrayed many of its European, Middle Eastern and Asian allies. America is an Empire of Backstabbers, but Americans, being off-the-charts stupid, have no idea why other nations despise them. Clearly a nation with a glorious future.
This is an example of how Americans treat their allies:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-fraught-ties-between-the-u-s-and-the-philippines-a-timeline-1477082767
In Dante's Inferno, betrayers are imprisoned in the ninth circle of hell, where Satan himself dwells. Whether you're a believer or an atheist, I think we can agree that Dante was making a valid point here. Those who brutally betray others are, quite frankly, the scum of the earth. This description applies to America and most of its citizens.
Nadine-
Don't hold back! Tell us how you *really* feel! :-)
In the aftermath of 9/11, one exceptional journalist--I forget now who it was--wrote that "they hate us because we don't even know why they hate us."
mb
An excellent film on monks. Like a dream of a sense of life 1/2 lost. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000tpzb
Note: might not be available for Wafers across the pond.
Charles - there's the city of Merida too.
MB - Quote is by one John Powers: https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/50204.John_Powers
Juliette - It doesn't seem watchable outside Blighty. Things come and go on YouTube though.
Is this state preparing for the coming civil war?
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/tennessee-legislature-passes-bill-allow-180258728.html
No, making $225 million on the side while holding a Cabinet position is not normal, Betsy DeVos.
https://www.citizensforethics.org/reports-investigations/crew-investigations/betsy-devos-made-at-least-225-million-while-education-secretary/
Wonder how much her thug of a brother made.
alex-
I like Merida myself, but during the last few yrs it's become a bit of an American expat enclave as well.
Rollo-
In terms of self-destruction, an excellent move. I can only applaud.
Wren-
The Trump regime was really a full-blown kleptocracy. Again, in terms of self-destruction, we can only hope for his reelection in 2024.
mb
@Nadine, Your mentioning betrayers and Dante’s inferno jogged a memory for me; that memory is encountering one of the would-be residents of the 9th circle. It’s a longer story but to make it short, it started as an overnight visit to a family acquaintance in VT and ended with a 62-year-old mother, over family brunch (I was the only guest there amongst two sons my age and a father), saying out of the blue that I’m “weak” after I offered the older son a car ride. Granted, this family grew organic food and had the books of Alice Miller on their bookshelf. To use a modern psychodynamic term, I stumbled into the abode of a covert “malignant narcissist”. Dante writes in Canto 33: “When this one left a demon in his stead, In his own body, and of one his kin, Who with him treachery wrought” And “Is in Cocytus plung'd, and yet doth seem, In body still alive upon the earth”. (https://www.owleyes.org/text/dantes-inferno/read/canto-33#root-422392-1)
Where the above becomes more relevant to this blog, is that I honestly think if I told that story to most people here in the States, they would disbelieve due to the culture's identification with the gregarious-bully. Thankfully, the experience didn’t hurt me nearly as much because I read Fromm’s expose of “Socializing” in The Sane Society and also because I had Dante with me there looking over my shoulder.
@mb - I've decided to give a writing career a shot.🤨 instead of suicide by cop I'll do suicide by writing
Greetings Wafers and GSWH--
That this nation continues to unravel an an accelerating pace is well documented at this point.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/03/us/us-crime-rate-rise-2020/index.html
Came across the below link on the anniversary of MLK's assassination. I know he's been discussed as one of the cultural critics to see that the core of the American Dream was rotten. Has anyone else looked into these sources? I know it sounds like conspiracy to say that the US gov't assassinated MLK but this looks like a well-researched piece. Maybe it's just the first time I've come across it.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/assassination-resurrection-martin-luther-king-jr/5741662
Thanks for all your contributions and keeping us entertained!
MB- Last month made 4 years that I found out about your work. It was in March 2017 when I found a video in Youtube in which you talked about your book "Why America Failed" and you described accurately the American mentality and idiosyncrassy. I was very happy to see that I was not the only one who thought that the US sucks and that there are others who do know how evil Americans are. I have mentioned your work to others and have been trying to get them to see the truth about the US and the rotten American Dream.
Fer-
And we're glad u found us. As for converting the masses: A for effort, but I'm sure you know what yr up against. America is what it is *because* of those masses.
Krak-
I think it's likely that the US Gov't murdered MLK, but as the saying goes, we don't have a smoking gun. What we do know by now is that the Gov't is capable of just abt anything. Its only allegiance is to its own power, and it moves in an orbit in which the ends--its ends--always justify the means. Of course, the former USSR cd be accused of the same behavior, and this was brought out very well in the TV series, "The Americans." I enjoyed that show very much, but was aware that the creator of the series, Joe Weisberg, had worked for the CIA, and in addition, that an American audience wd be more interested in Soviet dirt than the American variety. So the overall picture was heavily skewed. To balance the picture, one wd hafta read Noam Chomsky, Wm Blum, Stephen Kinzer, Nick Turse, and a host of other writers who document the horror we visited on other peoples. Chomsky aside, most of these guys won't be retiring on their royalties.
Gunnar-
Hey, you may find it revivifying. Gd luck, in any case.
mb
All this talk about Mexico reminds me of Porfirio Diaz’s saying, “Poor Mexico, so far from God and so close to the United States.” AMLO recently referenced it in his first virtual meeting with Biden.
There are plenty of places to go in Mexico where you can get away from expats. I’m a huge fan of northern Mexico. Durango is a lovely, isolated and completely undiscovered colonial city with essentially zero expats. Los Mochis, Sinaloa is a small modern city near the Sea of Cortez with exceptional seafood and easy access to Baja ferries. San Luis Potosí is another colonial city that is definitely “undiscovered.” My very favorite state is Michoacán (central Mex) and its perfect city of Morelia. Also maybe Queretaro, the tech hub of Mexico and its second richest city.
Jamie-
Michoacan is very beautiful, but has lotsa problems w/crime and violence. As for Queretaro, I always found it a bit dull, myself. I'm not that familiar w/other places you cite, but anything to avoid American expats. You can take the wo/man out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the wo/man.
mb
I'm trying to find the ref but I think it was Susan Sontag who said the human population is 10% bad, 10% good and the rest is easily swayed.
Felt this was relevant for this blog.
Speaking of MLK, thought this piece might be of interest - on U.S. elites' absolute contempt for King's scathing indictment of establishment violence and imperialism, and their success in banishing that part of his legacy down the memory hole:
https://consortiumnews.com/2021/04/02/the-liberal-contempt-for-martin-luther-kings-final-year/
Ted, Wafers-
RE: the Sontag quote - I believe she says something to that effect in this interview, try around the 1:06:00 to 1:10:00 mark... Apparently it's from her "On Photography" book?
https://www.c-span.org/video/?172991-1/depth-susan-sontag
Somehow, with all the Wafer talk about relocating, I found Paul McCartney’s “Back in the Ussr” going through my head, only with different lyrics that went like this:
Well I flew in from Vancouver and had to pee
Didn’t get to bed last night
Savin’ with that plastic bottle on my knee
Gonna spray with all my might
I’m back in the US of A
You don’t know how lucky you are, boy
Back in the US of A
Been away so long I hardly knew the place
Gee, back where the hustlers roam
Homeless camps, you can see ‘em from outer space
Honey, ditch that cell phone
I’m back in the US of A…
Well, 'Murkin girls dumb as all get out
Their brains up their behind
Military and Oprah, they sing and shout
Rat ass country’s still on
De de de de de de de de de-cline
Oh, spray on now
I’m back in the US of A …
MB and Wafers,
I now present social justice, American style:
https://twitter.com/hashtag/killallwhitepeople?lang=en
That's right, #killallwhitepeople is trending on Twitter and elsewhere, mostly with African-American social justice warriors. These lunatics think this call to genocide is justified. They can't see how they harbor the very same impulse that led white Americans to exterminate the Native American peoples. Yesterday, we discussed how betrayal is quintessentially American behavior. Calling for genocide is also quintessentially American behavior, no?
Nearly all Americans, with the exception of Native Americans, think progress requires cataclysmic violence and oppression. This idea gave rise to Manifest Destiny in the 18th and 19th centuries and interventionism in the 20th and 21st centuries. American social justice warriors are no different than the Americans who perpetrated the aforementioned atrocities; they only have different demographics in their crosshairs.
Nadine-
There's something charming about this, no?
Earth-
Again, there's no smoking gun; but the turn in MLK's politics during his last yr on earth suggests that it was probably the US Gov't that did him in.
mb
Standing by the side of the road recently staring down at my flat bicycle tire someone stopped their car and asked if I needed any help. I waved him off with an "I'm good, but thanks!" I live in Montenegro. I tried to imagine someone stopping to help me in the States in a similar circumstance.
Have had many other friendly, generous, and helpful surprises along these lines here. The crime rate is very low. Never bother to lock my gate or even my door at night. Thankfully, (pre-virus) Americans, whether tourist or immigrant were few. Med climate and a low cost of living. Lots of English spoken along the coast, less inland. Italy a ferry ride across the Adriatic. Lots of natural beauty, culture, history, etc. Post-virus, it might be worth a look fellow Wafers. Early June makes ten years since my escape from the *exceptional* country (and like the GSWH I wish I had left earlier).
Hola a los Waferes,
@ Dr. Berman
To be fair and to balance the scales of injustice re: Us v. Them (US-skis v. Russ-kies)
one must read Dr. Timothy Snyder's work: "Bloodlands: Europe Between Stalin and Hitler"; "On Tyranny"; "The Road To Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America"; "Our Malady".
Apologies MB- no links, no time. Just wander into City Lights, Powell's Books or Barnes and Noble - a real brick-and-mortar-unit - they stock all of them. fug Amazon.
p.s. I bought a mint copy of "Dark Ages America" with a slip cover at Powell's Books in Portland three years ago. What a steal! My raggedy ass paperback copy was well thumbed. I hope my girlfriend read it through, but who knows? She was into Chomsky.
Hello Wafers:
Jack Lattemann's revised lyrics to the Beatles' tune remind me of Frank Zappa's "Plastic People" from the 1967 Absolutely Free album, which came out about a year before the white album. The Zappa record winds up with "America Drinks and Goes Home," by the way.
This could be a Wafer soundtrack.
gene-
Links wd help. Not everyone lives in SF, Portland, or NY. In future, OK?
mb
Good one here:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/apr/05/bill-gates-climate-crisis-farmland
Pastrami - Quote from title on photo of the ghoul in question: ‘Land is power, land is wealth, and, more importantly, land is about race and class. The relationship to land – who owns it, who works it, and who cares for it – reflects obscene levels of inequality and legacies of colonialism and white supremacy.’ The ghoul knows exactly what it's doing.
Think about who is not allowed to own land. My white father marrying my non-white mother condemned all of us to the ranks of the non-landed. Blacks. Native Americans. Jews. What do the white/right people far so much about Socialism? Land reform.
Flanagle - Unimaginable in AmeriKKKa except perhaps, maybe, another bicycle rider. We're kind of prey animals so there's some solidarity.
As the mining giants move in, we need to ask how can this be allowed to happen in the 21st century? ‘Don’t murder this place’: the sacred Native American land at risk
https://amp.ft.com/content/ec92daad-786c-4231-8ebd-4be837924b94
Bunk-
No access to Financial Times (w/o $).
mb
Flanagle,
Staring at your flat bicycle tire here in the U.S. would likely get you cursed at or spat at. Back in the 90s I did a lot of bicycling, and I cannot remember a single instance of someone almost hitting me. And...I never wore a helmet. Today, forget it. Americans driving their big-ass trucks or SUVs while texting are an existential threat to bicyclists. I started cycling again about a year ago, and the change in drivers' behavior from the 90s is stark. I've had drivers curse at me, try to hit me, dramatically swerve around me and then flip me off because I dared to cause them to lose a microsecond, etc.
Bicycling is a good way to experience American exceptionalism--drivers don't a give a shit about anyone not in a car and will gladly fuck with you just to save a few seconds.
These two articles, however, show how thinking about the public sphere helps everyone--drivers, bicyclists, and pedestrians:
https://www.outsideonline.com/2399281/bike-lanes-make-cities-safer-everyone#:~:text=In%20the%20past%20five%20months,get%20around%20on%20two%20wheels.
https://theconversation.com/why-us-cities-are-becoming-more-dangerous-for-cyclists-and-pedestrians-111713#:~:text=Adding%20to%20the%20dangers%20are,walking%20and%20bicycling%20more%20dangerous.
Dr B, it’s uncanny that I feel the exact same way about Queretaro! Makes me feel like we are kindred spirits. If I can get in an Anne of Green Gables reference, it’s a good day. Some young Euro friends were living there and we spent a month with them. While there is nothing really wrong and it’s quite beautiful, there is also nothing right about it either. I think the issue is everyone moves there for work and would rather live someplace else. As for Michoacán, its beauty and true sense of place makes the risk seem worth it. And with two mass shooting a day in the US now routine. Of course I was only there for two months, hardly permanent.
Really enjoyed the Guardian article about Bill Gates and his land holdings. Nicole Aschoff’s chapter on Gates is extremely illuminating. Her book has been mentioned on here several times. A short and deeply insightful book. Netflix aired a hilarious piece of propaganda, Decoding Bill Gates. It basically seems he wrote, directed and starred in a film about himself. He makes sure he comes across as the hero of every situation despite being a total dick. Very American stuff. At least Wafers will see through the bullshit and get a laugh out of it.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00N6PCK4U/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
https://www.thenation.com/article/society/bill-gates-foundation-philanthropy/
Hola Dr. Berman & Wafers,
Just another routine daily shooting in our Dysfunctional States of America. This latest one doesn’t count as a mass shooting since only 2 persons were shot as opposed to our customary 4. But what is somewhat unique about this one is that the shooter is a Dysfunctional States Navy corpsman, an enlisted member of a medical unit.
I wonder how many conservatives got out of their pickup trucks and “thanked him for his service” as he was on his way to gunning down a couple of people in the name of “defending our freedom”..
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2021/04/06/Fort-Detrick-police-kill-Navy-corpsman-suspect-shooting/7361617726555/
https://www.youtube.com/c/AdamCurtisDocumentary/videos
Here's a link to his YouTube page. You may want to watch all of them. It is the astonishing intersection of the military industrial complex, the global banking system which controls Western governments,an apathetic and illiterate population hooked on SSRIS or Opioids (or old-fashioned drugs like booze-,internet porn or fast food) giving us that not great feeling that we live in a country (US) that long ago committed spiritual suicide. Good times! b
Joe-
What was the motive of the shooting? Unclear.
benb-
Thanks for the ref. I hafta say, when you stand back a bit from our current situation, and just look at it objectively, for what it is, there is something terribly sad abt it. I know I've said in the past that when a civ dies, it's not pretty. But this is ugly, and tragic, beyond belief. 331 million people deserve a better life than to be apathetic, illiterate, and hooked on god knows what. What a terrible waste of human life.
mb
Ken Klippenstein'a reporting NASA just sent employees an email seeking volunteers to help staff facilities for unaccompanied migrant children:
The US has considered using NASA facility to house migrant children
There are currently 8,100 minors in ORR facilities.
https://abcnews.go.com/amp/Politics/us-considers-nasa-facility-house-migrant-children/story
Our politicians truly are on the moon...
Ps MB, what's your take as our man in Mexico why the #s are so record breaking? Is it a combo of recent natural disasters in C.A., covid, Biden seems like a 'nice guy'?
Bog-
If the #s yr referring to are the covid stats, I can tell you that it's generally agreed that AMLO didn't handle it very well, when it 1st appeared--like Trump. Both presidents were more concerned abt the economy, rather than abt health, so health took a steep dive in both countries. Plus, the Mexican govt covered up the actual stats until very recently, by abt 60%. Last time I checked, there were 300,000 deaths down here. In addition, there have been a lot of problems getting hold of the vaccine, and then conflicting reports (not just in Mexico) as to which vaccines are effective (esp. in the face of more virulent mutations).
On the other hand, maybe you were referring to a different set of #s.
mb
Sorry to break rules. #s referring to record #s of kids/migrants. Sorry
Bog-
Oh, that! I fear I'm not up on that, but from what I occasionally read online, is that the Mexican gov't is conflicted or confused abt the issue. In other words, that they don't have a clear policy.
mb
Wafers-
Great news from my home town:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/rochester-police-black-people/2021/04/06/a3a6f004-8e59-11eb-aff6-4f720ca2d479_story.html?itid=hp-top-table-main
The crucial pt here, wh/apparently applies to the whole of the US and not just Rochester NY, is that in the wake of BLM and massive protests throughout the land, including efforts to defund the police, the cops have become *more* aggressive rather than less. You'd think, given all the negative publicity and black activism, that they'd want to keep a low profile. But no, just the opposite is true. I dunno how the trial of Derek Chauvin is going to play out, but in general, the murder of black men by white cops goes unpunished. Lots of stats on that.
Which raises an impt pt: What shd black people do abt all this? Protests, calls for justice, lawsuits, and violence accomplish abs. 0. They apparently anger the police into even more aggressive behavior. All they amount to, regardless of how sincere, is emotional discharge. Organized attack on the system--the 'Black Panther' solution--will only get black people massacred (if the sixties are any indication).
Some time ago, there was an article in a major newspaper (I can't remember which), that many blacks had simply decided to leave the country, and reconstitute their lives elsewhere. Several of these folks were interviewed, and they reported much happier lives. (Note that black people have been moving to Paris for decades now, some of whom--e.g. James Baldwin--became famous. Try Googling "black people moving to paris" for articles on the subject.) If I were black, this is definitely what I wd do; altho I'm white, and I quit the US 15 yrs ago for a much happier existence.
Meanwhile, most black folks can't afford to relocate to paris, so what are the other 95% supposed to do? The bottom line is that there is no solution to the race problem in America, and the likelihood is that it will get even worse, and more damaging to black people, as time goes on. As far as race goes, America wd seem to be completely screwed.
mb
MB, you're right that blacks will never be accepted as equals in Amerikkka & as much as I respect MLK as an orator, he was foolish to believe otherwise. Malcolm X really had the only realistic solution & as the US declines & secession becomes more & more tenable, so does his vision. Meanwhile, expect Chauvin to be acquitted & the cops, emboldened by his acquittal, to step up the carnage -- which will lead to even more rioting. It seems like every 30 years there are these massive, violent uprisings that ultimately accomplish nothing (remember Rodney King?).
I wish that, as a white man, I could stand back from all this as if it had nothing to do with me; but I know better. In the coming race war your skin will be your uniform. I hope I'm either dead or an expat before that sh*t hits the fan.
Sybok-
Actually, in the 2nd Rodney King trial, 1993, two of the 4 officers were found guilty and sent to prison. Remarkable, when you think abt it. As for Chauvin: I dunno, it don' look so gd for the poor (vicious) shmuck. We'll know soon enuf.
mb
Dr. B-
In the news-
https://www.pennlive.com/news/2021/04/pa-man-charged-in-us-capitol-riot-was-savagely-beaten-by-a-prison-corrections-officer-his-lawyer-says.html
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/half-republicans-still-believe-false-150452943.html
https://news.yahoo.com/fears-white-people-losing-permeate-190553231.html
Birn-
What a strange country we live in, eh?
mb
Honduras' neoliberal post-coup government green lights the first private charter city, to be run by US tech corporation Próspera and run according to its own laws and government https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-27/prospera-in-honduras-a-private-tech-city-now-open-for-business
We are such a blight.
MB and Wafers, while we discuss America’s decline, do not underestimate or ignore rise of the Hindu right globally. They are becoming increasingly assertive in political affairs outside India, including the mature western democracies UK,, and the USA. Search the name Preston Kulkarni , e.g. Recently, Rutgers historian Audrey Truschke ran foul of them. See these on their ties to the Myanmar junta and rise in the west. Such schmucks thrive in a decaying, dying world.
https://countercurrents.org/2021/04/are-rss-fraternal-ties-with-military-junta-behind-indias-soft-stand-on-slaughter-of-people-in-myanmar/
https://www.trtworld.com/opinion/hindu-nationalism-s-alarming-rise-in-the-west-45681/amp?__twitter_impression=true&fbclid=IwAR0aTnA6roa9heZ7id5mcy08hX4o3DD-gVAFCTXCb6ePVCA4zTXxC6bDsZQ
Largely what I expected would happen, has:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7clGNv4xITU
Looks like Trump, for the time being at least, lost a lot of his social influence due to being de-platformed. That’s likely due to the US’s technology/communication infrastructure, which reduces American politics, discourse and issues to “a show” that can be turned on and off in the same fashion one flips a light-switch or off-button.
Turns out, even Trumpers aren’t serious for the most part, as is the case with the culture and its people. Without Trump’s billions enabling him to break into and through the media apparatus, he wouldn’t have gotten far, if anywhere.
In the US, if even the fascist base are impotent… what do you with that? How can anything change?
Gee golly, must be another loner....what possibly could be the motive in the most amazingest, greatest place on God's green Earth!
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/texas-murder-suicide-b1826982.html
Mr. Berman,
If you hadn't heard by now, Thomas Sowell is very close to your line of thinking. He still seems to be right wing, but I provide the following link for your enjoyment - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBRvm83TXrg.
P.S. There are lots of edits. Also there are tons of other videos in which he is interviewed on a variety of subjects -political and historical.
Sang-
Many thanks. He's one of the few who says that the populace is clueless, AND that this is directly connected to our inability to arrest our downfall.
Dr. Shit-
So many loners! So little time!
Brian-
It can chg a lot, if by change you mean deterioration.
Bergen-
The quintessential American vision, eh?
mb
MB,
Unfortunately, Sowell is so right-wing that he opposes the existence of the minimum wage and wants to abolish welfare, social security, and environmental laws. He blames these things, not corporate rapacity or America's imperial wars, for America's decline:
https://www.aei.org/economics/thomas-sowell-on-the-cruelty-of-minimum-wage-laws/
https://www.deseret.com/2009/3/19/20307818/thomas-sowell-local-environmental-protection-laws-to-blame-for-housing-bust
He is, in fact, a far-right propagandist, although he might very well believe his own bullshit. He thinks Americans are dumb and that this is why America is finished, but only because they aren't as far-right as he thinks they ought to be. As such, his "analysis" of America's decline is preposterous. He lives in an upside-down world where everything helpful, like environmental regulations, is harmful and everything harmful, like unregulated, rapacious corporate capitalism, is helpful. Ideas like his are finishing America off. And although this is anecdotal, I've talked to some right-wingers about him, and they all describe him as much further to the right than Trump. I'm inclined to believe them, since they worship him and every asinine idea that comes out of his mouth.
Nadine-
Thanks for the heads-up. He does indeed sound awful.
mb
Check this out: when it comes to foreign policy, there are very few real progressive minds in Congress. AOC would clearly prefer to just avoid the Israel-Palestine issue entirely. Which she successfully does here.
https://twitter.com/queeralamode/status/1379879392642408448?s=19
MB - Merida actually horrifies me. I did quite a bit of research and wow just wow. The entitled whites strutting around while Humble Brown People(tm) serve their drinks and do their laundry ... I'd want to be nowhere near the place.
As for US blacks, their only hope is if the US Balkanizes. Blacks will hopefully take the South from the port of New Orleans (essentially for any nation to have a good seaport) to the Carolinas at least.
I find it hilarious that at least one reader thinks Sowell and you share so many views in common. This page is uncomfortably right-wing for me but I guess that's one reason I come here. Sowell makes Trump look like Ned Flanders.
Birney Zoave - Whites dying out, don't threaten us with a good time!
Greetings MB and Wafers,
As MB once remarked, "Pence Schmence, that's all I got":
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/apr/07/mike-pence-signs-seven-figure-deal-for-memoirs
Miles
ps: Time for some music:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obGR_pqGYW0
Why not hold your get-together in a warm climate at his Mar-A-Lago? This is one way of helping him out with his finances.
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/former-president-donald-trump-tumbles-154705501.html
Poor John Boehner. America elected a bunch of right-wing lunatics in 2010. Who would've known? Like there weren't any right-wing lunatics before then. What about Gingrich? What about Bachmann? Boehner--along with everyone in the Republican party--stoked the culture wars and used them to take and retain power going all the way back to Gingrich's 1994 "Contract with America" (a cosmic joke). Now, apparently, Boehner doesn't like what the Republican party has morphed into:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/boehner-blasts-trump-saying-incited-121517883.html
A few questions for the Speaker Emeritus: What did you expect? When you fuck with the bull, you get the horns. When you incentivize stupidity, media fame, and a strict Manichaean worldview, why are you so surprised when the likes of Trumpi and his enablers get elected? This is what you wanted...right? Obviously, Mr. Boehner just doesn't get it--America is doomed, and there is nothing he nor anyone else could've done to prevent it. It was going to happen one way or the other. I guess we should thank the former Speaker since he and his ilk are accelerating our decline.
Demo-
He's a douche bag. My hat's off to him.
Jeff-
They're all full of shit, really. I think Schmernie also got in on the act, after the 2016 election.
alex-
I didn't realize I was uncomfortably rt-wing. Well, ya learn something every day. Meanwhile, the trollfoons call me a commie Jew. But I am the GSWH; I absorb all labels, and reject all pigeon holes.
Jessica-
Another politician full of hot prunes. Really, it's exhausting, all that theater.
mb
ps: Here is Dora Carrington, summarizing Lytton Strachey's philosophy of life: “I think it’s NO good being anything but what you are and the great thing is never to do anything one doesn’t feel genuinely inside oneself.”
Alex: See Jim Kunstler’s “World Made by Hand” quartet - he indeed has (what remains of) the south split into warring black and white republics after the (never explicitly explained) end of the United States (though technically the U.S. still exists in smaller form with capitol in Michigan, if memory serves).
Esteemed Dr. Berman, fellow Wafers,
Here’s a musical ditty about authenticity from F. Zappa:
https://youtu.be/EKx2YK7DTX8
Kneel Jung
Black power, American style:
https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/amanda-gorman-vogue-may-2021-cover/index.html
Greetings to Dr Berman and all Wafers.
@OrdinaryIndian what stage of collapse do you think India is in? I have been talking to many people I meet in everyday life especially cab drivers and all of them swear that they are a week away from financial destitution. The lockdown completely ruined their already precarious situation. I used to feel middle class but I too am staring down the barrel at this point of time, and can't help but feel that many people feel the same, they are just too ashamed to say it out loud.
Meanwhile, more evidence that corporations are literally murderers.
https://dissidentvoice.org/2021/04/the-adani-business-formula-dealing-with-myanmars-military/
I didn't see a single news outlet in India discuss the fact that Adani is facilitating murder in Myanmar.
Unknown-
Sorry, I don't post Unknowns. You need a real handle to participate in this blog. Thank you.
Kneel-
Cdn't download it. Possible not available in Mexico, not sure.
mb
WAFERS,
Just another normal day in the wonderful U.S.A. The national suicide continues.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/2-children-among-5-killed-010718996.html
Xair-
You'd think that by now a few social critics might have figured out that these massacres have something to do with the American Way of Life, but no, the dots remain unconnected.
mb
Dr B, love you quote about labels. Adding it to my list of wise quotes from you.
As for Merida, I have some funny anecdotes about it. The younger expat crowd (still well away from retirement) is mostly comprised of Canadians and Europeans who live there because it’s safer/easier to run a business. The older crowd is largely a different story. An Italian expat running an Italian restaurant said he had to be extremely careful of older expats because they will try to ruin any business for almost any reason. In this case, a contingent of expats were mad he didn’t serve free focaccia bread. A French friend running a store said some older expats would yell at her over her strong accent in English. My husband was told by a guy at a neighboring table to “just speak English” while having lunch with his Mexican friend and speaking Spanish. He said their chatter was giving him a headache!! Merida is extremely lovely but probably not a long term option for Wafers.
I always loved Anne of Green Gables because she truly wanted good things for people in her life. Her success wasn’t threatened by good things happening to other people. I always wanted to cultivate that unAmerican attitude towards others once I recognized it in Anne. Definitely haven’t always succeeded though. Sadly Montgomery (a Canadian) was addicted to drugs and lived a deeply unhappy life. https://www.macleans.ca/society/health/lucy-maud-montgomerys-secret-drug-addiction/
https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/2021/04/08/carjackings-rochester-ny-what-we-know-now/7136881002/
I lived in Rochester in the early 90s for 5 years, truly enjoyed it. Dr. Berman you likely know the Park Ave. neighborhood in the city and why my experience was pleasant (I am white). I worked downtown and quickly realized that there were two Rochesters right on top of one another (relatively affluent white, and much less so non-white). The friction between the two created a noticeable high-level friction daily that I have never experienced in other places I have lived or visited since then, I’m sure many exist though throughout the country. During this time, I had many in-depth conversations with several minority residents, including a Black employee of Kodak that was recruited by the Republican Party as a mayoral candidate that might have a “chance” …he didn’t. All these people I spoke with knew then that America was not going to work for them because of systematic racism. They also knew, even if they couldn’t fully internalize it, that America for all was broken and in decline. One way the city had been keeping peace for generations was on the backs of Rochester-based industries (Kodak, Bausch & Lomb, Xerox). Like removing corner liquor stores, when those ceased to provide the same small percentage of perceived economic equality, things became more violent. To Dr. Berman’s earlier point, it has and will continue to get worse.
Jamie-
"You say I contradict myself?/Very well, I contradict myself. (I am huge, I contain multitudes.)"--Walt Whitman
mb
Greetings MB and Wafers,
Kevin VanLuven, a 59-year-old Michigan home inspector, pleasured himself w/Elmo doll in residence's nursery:
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/oakland-county/2021/04/07/home-inspector-video-pleasuring-himself-elmo-doll-sesame-street-rochester-hills-michigan/7128441002/
Meanwhile, it's time for Wafer Hall of Fame (WHF) trivia:
Who was the guy who projected a porn movie onto his garage door as neighborhood kids played nearby?
a. Dick Harden
b. Antonio Smallwood
c. Freddie Wadsworth
d. Justin Bonerjams
Miles
Jeff-
Must be old age; I can't remember. But while were at it: whatever happened to Crystal Walraven? And has Lorenzo Riggins decided to run for Congress yet?
mb
Talk about a crisis!:
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/04/08/business/ketchup-shortage-heinz/index.html
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/16/holocaust-us-adults-study
Why get excited abt ignorance of the Holocaust? American youth doesn't know shit abt *anything*.
Elon Musk's business partner says he could build the real "Jurassic Park" with genetically engineered dinosaurs https://thehill.com/changing-america/enrichment/arts-culture/547087-elon-musk-partner-says-he-could-build-the-real
...Would these dinos blow up like their rockets do?
Hello Miles,
It was Antonio Smallwood in 2019. His name is so appropriate.
As far as COVID is concerned, things aren't looking so good for the Great Old US of A...
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/uk-variant-dominant-covid-strain-us-cdc/story?id=76929773
Do you think Americans have the discipline to tackle a deadlier, more contagious COVID variant? I'm going to go out on a limb here and say "Not in a million years".
And another massacre...
https://abcnews.go.com/US/victims-texas-office-shooting-suspect-large/story?id=76955101
Nadine-
And in America, it's raining corpses!
Luddy-
At this pt in time, just what we need! I can't think of anything more pressing.
mb
@Systems Crash Go (and @Ordinary Indian): The Adani deal with Burmese generals has indeed been reported (or at least alluded to) in the Indian media (link below). Whether or not said Shitface will be tried in the court of life or stew in hell remains to be seen.
https://amp.scroll.in/latest/990927/adani-group-is-paying-30-million-to-myanmar-military-controlled-company-for-port-deal-report?fbclid=IwAR1vMV6zaFC9ITdXKX8NO1mAF2tlLsxkPtJAVAlbDYWJ6Po12lrllfRe0qU
@Dr. Berman,
Agreed. I Shoulda added a bit more to my previous post by elaborating that it's looking like a slow and withering “death by a thousand cuts” is the most likely scenario for US decline… rather than one big cataclysmic orgasm of violent moronity that definitively breaks the country (since the US “corrected” itself by electing Biden and accepting it with resignation).
On the other hand, looks like Amazon’s workers in Alabama are about to uphold the dignity of hard work. Honestly, if they don’t vote to unionize (because of a large number of employees being ideologically opposed to Unionization) a part of me just wants to say they deserve to be dominated and ‘weared and teared’ as Adam Smith put it in Wealth of Nations. Good Lord.
https://www.npr.org/2021/04/08/985498425/amazon-union-election-no-votes-outnumber-yes-votes-at-end-of-1st-day-of-counting
More mayhem and chaos at a fast food joint. What else can you do when they mess up your order?
https://abcnews.go.com/US/off-duty-correctional-officers-allegedly-run-group-people/story?id=76915158&cid=referral_taboola_feed
Mike-
Check out the faces of these 2 women. Does it get more stupid than that? Note that yr looking at America! Meanwhile, for the sake of some tacos (or whatever), they fucked up their lives forever. Ladies, WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?!
Brian-
So much puzzling in the MSM over what is happening to America! The puzzle disappears the moment you realize that in Alabama and elsewhere, what we have on our hands is mass buffoonage: 331 million clueless turkeys flailing around in a dying American Dream. Just look at the faces of the two women in Mike's post, above. Honestly, this says it all.
mb
Unknown-
Sorry, I don't post Unknowns. You need a real handle to participate in this blog.
mb
I think Dr Berman said it on a video I can't find: people in America today are ''above all, selfish''. All the ignorance etc, anti-Boddhisatva wisem stems from this need to ''get mine'' https://www.c-span.org/video/?175428-1/blowback-american-empire-discussion
The Walt Whitman quote figures prominently in the preface to my book on going crazy in America, "Culture: A Problem that Cannot be Solved" (Madison: U of Wisconsin Press.) I have always liked it, and thank you for using it here. Regards, Charles "The Wafer-Anthropologist" Nuckolls
https://www.amazon.com/Culture-Problem-That-Cannot-Solved/dp/0299158942/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=nuckolls+culture&qid=1617943827&sr=8-1
Charles-
Looks gd, thanks.
Neil-
Many yrs ago, but I remember that session. I was a visiting prof at the Catholic University at the time.
mb
Wafers-
From the Guardian review of "Nomadland": "I would file the film as an anti-western, a wholesale repudiation of manifest destiny, the pursuit of happiness, all the Hollywood snake oil we have long been fed." Right on. Of course, all of America is still bathing in that snake oil. Read my new bk, "Morons: A Concise History of the American People." (Beijing: Shit & Shinola Press, 2045)
mb
This is nice:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/09/revealed-republican-led-states-secretly-spending-huge-sums-on-execution-drugs
Kevin - I've read Kunstler's books and even corresponded with him. He was a very angry man then and no doubt became much angrier once he became a Trumper. He did one great architecture book and everything else pretty Meh.
Charles - Wow, a proto-WAFer in the wild! Congrats on the books. I'm sure you're familiar with the fact that Colin Turnbull, who studied the Iks, concluded that in a culture that sick all you can do is hope it's destroyed, you can't reform it.
Some good WAFism/declinism in this Reddit discussion: https://www.reddit.com/r/Sino/comments/mmytvu/china_is_betting_that_the_west_is_in_irreversible/
MB - great little stocking stuffer here: https://i.redd.it/iieixzoo0yr61.jpg
alex-
I love the expression, "Mazel Tough". Hilarious! Hafta tell ya that I recently bought a Jewish Space Laser T-shirt. Comes w/a side of pastrami.
mb
MB -
A different take on this film was in Jacobin
"On the other hand, the film’s a reprehensibly fictionalized fantasy about the lives of elderly dispossessed people who live in their vehicles & work seasonal gig-economy temp jobs...utopian film emerging out of a dystopian framework of a failing nation"
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2021/03/nomadland-review
On the contrary, I think the film might be hyper-western!
- Pub
Black Lives Matter founder buys $1.4 million home in Topanga, which has a black population of 1.4%.
https://www.dirt.com/gallery/more-dirt/politicians/black-lives-matter-co-founder-patrisse-khan-cullors-lands-topanga-canyon-compound-1203374803/patrissecullors_tc1/
Wafers,
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailytribune.com/news/clarkston-man-charged-for-allegedly-masturbating-with-elmo-doll-during-home-inspection/article_fd63b024-695b-5b5e-ba8f-e4f9fc2149f8.amp.html
I would say i'm shocked, but this is just par for the course in this fucked up country. What kind of culture produces such fucked up people?
"Subsidizing multi-billion dollar corporations and pumping up their profits is corporate welfare, not an infrastructure plan."
https://fee.org/articles/biden-s-2-trillion-infrastructure-plan-is-loaded-with-corporate-welfare/
Alex - Yes, hard to reconcile most of what Kunstler writes with the rabbit hole of Trump conspiracies he seems to have fallen into. "The Geography of Nowhere" and "The Long Emergency" are seminal works. Unfortunately, I think part of the reason for his current state is that no one pays attention to the points he's been making for so long - something readers of this site have no surprise about (and, in fact, expect).
Doug Rushkoff's monologue at the beginning of this Team Human episode is also explanatory: it's all about dopamine and addiction. https://www.teamhuman.fm/episodes/mark-pesce
Charles - Will check out your book. We lived in Madison for 2.5 years in the early 90s ("36 sq. miles surrounded by reality") and come back regularly for the FFRF Convention.
If WAFers haven't read it, "Deaths of Despair" is excellent through the first 15 chapters. (Ch. 16 is the obligatory "here's what we do" chapter that is pretty devoid of real solutions, as the problem identified is a dying culture and its effects.)
https://www.amazon.com/Deaths-Despair-Future-Capitalism-Anne/dp/0691217076/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3J7JS0CKJ37XR&dchild=1&keywords=deaths+of+despair+and+the+future+of+capitalism&qid=1617985281&s=books&sprefix=deaths+o%2Caps%2C171&sr=1-1
@Ajay, thanks. I had found the scroll article. But it's for subscribers only. So could not read. While we are at it, here is something to which I would draw attention of the Wafers. Just as we offer one of the oldest civilizations of the world, India also have the oldest fascist movement. And mark my words, the current rulers are a very potent force in the current geopolitical situation.
https://thewire.in/politics/benjamin-zachariah-fascism-sangh-parivar
I have a gut feeling that this regime will not end within the political boundaries of India.
As Nomadland has been getting some notice lately, here's another review. Long/short of it: it's no Grapes of Wrath. I, myself, lost a lot of sympathy for the protagonist when she ditched the abandoned dog at the freezing cold trailer park. Of course I find dogs better company than most people. As for the lifestyle, I have a retired friend who lives this way part time, but does not need to work. He says its worth the tradeoff in age to have more comfort and security as opposed to being a young bum recently returned from Vietnam in 1967; suspects it would likely suck to 'have' to live this way.
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2021/03/nomadland-review
World-
This, and Amanda Gorman (3rd-rate poet) on the front cover of Vogue, says it all, n'est-ce pas? Black power actually turns out to be white power, aka hustling. Wonder when the progs will wake up.
mb
Good afternoon Dr. Berman and Wafers:
Kunstler's column today is just more of the same old bash Biden but love Trump crap we've come to expect.
kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/will-america-survive-joe-biben/#more-'
It's fine and fair to comment on anyone in the public square, but Kunstler has yet to write a word on Matt the love machine from Florida or the Trumpers insane handling of Covid, just to name obvious examples. I think Kevin is on to something. I too remember when Kunstler made pointed and excellent commentary on the slide of America to oblivion. But not many wanted to hear that. So now he's just an old man (I'm an old man too, by the way) who's pounded the table at Thanksgiving dinner hoping for just a bit of attention. To a lesser extent John Michael Greer seems headed in the same direction.
Stay safe all.
Hello Mr. Berman,
Looks like Wafers missed this one ...it was a busy week of shooting i say... Police scratching their heads for the motive... what a sick society .. even kids are gunned down in the greatest country on earth ever.... amazing !!
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/04/09/phillip-adams-south-carolina-shooting-police-search-motive/7154113002/
“”Authorities on Friday are working to determine a possible motive after Wednesday's shooting spree when police say former NFL player Phillip Adams gunned down five people, including a beloved doctor, his wife and their two young grandchildren.“”
Namaste-
I'm old enuf to remember this. After we built the hydrogen bomb, ca. 1952, Jackie Gleason had some comedy routine about a "nuclear chemistry set" for kids. His punch line was, "Be the first one on yr block to rule the world!" Nearly 70 yrs later, it seems apropos. I have often advocated the idea that the Pentagon outfit every citizen w/an arsenal, including a nuclear device, and instruct Americans to just go out and blow anyone they see outta the water. This wd discharge a lot of anger (always a gd thing), plus it might solve the problem of America itself, assuming 90% or more of the population gets wiped out. (Thus far the Pentagon has failed to reply to my letter. Their loss.)
Anyway, I did notice that NFL killing spree, but didn't bother to post anything on it. These massacres are by now in the Ho Hum category. And I doubt Biden's plans for gun control will go anywhere; these plans never do. It's all just posturing.
Arthur-
I've been a friend of Jim's for yrs, but I guess he and Greer, among many others, have become grumpy old men. It's possible (unlike me) that these folks secretly held out hopes for America, despite what they said or wrote. And so, they are bitter abt the country going down the tubes, and bitter that they didn't wind up on the front cover of Time Magazine. One thing they may lack (cf. Hedges) is a sense of humor. They're *grim*! Myself, I do feel sad abt it all, but also greatly amused. Jesus, what a silly country this is, and what a silly people we are. Consider all the Wafer contributions here abt Americans fucking goats, or running people over at Taco Bell because the service was slow, or--Christ, you name it. It all sounds like a bad novel, but hell's bells, it's actually happening, and on a daily basis! I'm sorry, but buffoons are just plain funny, and we are nothing if not completely ridiculous. Which is why I wrote, in this post: Let the good times roll!
mb
ps: The man behind the H-Bomb was a cold warrior and all-around scumbag (destroyed Oppenheimer's career w/his lies), Edward Teller. (I was in a demonstration against him at Rutgers University; we silently held up signs saying PEACE; he called us Nazis. Of course, most of the faculty--who hadn't even been present at the demo--agreed w/him, not w/us. This taught me a lot abt the cowardice, conformism, and 'objectivity' of Academe.) Anyway, he also championed the idea of "anti-matter," saying that it might constitute entire worlds, and that when it came into contact w/regular matter, the 2 annihilated each other, giving off light. Subsequent to that, the New Yorker ran a poem that began:
"On a distant planet/Stark and stellar/Sits a lonely man: Dr. Edward Anti-Teller."
It concluded: "After a searching of years, and months, and days/They met: One handshake, and all was gamma rays."
(This is apropos of nothing, as Woody might say; I just found the poem funny (if not Dr. Teller)).
mb
Dr B-Thanks for another great quote. I’ve already written it down! Also can’t wait to check out Nomadland and see which review gets it right. My husband and I have been nomads since last summer. Unlike the characters, we are in our 30s and not working seasonal gigs. We spend a few weeks or months here or there and find the rootlessness exhilarating. It is so freeing to live with very few material goods and just go wherever we want. My cello is by far the largest item we have. Also completely necessary for my mental sanity. I always thought it would be temporary but now wonder. It becomes fairly addictive to be free and unencumbered.
Charles-Charles- Extremely excited to read your book. Love that your Amazon reviewer said the book ruined his life! High praise.
Whether it’s Rush Limbaugh and Tucker Carlson or Patrisse Cullors and Robin DiAngelo, Americans of all stripes are all about the money. Making money off of fear, hate, envy, shame or whatever else works. Political affiliation doesn’t matter in the least. Money, money, money. They don’t call it the Almighty Dollar for nothing. Thanks to Dr B and other Wafers, I see this all so clearly now.
Greetings MB and Wafers,
Democritus-
Well done! It was indeed Antonio Smallwood.
MB, Wafers,
A widdle poem, inspired by MB:
It's Raining Corpses:
It's raining corpses
Americans are dying
Somewhere, everywhere,
Nowhere,
On TV
I don't care
Like a mystical vision
A cosmic vibration
The sky grows dimmer
Covering up the sun
They make a loud pop
As they drop
I did a rain dance
But did I want it to rain this hard?
My shoes are clean from walking in the rain
Miles
Jeff-
Depressing, that it's so accurate.
Jamie-
I only read a couple of revs of "Nomadland," but I think the critique is rt, that it painted too rosy a picture of Amazon. All the reports we have indicate that the co. is cruel to its workers (even tho in Alabama, the shmucks didn't wanna unionize; Americans are so intelligent). Perhaps it romanticized the nomadic life in general, but I found something very moving abt the last-ditch attempt to create a viable existence out of the scraps of a dying empire, and a meaningless/incredibly stupid way of life.
mb
MB,
I agree that Kunstler, Hedges and others have become grumpy old men, but I think they've also undergone moral collapse. I think they've stopped giving a shit about ethics and are now focused on acquiring money and fame like nearly all Americans. Why else would they be spouting blatant propaganda that appeals to either Trumpers or progs, the two most popular political factions in America?
It seems the American Empire has dragged many of its leading ethicists down into a state of amorality that mirrors that of most of its citizens. I've seen this happen to James Howard Kunstler, Chris Hedges and Bret Weinstein. I'm sure it's happened to hundreds of others.
However, if you want America to disintegrate quickly, the moral collapse of many of its leading ethicists is probably a good thing. Most of their readers are American, so any damage they deal will largely be confined to America. Or so it seems to me. What do you think?
Sorry about not including links this time, but I've posted plenty of links detailing the awful things Kunstler, Hedges and Weinstein have been saying as of late. Reposting them seems unnecessary.
Note: I think I may have accidentally deleted someone's message. If this happened to you, pls re-send. Sorry, and thank you.
mb
Dear Morris I think you you hit the nail on the head when you examined the anger of J.H Kunsler.I am an old man myself and feel the kind of anger that can turn you into a sour bitter old fart.I don't want to go there.I want to stop the train from going off the cliff but there is no way I can yet I still think can which causes me to get angry.I see the absolute stupidity of our new confrontation with China and Russia by Biden and his advisors and I go what our they thinking these people are morons.I even thought maybe a nuclear war might be a good thing at least I wouldn't have to listen to these assholes.Thanks
@Ordinary Indian: Very strange that you can't access the Scroll article, while I had not trouble penetrating their paywall and getting to it twice! Anyhow, below is the link to the ABC News article Scroll leveraged. And yes, I do fearfully agree with you that what the Hindutvawaadis are doing in India won't be confined to the the land west of the Jhelum and east of the Mekong. As you know, the brown (khaki) shirts have already targeted the Gyanvapi mosque in Varanasi as their ticket to success in not just the next general election but at least the one after that—13 years of pure fascist mayhem that, like drugs from the Golden Triangle and the Golden Crescent, will spill into neighbouring countries before being absorbed into Europe and beyond. Only another Great War will settle this. One way or the other.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-30/queensland-adani-ports-myanmar-military-deal/100032156
door-
No real pt in being angry at the US, its foreign policy, or whatever. We are doomed, end of story; and from one vantage pt, morons are quite funny. You cd pretend yr living in 5thC Rome; that might help. Oh, and in future, pls address me as the GSWH, or Mr. Berman. Thanks.
mb
Ordinary Indian,
Even though India is in a bit of a mess at the moment, I wonder if the country really is fatally decadent? I'm not so sure. Can a society that has produced titans like Swami Vivekananda, Rabindranath Tagore, and Sri. Aurobindo, all in the past 100 years or so, really be without hope? In any case, like Japan (As Dr. Berman points out in Neurotic Beauty.) they have a deep, 3000 year old spiritual tradition to draw from. Quite unlike America. So I still think they have a fighting chance.
Upset with coronavirus protocol, women throw bricks at Atlanta Chick-fil-A drive-thru window.
https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/police-upset-customers-try-to-climb-in-drive-thru-throw-bricks-at-atlanta-chick-fil-a
More examples of the US empire's obsession with chicken sandwiches.
Dr. Shit-
Bricks are for attacking elderly Mexican men, as Laquisha Jones so clearly demonstrated (now serving a term of 15 yrs). For fast food joints, the trail was blazed by Shaneka Torres. I have to ask these 4 upstanding Atlanta ladies: WHERE WERE YOUR MACHINE GUNS?!
More to the pt, in the history of the world, has there ever been a country like the US?
mb
OK Texas!:
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/04/09/politics/allen-west-texas-kfile/index.html
Now let's hear it from Vermont, Alta California, Oregon, and other hotbeds of secession. An idea whose time has come.
mb
ps: Dr. Shit: This is also neat:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/apr/09/florida-woman-coughed-cancer-patient-jail-debra-hunter
Greatest people on earth, Americans!
Kevin - I'll grant that Kunstler's "Geography Of Nowhere" was a seminal book. "The Long Emergency" was blah and too rah-rah for wars in the Middle East.
MB - As for Greer, I'm sure he's taken it down but he had one post on his blog where he tried to make a case that the form of gov't in the US is National Socialism. He also painted a picture of fit, young, attractive young people wearing perhaps green shirts and black pants cleaning up parks and helping little old ladies cross the st. Greer was quite happy when the Dump won, and I stopped spending any time on his writing. And we ended up with Wal-Martians killing Capitol police with flagpoles.
All - I've managed to find Qanon's YouTube channel, where you can find the usual Q nonsense. Enjoy! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGY5sKIWIhs&t=358s
Hi Dr. B. and WAFERS:
This is important, but not - in my view - the least bit surprising:
Guardian, Amazon workers in Alabama vote against forming company’s first union, April 9, 2021:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/apr/09/amazon-union-vote-result-latest-news-bessemer-alabama-plant
-Northern Johnny
@Megan, India does have the wisdom of the old world. But given India's current trajectory, one starts doubting how much that helps. But, I agree, India (and China and Japan) are fundamentally different from America.
Remember, India also has its old exclusionary social system, the caste system. The current dispersion is, like any good fascist, trying to create an unjust, unequal, exclusionary, bigoted, patriarchal, hierarchy by dismantling the republic (and everything good in the traditional society) brick by brick, inspired by the 'golden past'. And they are backed by the oligarchs, no surprises.
Anything good will not survive in the short run. After the dust has settled, we (another generation) will have to start building from scratch. My worry is that in the short to mid-term we will be more like Iran where the old wisdom comes to naught.
Here is an example of how the US has severely damaged the Puerto Rican economy. They harm local production and cause unemployemnt in Puerto Rico and then they create the stereotype that Puerto Ricans are lazy and incapable. In the second half of the video, it shows young Puerto Ricans who are getting involved in agriculture.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWm-vv68mRc
Here is how the US harmed Japan's economy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JJEbwWrv94
MB - Earlier you said " I have often advocated the idea that the Pentagon outfit every citizen w/an arsenal, including a nuclear device, and instruct Americans to just go out and blow anyone they see outta the water. This wd discharge a lot of anger (always a gd thing), plus it might solve the problem of America itself, assuming 90% or more of the population gets wiped out."
That would be the best thing to happen. That would eliminate the biggest mistake of the world. It would be great and an act of justice to see that scumbag factory disappear completely. I am sure many would be happy.
BREAKING: Biden proposes a $753,000,000,000 Pentagon budget, a significant increase from last year's budget.
https://www.citizen.org/news/public-citizen-statement-biden-must-reduce-pentagon-bloat-in-next-budget/
Fer-
On the US vs. Japan check out "Neurotic Beauty."
As for our disintegration: altho many countries are not saying it aloud, I think there is a general awareness that China will replace us as the next hegemon, and that our influence is eroding on a daily basis. Not that China is esp. wonderful (it's not), but I suspect that our loss of power will come as a relief to many peoples of the planet. We have hurt so many, and with a violence that is breathtaking.
mb
Frick-
What a radical that guy is! Cutting-edge stuff!
mb
Can you make some room for him in your pages?
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/trumps-plan-start-own-social-104043801.html
An update on my previous post:
Ok, so turns out Amazon’s employees in Alabama decided decisively to uphold the utter cataclysmic dignity of fuckin hard damn work.
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/early-vote-counts-show-amazon-warehouse-workers-not-likely-unionize-n1263558
The next step for us to get out of this socialist nightmare and reverse American decline is to offer up one’s daughter(s), served with the new Popeye’s jumbo spicy chicken sandwich, to Jeff Bezos and fellow senior executives. A healthy and satisfied sexual libido is crucial if the job creators are going to go around creating jobs and save us from this socialist nightmare for god's sake. After that, the next step is to smack Joe Biden in the face with a copy of Atlas Shrugged to knock the communist out of him for the next 4 years.
… no, but honestly at this point, why not (the above)???
Rock-
I suppose so...the problem is that he's a poopy-head. But I wd certainly like to interview the 4 ladies who threw bricks at the chick-a-fil in Atlanta. These are my kinda gals. Looking back at blog history, I have a great fondness for Latreasa Goodman, who called 911 3 times because McDonald's ran out of McNuggets (what is it abt chicken, anyway?). She later did TV and/or radio interviews, defending her actions because she felt it was an emergency situation. It never occurred to her to say, "Thinking it over, I realize I'm an imbecile. Who dials 911 over a problem w/a food order?"
mb
https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/04/06/lying-is-as-american-as-cherry-pie/
Good piece from Paul Street
A land of degraded buffoons:
https://www.thenation.com/article/society/givesendgo-crowdfunding-extremism/
One of my heroes:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/04/09/a-great-tree-has-fallen-the-passing-of-marshall-sahlins/
mb
The lies and madness of America.
And the heroism of Daniel Ellsberg.
The last part on Nuclear War is particularly chilling.
https://youtu.be/I9qqW02Tgvw
They mention a prescient editorial by Lewis Mumford - Gentlemen You Are Mad.
He wrote it in 1946 and it is still totally relevant to today.
https://archive.macleans.ca/article/1946/6/1/gentlemen-you-are-mad
I amazed we have survived as long as we have since this madness began.
Anjin-
For an extended discussion of Mumford, check out AWTY, Essay #23.
mb
"Tourism is an addiction. The traveling public is freaking out. It knows about flight shaming; it loves Greta Thunberg; and it’s ready to bid au revoir to Volvic, Dasani, and plastic straws. But it still wants to sit on a beach in Aruba."
Why Tourism Should Die—and Why It Won’t
"Sustainable" travel is an oxymoron.
https://newrepublic.com/article/156307/tourism-dieand-wont
Do You Really Need to Fly?
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/10/opinion/business-travel-videoconferencing.html
Climate Change Is the Symptom. Consumer Culture Is the Disease.
A new report makes clear where much of the blame lies for our warming planet.
https://newrepublic.com/article/154147/climate-change-symptom-consumer-culture-disease
^^^^^
Hard truths for environmentalists flying all over the world to their conventions.
"These are the sanctuaries and the cathedrals of worship and cultural practice for these tribes."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/04/08/bears-ears-haaland/
"Tourists and looters descend on Bears Ears as Biden mulls protections"
Interior Secretary Haaland visits Utah monument amid controversy over whether to restore boundaries shrunk by Trump
Spot-
Re: tourists and looters (note how beautiful Bears Ears is): whenever yr talking abt Americans, yr talking abt trash. Never forget that.
mb
Unknown-
Sorry, I don't post Unknowns. You need a real handle to participate in this blog. Thank you.
mb
Do not leave your abode! Do not breathe the air! Do not eat
the food! Be on the other side of the wall to grab some of
that vaccine.
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/u-covid-19-vaccine-surplus-100049785.html
Art-
I keep wondering if there is a vaccine for stupidity. Have u heard anything?
mb
Hola a los Waferes -
@ MB No vaccine for stupidity - it's a global pandemic.
Previous missing link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_D._Snyder. A summary of the author's work.
I'm curious as to how many Wafers have ever actually been to Bears Ears National Monument. I went there on two wheels in September 1976. And once again on four wheels in October 2015. It is in a remote region of solitude. Very inspiring. Dr. Berman is correct - most things amerikan equals trash and agent orange's trashing of Bears Ears is proof of his trashy mind. His diminished crowd of trash talkers is the walking, talking proof of idiocracy.
Long Live Bears Ears. It will survive long after we are all toast.
Brian - Look into it, it appears Amazon somehow got the USPS to put an illegal drop-box on their property and I'm guessing all those ballots got round-filed or somehow messed with. There's not way that even in Alabama, without severe election tampering, propaganda, and fear tactics they'd not have voted to have a union. And Biden needs to be smacked around with a copy of Das Kapital not any of that tripe welfare-wangler Rand wrote.
I've found a vaccine site that's not too far from my shop so I can fairly routinely show up near the end of their day and see if I can get the closing time special; a leftover shot. I don't get it, in the 1970s in Hawaii they'd vaccinate all school kids with the jab du jour and it was just no problem. Considering how large families were in the 70s, it was a lot of kids all lining up in school gyms or cafeterias getting stuck, having some juice, and back to class or back home. Only change due to covid would be to hold the event out in the open air.
Doctor,
How are you? Sorry I've been away but my mom suffered a stroke (please, no sympathies) which has consumed much of my time. It doesn't bother me at all taking care of her and which, in fact, I see as a blessing. Still, not a few friends have suggested that I count all the hours I spend with her, multiply the time by 25$ an hour and present the final tab to my brother when we eventually split the estate. You're right-everything, even caring for an ailing mother gets commodified. "You're a shmuck if you don't do it" I'm frequently told. Needless to say, I don't think I can make this year's summit. Still, let me know time and place and I'll see if I can make arrangements.
Dan-
Welcome back, and v. sorry to hear abt yr mother. You seem to be handling it pretty well. Regarding this yr's Wafer Summit in DC: I'm going to make an announcement regarding that in abt a week. When I first talked abt it, some time ago, 7 people said they wanted to attend. Covid notwithstanding, I think it's a go; I'll pick a restaurant that has outdoor seating, in any case. So we'll hafta see if all 7, plus yrself, want to attend. (I hafta to go DC in any case because of my interview for a high-level gov't position, ha ha.) Anyway, tentative date is May 22, if that helps you arrange things; wd be great if you cd join us. Stay tuned, more to follow.
mb
Elon Musk's 'futuristic' $55M Las Vegas public transit Loop is panned as a 'crappy Disney ride' as it's finally unveiled
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9457687/amp/Elon-Musks-55m-mile-long-tunnel-Loop-Las-Vegas-convention-center-unveiled-public-transit.html#click=https://t.co/zy8dTRR5y7
Jann-
The guy's a douche bag, and so are his adorers. For more on the subject, see WAF ch. 3.
mb
“our bodies might well be our best and most effective tool in the effort to strike a new balance between humans and the rest of the living world.” https://aeon.co/amp/essays/to-be-fully-human-we-must-also-be-fully-embodied-animal
For those who enjoyed MB's "CTOS"
@Alex, Do you have a link to any source on it? Something like that would explain it. I was scratching my head even since I read the news, wondering who would prefer not having a union over peeing in bottles. Cannot be a very relieving experience, I would imagine!!!
Hola MB and Wafers,
Daunte Wright was executed by "accident":
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/04/12/daunte-wright-shooting/
Jesus, is this the best excuse these jackasses could come up with? Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this the same ridiculous excuse that was used when another black man, Oscar Grant I believe, was gunned down in San Francisco a number of yrs ago?
Miles
Jeff-
Jackasses is exactly rt. Given the current Mpls trial, and the general climate of opinion in the country, you'd think that the cops wd err on the side of caution. But no...let's continue killing black young men at the same rate as b4. After all, we'll all get off, and there's no way we're gonna be defunded. Etc. The fact is the the police can do, and say, anything w/impunity.
mb
A shining example of the American approach to spirituality (i.e., celebrity worship, which is nothing more than the worship of money, power and fame):
https://twitter.com/churchofminaj?lang=en
https://www.reddit.com/r/ChurchOfTaylor_Swift/comments/fne8kb/welcome_to_the_church_of_taylor_swift/
As these churches show, Americans see money, power and fame as the Holy Trinity. Acquiring these things at others' expense is their life purpose, without which they can't function. They think people are either winners or losers, and that winners have the right to do as they please to losers.
In this context, America's daily massacres and mental illness epidemic make perfect sense. What *is* surprising is that America has only one or two massacres per day; given how its citizens think, that number could easily be in the thousands.
I will be in Washington, D.C., at the same time, doing research for a book I am writing on murder in occupied Japan. Would it be possible for me to attend the get-together? Thanks! Charles "The Wafer-Anthropologist" Nuckolls.
Charles-
You wd be person #9, by my last count. Yes, that wd be fine. Just give me a few more days to make the announcement; I'll then ask everyone who previously expressed interest to email me, and I'll provide the venue. Re: Japan: you might wanna check this out, tho I don't say much abt murder:
https://www.amazon.com/Neurotic-Beauty-Outsider-Looks-Japan/dp/1621342107/ref=sr_1_16?dchild=1&keywords=morris+berman&qid=1618262940&s=books&sprefix=morri%2Cstripbooks&sr=1-16
mb
Thank you. I read your book when it first came out. Very well done. As a speaker of Japanese with several years residency in country, I can attest to the accuracy of your conclusions. I intend to refer to your analysis in my forthcoming work on the murder of an army chaplain in Tokyo in 1946.
With Regards, Charles "The Wafer-Anthropologist" Nuckolls
Dr. Berman,
Been following your blog for close to a decade, but sparingly posting. There is truly no hope.
However, I have to share this buffoonery. The most recent incident has been blamed on GPS navigation and not math innumeracy of
structural heights.
https://abc7chicago.com/long-grove-bridge-hit-again-accident-il/10502966/
Dog shit in their heads.
Thanks,
AL
Film rec- "Promising Young Woman"
Let's just shoot ourselves in the foot dept.
https://www.rt.com/business/520150-us-retaliation-digital-tax/
I was wondering, has the DC police offered to escort our party to the venue next month for the Wafer summit? I'm not sure they're prepared for all the undergarments that will inevitably be scattered across the ground from the adoring fans trying to get the attention of Wafers and the GSWH.
Krak-
This has been a problem in the past. Not so much from panties raining down on us, as mobs of people wanting to get into the restaurant; which is why I don't release that info on the blog. But as usual, the mayor wants to give me the key to the city, and various billionaires who want to attend have offered to buy me yachts, mansions, gold bullion, and a lifetime supply of chopped liver. What can ya do.
Al-
Don't lurk; live! Meanwhile, do you realize how many Americans need to be slapped? I get exhausted just thinking abt it.
mb
Ordinary Indian - Here ya go: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2021/04/amazon-bessemer-union-drive-vote-nlrb
Miles - I'm not sure how many rounds I've put downrange but its ... a lot. I mean a lot a lot. And even with guns with symmetrical grips, never, ever, have I accidentally picked up a pistol with my non-dominant hand. TASERs are typically carried on the non-dominant side and they're bright yellow to boot.
Krakhed - Considering these big co's typically pay no taxes at all, I don't see much of a problem with that.
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