Well, the descent of the US into irrelevance and complete dysfunction continues apace. Poor Joe, most of his great plans are now on the rocks, or are soon to be. Despite his own descent--into madness, by all reports--Trumpaloni continues to exert a very serious influence on the American political situation. 602,000 Americans have died from covid; the stats of alcoholism, opioid use, and suicide are thru the roof; brutality of the cops is even greater than it was before George Floyd; 'unexplained' massacres now occur on a daily basis; citizens exploit each other, and treat each other like dirt; and in general, the misery of Americans is probably at an all-time high. In addition, the government has no coherent foreign policy; it continues to float without any direction, while Russia and China certainly know what they are doing.
All of this is well-earned karma; Americans are getting exactly what they deserve. They embraced this way of life--radical individualism, every man for himself, hustle your way to fame and fortune, cheer the government on in its imperial wars, believe we can do no wrong, and so on--with great enthusiasm. Now it has turned around to bite us in the ass. We are being punished for our callousness, our cruelty, but the word 'punishment' doesn't really apply, because it assumes the punishee knows what s/he did wrong. Americans don't; they don't connect the dots, partly thanks to gov't propaganda, and partly because they are quite stupid. All of these signs of collapse, such as daily massacres, are 'external', as tho they fell from the skies. Suicides, opioid use, alcoholism--these are supposedly individual problems, as tho there is no pattern to them. There is no awareness that all of the factors I mentioned are all of a piece, and that piece is the American Way of Life. Even our most astute critics (or most of them) never realize this, never manage to point this out. And in addition, this blindness is part of the collapse as well.
So we shall either limp along to our oblivion, a la Biden, or--if Trumpalumpi makes a successful return in 2024--rush toward it, like lemmings to the sea. But avoiding it is no longer an option. We cannot, and we shall not, escape our fate.
-mb
ReplyDeleteDr. Berman,
You ask if we either shall limp along or rush like lemmings into our oblivion. Perhaps we’ll continue shooting ourselves to death; and perhaps we’ll even expedite the process by shooting children. See for yourself what’s going on in new York City.
https://abc7ny.com/2-shot-1-fatally-in-bmw;-1-of-at-least-10-overnight-nyc-shootings/10816930/
Empires really put a stamp on future generations. In the US (and many Western countries), we can't help escaping the allure of the Roman empire. Here where I work in the ME, people are still in awe of the Islamic empire, started by the extraordinary Omar. We compare ourselves to the Romans both in rise and collapse, just like they do here (e.g. comparing the fragmentation and in-fighting of the current Arab states to what happened to the Andalusian states near their extinction, coincidentally both civilizations are made of 22 states). Meanwhile, the Romans aren't well known here, except the Eastern Romans (Byzantines) who are very salient in Islamic history.
ReplyDelete-------
Almost finished Neurotic Beauty, still amazed how the Japanese culture is so set on living in the present, which creates positive and negative effects like Dr. Berman said. Perhaps the Japanese loss of identity and cultural malaise is caused by this, i.e. no long-lasting essence to stick to? Although the ME has been through plenty of vicissitudes (including cataclysmic traumas like the Mongol sack of Baghdad, the Crusades, and Western colonialism), there's still a 1400 year old immutable core (Islamic ideals) that keeps people grounded and hopeful.
-------
Recommended reading for Wafers: Road to Mecca. Leopold Weiss was a journalist born into an Austrian Jewish family in 1900. He was tasked with traveling to the Middle East (in the 1920's) and writing reports for his newspaper. His trip is extraordinary, and ended with him converting to Islam, changing his name to Muhammad Asad and writing many books, including this one. He was prescient; he dissects Westerners and other cultures with surgical precision, and his words still ring true today. Phenomenal mind.
I'm catching up on the last post:
ReplyDeleteMB _ Thanks for the film rec of "Compliance" in last post. Checking it out this wkend.
"Val T. said...
Question for Wafers: Is Milton Friedman the inevitable intellectual reincarnation of Ludwig von Mises? Discuss."
Val _ Well they are both pretty big dumbasses. Might I recommend:
https://www.amazon.com/Globalists-End-Empire-Birth-Neoliberalism/dp/0674979524
Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism
Have a great week guys
I think you must have me confused with someone else. I hadn't posted for at least a couple of weeks. I'll try again tomorrow though.
ReplyDeleteAnjin-
ReplyDeleteVery sorry. Feel free to post. Keep in mind that I am extremely senile.
Cherith-
I think I draw on Weiss somewhere in my work, but I can't remember where.
Joe-
But this is what I'm talking abt. If we all shoot each other like dogs in the street, the problem of America will be solved once and for all.
mb
MB,
ReplyDeleteYou discuss Weiss in “Dark Ages America” pages 85 and 93.
America’s inability to realize that infinite growth is not a reasonable goal has a serious and damaging impact on the mental health of its citizens. I have the opportunity to see this up close in my workplace, so much misery. It’s fascinating and also disturbing to watch how people cope with this.
For example, let’s assume that a company lacks proper training for employees, which causes accidents and waste. Instead of fixing this issue, the company just buys more tools and machines and hires more people so they can produce more. Production goes up along with the following: waste, accidents, and more miserable people who were hired into this mess. All they know is more. They are incapable or unwilling to invest in sustainability. Given the high level of blindness and stupidity, it’s a lot more efficient to let the whole thing collapse than try to save it. This is very hard for people to hear, so they keep trying to drag us into solving the problem.
It would take a miracle to save America. The miracle would be a change of mind.
Noura-
ReplyDeleteThanks for the ref. More proof of my senility. As for a miracle: lobotomy is the answer.
mb
Ikea Juneteenth menu with watermelon, fried chicken sparks outrage
ReplyDeletehttps://nypost.com/2021/06/22/ikea-juneteenth-menu-of-watermelon-fried-chicken-sparks-outrage/amp/
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/23/john-mcafee-found-dead-after-spanish-court-oks-extradition-for-tax-crimes-.html
ReplyDeleteA life of hustling always results in spiritual suicide...and sometimes results in physical side, as shown in this article. McAfee's life seems like a synecdoche for America itself.
Dr. Berman and Wafers--on location in TX.
ReplyDeleteTons of Trump 2024 signage everywhere, houses, street posts, city corners, trucks etc.
I'm lovin' it!
Dr. Shit-
ReplyDeleteThank you for yr on-location reporting. Wdn't it be great if Trumpi were reelected in 2024, rolled up his sleeves, and took on the job of finally polishing off the country, once and for all? I get the shivers just thinking abt it.
mb
Cherith - I will savor that article later, thanks. Your name always reminds me of a family of seashells, the ceriths, a particularly beautiful family but then they all are ... my formative years were spent as an obsessive shell-collector on the beaches of Hawaii; seashells are my counterpart to Nabokov's moths. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerithiidae
ReplyDeleteDr. Shithouse: That's the year I'm leaving the mainland; wish I were leaving the US completely.
I've been watching a lot of lead-up-to WWI and WWII stuff on YouTube and Europe was a powder keg leading up to II ... in fact at a gut level it reminds me of the US now and there are similarities, for sure, in land mass size etc. Also been watching lots of Ilan Pappe' etc. ... YT has become almost unwatchable except for obscure lectures and this somehow improves it for me.
alex-
ReplyDeleteActually, I think it was butterflies.
mb
I never understood what made Milton Friedman and Ludwig von Mises so great. All I got from them is that government spending causes inflation and if you spend a dollar to get a candy bar you wont have a dollar to buy a coke.
ReplyDeleteLobotomy or WUT is also not enough for these jerks.. what a bunch of assholes these politicians are .. Imagine Mr. Berman, Kamala vs Trump 2024... what a treat for declinists..
ReplyDeleteKamala Harris laughs her ass off .. “it was a debate hahahaha”.. what a moron
https://youtu.be/0iMYlJqsDcg
https://youtu.be/wIpv9WN3ifo
John Gray on Brexit for The NewStatesman: https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2021/06/how-brexit-changed-us-aftermath-vote-was-study-absurdity
ReplyDeleteCelebrity Apprentice: White House 2024 Edition.
ReplyDeletePresident Caitlyn Jenner and V. Putin announce Nord Stream 3. The pipeline will transport Chinese-made puberty blockers directly to the US.
RC-
ReplyDeleteLink? Any ref at all?
mb
117,000 People Tell Jeff Bezos: Don’t Come Back From Space – Parabolic Arc
ReplyDeletehttp://www.parabolicarc.com/2021/06/22/95000-people-tell-jeff-bezos-dont-come-back-from-space/
Holbrook-
ReplyDeleteA pity Zuckershmuck isn't going w/him.
mb
The New Clerisy: Faith in science is an oxymoron
ReplyDeletehttps://leightonwoodhouse.substack.com/p/the-new-clerisy
The myth of infinite growth on a finite planet is the same lie driving that other force of destruction, climate warming. The worst of American and climate decline are scheduled to occur about the same time. Talk about Karma. It couldn't be happening to a more deserving people.
ReplyDeleteGlimmers of hope for those wishing for a Trump victory in 2024. Count me in!
ReplyDeletehttps://www.counterpunch.org/2021/06/22/the-republican-party-has-turned-fascist-and-is-now-the-most-dangerous-threat-in-the-world/
https://www.voterstudygroup.org/publication/theft-perception
John Locke didn’t leave a good impression on former friend James Tyrrell… https://amp.theguardian.com/books/2021/jun/24/lost-memoir-paints-revered-philosopher-john-locke-as-vain-lazy-and-pompous
ReplyDeleteMichael-
ReplyDeleteGd article. Consider these lines, at the end:
"What explains the descent of the Republican Party into fascism? Racial division explains much. The division of American culture along the same geographical lines as the civil war explains more."
See WAF ch. 4, for wh/I was excoriated. But this chicken, of a Civil War that never ended, is coming home to roost. I argued that a lot of this cd be defused if the North apologized to the South for what it did to it, and if we cd admit that initially, the war was not abt slavery but abt a clash of cultures. For this, given the huge inability of the American public to think in terms of nuance (rather than in strict Manichaean terms), I was called pro-slavery and a racist. What happened after 1865 was the Northern characterization of the antebellum South as a bunch of retarded yahoos, and of the South as being about slavery and nothing else. The expected result is the bubbas, the Proud Boys, and the CSA flag-wavers, who refuse to be characterized as "a basket of deplorables." They certain aren't my kinda folks, but I can easily understand their rage, and their devotion to Trumpi. The way of life of the antebellum South, wh/, if you subtract slavery, was elegant and leisurely, got snuffed out by Northern hustlers, with their view of life as being abt $ and power and little else. (Classic examples: Bill and Hillary) This was seen as 'progress'; the South wasn't buying it. Of course slavery was a horror, and of course it was going to take a war to eradicate it (wh/it didn't really, but that's a whole other story); but none of this excuses the Northern treatment of the South, esp. post-1865. We are paying the price of Northern arrogance and stupidity today.
As for GOP fascism: it certainly looks like it, but keep in mind that the fascist route to national collapse is not the only possible avenue. I personally believe that structural factors make our collapse inevitable, with or without a fascist element. Biden can hardly stave it off; that seems certain. As I've said earlier, it depends on whether you want the American empire to end w/a bang, or a whimper. But either way, it also seems to be ending as a bad joke. Bring on the Jewish Space Lasers!
down-
Do you have any links, or refs? This is not a blog for merely broadcasting personal opinions. Which are like assholes: everyone's got one. Big deal. Best formula: (1) State a specific argument you have abt the collapse of America; (2) Buttress your pt of view with links or refs to reliable bks or articles (this is called 'evidence'). If you have no evidence, post elsewhere. 99% of the blogosphere doesn't even know what evidence is.
mb
The South’s way of life was elegant and leisurely BECAUSE OF SLAVERY!
DeleteThis article goes into the events that Compliance is based on, which was one in a series of similar events. It illuminates Americans’ capacity to blindly follow authority and/or highlights stupidity. https://www.okwhatever.org/topics/naughty/strip-search-phone-scam
ReplyDeleteMB - You're right Nabokov was into butterflies. In fact it's me who's always liked moths. My father had a book called "Beautiful Moths" ( https://www.abebooks.com/Beautiful-Moths-Josef-Moucha-Spring-Books/30695387435/bd ) that no doubt influenced me when I was about 5 and first saw the thing, but I've always found moths a lot more interesting than butterflies. I'm old enough to remember when really huge moths occasionally visited our house on coastal Oahu. They fascinated me. There are, it seems to me, many more forms of moths than butterflies, and I've seen noticed moths that look like tiny scraps of dry grass; you'd never guess they were animate unless you nudged them with a bit of grass and they'd fly off.
ReplyDeletealex-
ReplyDeleteI think chasing butterflies features in Nabokov's novel of his Cornell days, *Pnin*, wh/is a very enjoyable read (a Russian emigre among the Yanks). He got free of teaching by writing *Lolita* in 1955. He left Cornell in 1958; I missed him by just a few yrs. Rotten luck.
mb
At the next one everyone should be handed a gun and ammunition upon admission! Whee... what fun!
ReplyDeletehttps://www.thedailybeast.com/redneck-rave-descends-into-throat-slashing-impalements-and-mass-arrests
Four Quartets review – Ralph Fiennes meets TS Eliot in a triumphant return
ReplyDeletehttps://amp.theguardian.com/stage/2021/jun/06/four-quartets-review-ralph-fiennes-meets-ts-eliot-in-a-triumphant-return
Anjin-
ReplyDeleteI agree: this party needed guns, and lots of them. Maybe next time.
mb
ReplyDeleteWhat do y’all think of Bill Burr? Don’t you think he shows a certain level of ontological knowing vs. intellectual knowing? He’s no Carlin. Yet. But IMO, his recent stand-up routines show that he’s aware that the American people’s baseline stupidity cannot be circumscribed (or delimited?) in any evaluation of our decline. And Burr seems to be aware, somehow, that Americans are buffoons masquerading as human beings. Here’s a favorite of mine from 2012:
https://youtu.be/x0gaYyNk7QA
Alternatives to going down with the ship--
ReplyDeleteThe 30 year old Cuban who delivers for the supermarket is a classical musician who lost his orchestra job when covid shut things down. Yesterday, as we chatted, I said that the USA's treatment of Cuba is shameless. He asked what I was doing in Mexico. When I told him I was a refugee from the empire, he gave a great laugh and a fist bump. Most all of the time, my relations with people are much nicer here than they were in the USA.
I hope that this submission fits within the general blog theme; it seemed it would to me.
ReplyDeleteOne of the websites from which I receive daily emails noted that today is the anniversary of the Battle of the Little Bighorn (25/26 June 1876). In putting together a piece for some of my friends giving a general overview of the battle and showing images of the principal players, I found a quotation that seemed WAFerish. It is from Sitting Bull, leader of the Lakota at the battle.
“The love of possessions is a disease in them. These people have made many rules that the rich may break, but the poor may not. They have a religion in which the poor worship, but the rich will not. They even take tithes from the poor and weak to support the rich and those who rule. They claim this mother of ours, the earth, for their own use, and fence their neighbors away…If America had been twice the size it is, there still would not have been enough.”
Sitting Bull: The Collected Speeches, p. 75
https://quotepark.com/quotes/1823178-sitting-bull-the-love-of-possessions-is-a-disease-in-them-thes/
Jas-
ReplyDeleteI've actually quoted that 1st sentence a # of times on this blog, and in some of my work. Thank you for the full quote. How sane the Native Americans are, and how demented the hustling whites.
Roland-
There seems to be a reluctance, on the part of comedians and critics of the American Way of Life, to call a spade a spade. To actually use phrases like 'degraded buffoons', 'walking jokes', 'clowns', and 'horses' asses'. Yet this is who we are, and it's long overdue to identify us as such. 'Waste products' is also gd.
mb
ps: Impt to know who yr neighbors are. Next time yr in a bar, turn to a stranger and give him/her a mild critique of America. Watch the reaction. Or even take a neutral subject. E.g., ask him if he likes Tschaikowsky. Likely response: "Is he a communist?" THESE ARE YOUR NEIGHBORS, FOR FUCK'S SAKE!
ReplyDeletehttps://lareviewofbooks.org/article/cats-and-the-good-life/
ReplyDeleteReview of John Gray's new work of essays; a "coupling of feline indifference with Daoist contemplation."
Anjin,
ReplyDeleteAmerica's a very scary place, isn't it? I'd bet money that a rave wouldn't result in impaling, throat-slashing and strangulation in any other country. It seems very little is required to make most Americans descend into atavistic carnage.
MB - Will keep my eyes peeled for "Pnin". Come to think of it I've got a bunch of trade credit at a local used book store and chances are good they'll have it.
ReplyDeleteNadine - Some years ago I read a series of blog posts but a (white) guy who was really into "delta blues" type harmonica playing and in pursuit of same he went to a lot of black honky-tonks, like the real things, set up in junky old buildings next to an arm of the local swamp etc. He said there was just zero violence and he never felt unsafe. Also his comrades and mentors all agreed the old jalopy he drove was "bluesy". He mentioned also that redneck bars *were* dangerous and he stayed the hell away.
A shorter while back I read a fair bit about Juggalos, the followers of the band Insane Clown Posse. They hold get-togathers where by all accounts, things are much friendlier and non-violent than at your average middle-class "classic rock" venue or, hell, among middle-aged "Bluegrassholes". Pockets of nice can only exist far away from the mainstream.
Dr. Berman, what in your opinion is the reason behind this mammoth, breathless LGBT/Pride push in several (mostly Western) countries? I am perplexed at the scope and speed of this. I see this push being done by governments, major companies, small independent places, etc. What is going on? Is it simply a group of exponentially growing activists who succeeded wildly in setting this issue in the forefront? Is it underpinned by certain ideological/political/financial motives? Is it just an honest attempt at equality and social justice? What do yo think is the reason for this?
ReplyDeleteToo much hot sauce on a chicken sandwich would set any Karen off, and this one pulled out her gun and did what Karens do:
ReplyDeletehttps://news.yahoo.com/memphis-police-reportedly-arrested-2-120630516.html
Pol-
ReplyDeleteAmericans seem to have some sort of odd obsession w/chicken sandwiches. I dunno why, but these 2 Karens are well in the mainstream of the American collapse. Declinists can only applaud them. The formula: 1st, go off yr rocker if the tiniest thing bothers you. For example:
"On Monday, a Florida man was accused of pulling a gun on a Starbucks employee, who turned out to be the local police chief's daughter, over not having cream cheese for his bagel."
2nd, express yr dissatisfaction by waving or discharging weapons.
We have talked abt fascism as a possible factor in our collapse. But it may not be necessary. The combination of buffoons w/guns, spread widely across the country, cd also do the trick. Go buffoons!
Cherith-
One can only speculate. Possibly Biden, with his push for diversity, got the gay community all excited abt making a splash. As for corporations etc. backing all this, diversity was never regarded as a threat by the Power Elite, nor shd it be, because it is a push to get *into* the establishment as is, not to overthrow it. And this applies to blacks, gays, and practically every other discriminated group. (Only Native Americans envision a different way of life from the one we have.) Did you know that when MLK was going to give his famous "I have a dream" speech at the Smithsonian Mall, RFK had the Signal Corps of the Coast Guard make sure that all the microphones and sound equipment were in perfect working order? It doesn't get more establishment than that. Of course, discriminated groups have a lot to complain about, that goes w/o saying. But they are no threat to the capitalist system, and in many ways serve to divert attn from that system--wh/is the real problem. (MLK began to see this, a few yrs later, and apparently told Harry Belafonte that he felt like all he had managed to accomplish was to hurry his followers into a burning church. Soon after that, he was assassinated.)
mb
Baron: the level of stupidity exposed in that article is mind boggling. It reminds me of this expression usually associated with horror movies “They walk among us.”
ReplyDeleteThe tragedy below eerily reminds me of what’s happening to America as a whole …
Engineers Found Florida Condo Had 'Significant Structural Damage' Before It Collapsed
https://n.pr/3gVXLwg “A structural engineering report provided to the Champlain Towers condominium association in 2018 found widespread issues that required extensive repairs ‘in the near future.’ Parts of the 12-story condominium in Surfside, Fla. collapsed early Thursday morning. Four people are confirmed dead and 159 others are missing. Rescue crews continue to comb through the rubble looking for survivors.”
Condo building partially collapses near Miami https://bit.ly/3A0heUe
"It's less likely likely than a lightning strike, it's just doesn't happen," he said of the building collapse. "You don't see buildings falling down in America. And here we had a building literally fall down, just doesn't happen."
Victims in Miami condo collapse came from around the world https://bit.ly/2StZqjj
Those missing in the Miami condo building collapse https://bit.ly/35UUyH2
To MB and Wafers:
ReplyDeleteIf you want to see examples of how American society is collapsing, look at the videos made by Coach Greg Adams in YouTube. Altho the main focus is about how messed up dating, marriages, sexuality are in the US and about the poison that 3rd wave feminism is, he relates these issues with the degenerate American culture and society as a whole. His advice is the typical American "get on your grind" "hustle" but at the same time he seems to recognize that the US is not going to be around for too long. He makes new videos every morning and every afternoon.
It seems Canada is as sick and evil as the US is. It should be no surprise as both come from the same origin. When the US goes to hell, Canada and the UK should go with it. This is an article about the mass graves of Native children.
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/06/24/americas/canada-unmarked-graves-discovered/index.html
To MB and Wafers, are there any nations that could defeat and destroy the US militarily?
I know Russia and China have nuclear arsenals but could they defeat the US in a conflict?
Could any other nations? Also, do you think a loss of a war would bring or accelerate the collapse of the US?
Fer-
ReplyDeleteKorea was a stalemate. We lost every war after that, and Afghanistan, "the graveyard of empires," hardly helped. Vietnam was probably the worst of it. All of these things have been pushing the US toward its inevitable demise.
Noura-
Collapse of Fla. condo cd be seen as a metaphor for the US as a whole. And as you note, the people dead or missing were of very diverse origins. (This too is a metaphor.) Not fascism, but implosion, will do us in.
mb
Dianne Feinstein lists $41M Lake Tahoe estate https://nypost.com/2021/06/25/dianne-feinstein-lists-41m-lake-tahoe-estate/amp/
ReplyDeleteGreetings MB and Wafers,
ReplyDeleteRoseanna Denton, 28, battered four nurses during a hospital fight:
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/buster/battery/djt-fan-collared-201695
Buffoons on parade:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKMwtv4346k
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOp4NQuqDds
Miles
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbXpfdOVpPI
ReplyDeleteMore clownish bubbas and Karens spouting paranoid lunatic unsubstantiated nonsense. They think "radical homosexual drag queens" have infiltrated the government, and are plotting to destroy Christians and the nuclear family. This is Qanon-level delusion. It reminds me of crazies with tinfoil hats claiming aliens are taking over the government and planning to replace humanity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxyJq9Hl-jo
Clementine Ford, the most prominent Australian feminist, regularly tweets about how all men should be killed, all men should be severely abused, all men are scum, etc...and much of the Australian media gives her a platform, as though she's someone people should actually listen to. It was Andrea Dworkin and other American radical feminists who first expressed these sorts of sentiments. Now feminists in other countries are following suit.
Prof. Berman-As regarding posing a friendly question about Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky down at the neighborhood bar: https://blog.primephonic.com/how-classical-music-listening-could-double-in-the-us
ReplyDelete"When asked to name a composer they know, 46% of Americans could not name even one classical composer. Among younger Americans (18-34) more half (52%) could not name a single composer".
flan-
ReplyDeleteHere is a direct quote from that article:
"64% of Americans with a high school diploma could not name a composter"
I'm not exactly sure how composting got factored into that discussion, but I confess that I too can't name a single composter. In any case, these data are encouraging to any enthusiastic declinist.
Jeff, Nadine-
The more buffoons, the faster the decline.
mb
Hi Wafers,
ReplyDeleteThe virus got us watching the teevee more than is really healthy, but we happened upon a show call the Great Pottery Throw Down from England. Nothing of the sort could ever happen in the US - the contestants were much too generous and kind with one another. In fact, for a "reality" show (which I generally despise), it is remarkable human. One of the main judges, Keith Brymer Jones, weeps when he experiences beauty in someone's work. And at the end of the show, all of the potters return with their families for a big celebration. Check it out if you're interested in pottery and humility. A good contrast to the garbage that you see on teevee in the US.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Pottery_Throw_Down
Wafers-
ReplyDeleteIt might be time to refresh yr post-its:
THE MORE BUFFOONERY, THE MORE DEGRADATION
THE MORE DEGRADATION, THE FASTER THE DECLINE
Dio-
This follows in the great tradition of philosopher G.E. Moore, whose "Principia Ethica" of 1903 argued that the 2 most impt things in life were love/friendship, and the appreciation of beauty. Moore is largely forgotten today, but his influence on England during the 1st half of the 20C was enormous. The Bloomsbury crowd regarded the bk as a sacred text. John Maynard Keynes, Lytton Strachey, and E.M Forster hailed it as "a work of genius." Compare this w/the American tradition of complete lack of interest in friendship, and beauty. (Perhaps even hostility toward them)
mb
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9728181/Passenger-tries-open-cockpit-door-jumps-plane-taxiing-LAX.html
ReplyDeleteEverything's coming up roses--usa, usa!
Vignettes from American life:
ReplyDeleteIt was 1999, and Günter Grass had just won the Nobel Prize for Literature. It was splashed across the front page of every newspaper in the world. I was living in DC, a few blocks from my bank, the Bank of America, and had to go there on some business. An ordinary teller wdn't do; I needed to talk to someone in management. The woman I talked to was abt 32 yrs old, very pretty. I had a copy of the WashPost w/me, for that day, w/the headline on Grass. Innocently, I showed it to her, said, "Look! Günter Grass won the Nobel Prize." She sort of half-shrugged, as tho she had been annoyed by a gnat. I continued, "Are you interested in German literature?" This was not said sarcastically; she looked like an intelligent woman. At this pt, she actually snorted. I realized that in her mind, this was the dumbest question anyone had ever asked her. We concluded signing the financial papers I had to deal with, and I thanked her and left. "What wd it be like," I said to myself, "to date someone like that?" I suppose I shd have known better; I had just completed the Twilight bk, and Norton wd bring it out next year. How many Americans even know that there is such a thing as German literature? 2 or 3,000?
mb
Dr. B and Wafers,
ReplyDeleteLet us not forget that Mar-a-Lardo left behind a lot of booby traps and land mines. They will speed the inevitable implosion. Also fascism could play a roles: Good insights on that topic by Umberto Eco in this essay from many years ago:
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1995/06/22/ur-fascism/
Please USians to be "calm and respectful"....that's like asking USians to name a composter (sic)..might as well ask them to sign a petition to end women's suffrage (like they did at UCSB-AKA-U Can Study Buzzed) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1J8uX9_-Bg
ReplyDeletehttps://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/tsa-reminds-passengers-to-e2-80-98remain-calm-and-respectful-e2-80-99-after-security-officers-attacked-bitten/ar-AALpHyl
https://www.businessinsider.com/tsa-unruly-passengers-airline-assaults-crew-biting-denver-14k-fine-2021-6
Seriously, can anyone with a working brainstem, think the US empire has any sort of viable future?
You knew this organization existed, yes? We all knew that somewhere someone had started the US Composting Council. Get to know your contemporary composters now!
ReplyDeletehttps://www.compostingcouncil.org/
Vision Statement:
We believe compost manufacturing and compost utilization are central to creating healthy soils, clean air and water, a stable climate, and a sustainable society.
Mission Statement:
The US Composting Council advances compost manufacturing, compost utilization, and organics recycling to benefit our members, society, and the environment.
Compost: Nature's Way to Grow! ®
Glans-
ReplyDeleteThat UCSB clip is one of my favorites; I saw it yrs ago. All of these feminists (some coming out of classes at the Women's Studies Center) lining up to sign a petition to end women's suffrage. Feminist morons in action, I guess. What were they learning in their classes, anyway? (They were probably updating their Facebook profiles.)
As for passengers biting TSA agents: I'd prefer the use of guns, but in lieu of that, I guess teeth will hafta do. What a collection of shmucks Americans are.
Dan D-
Gd 2c yr into composting. There was an episode of "30Rock" in wh/David Schwimmer plays "Greenzo," an environmental fanatic, who at one pt asks Liz Lemon (my heart throb, Tina Fey) if she composts her own feces. Of course, composting may not be the best use of feces. There have been a # of links posted on this blog showing Americans flinging feces at one another. Of this, I can only approve. (Americans have been weaponized, but now they are also fecefied as well as dentized.)
mb
I hope Wafers get this before they make the fatal error of picking
ReplyDeleteup a slightly used AR-15 after a citizen does his duty by shooting
the previous owner. Also, it is advised to always carry a white
flag when you take your pistol with you outdoors.
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/heroic-civilian-killed-colorado-gunman-180826017.html
Wafers-
ReplyDeleteT-shirt proposal, given the collapse options of fascism and other avenues to cultural death:
I FAVOR THE BUFFOON OPTION
That way, people will stop you and ask what the Buffoon Option is. You can then explain it to them, and watch them go into a furious rage. I love it when they start screaming, and waving their arms.
mb
Greetings MB and Wafers,
ReplyDeleteMB-
I luv that T-shirt!
MB, Wafers-
Re: fascism as possible route to quick American collapse
Here in the US the big fear is that the government will go fascist. This belief is prevalent on the progressive left, of course. Here's the deal: the US govt. doesn't need or want to become authoritarian or fascist to oppress us. Repressive state and authoritative measures are not really needed because Americans are essentially an obedient citizenry, behaving in ways that mostly support the arrangement of the larger society and dominant power structure. It would be redundant for our government to oppress us because we are already behaving, in every regard, in ways that completely support and reinforce the corporate winners and the government power structure. Hours of shopping and dicking around on social media is enough to maintain the status quo. Why mess w/the formula (shopping from a cell-fone) that seems to be working so well as an agent of social control? Most folks don't even notice that the capitalist-political system is rigged. And if they did, they wouldn't care one iota. This is why folks like Michael Moore are dead wrong, and MB is correct.
Miles
Jeff-
ReplyDeleteIt's even possible that buffoons will want to buy that T-shirt, to show (futilely) that they are not buffoons. As for the "soft power" dynamic (Joseph Nye) you refer to, you've summarized quite nicely Antonio Gramsci's analysis of the mechanism of control in capitalist societies (see "Genio" for elaboration). In the immortal words of Earl Butz, Nixon and Ford's Sec'y of Agriculture, what Americans (actually, he said 'coloreds', but obviously it applies across the board--another 'victory' for diversity) want, is "a warm place to shit":
http://www.thisdayinquotes.com/2009/09/earl-butz-three-things-loose-shoes.html
(I'm not clear on the ref to 'loose shoes', and also not too many women are concerned with 'tight pussy', altho what do I know.)
mb
Miles – Your analysis is spot on. The majority of Americans have been so dumbed down that a fascist or authoritarian government is not needed to oppress them. We can protect people from external dangers but I have no idea how we can protect them from their own stupidity.
ReplyDeleteMB - Another eerie metaphor regarding the Florida condo collapse in relation to the US as a whole: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/miami-beach/article252386828.html
Major Error in Structure - “In a 2018 report about the Champlain Towers South Condo, an engineer flagged a ‘major error’ dating back to the building’s origin where lack of proper drainage on the pool deck had caused ‘major structural damage.’”
The American Dream was a mistake from the very beginning. Those who warn about serious structural issues are not taken seriously until it’s too late. Making more money as fast as possible seems to be the priority. The more I think about it, the more I realize that America is not a real country, it’s a business enterprise masquerading as a country.
The idea of infinite growth in a finite world is like a cancer that has destroyed the structural integrity our organizations. We’re left in a situation in which it’s impossible to sustain communities because the structure is unstable. The majority of Americans are becoming too dumb to connect the dots and realize that this is not a personal problem.
Mike Gravel, former US senator for Alaska who read out the Pentagon Papers, dies at 91
ReplyDeletehttps://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-mike-gravel-alaska-government-and-politics-49428bf81c2081f064d1fa8fd05a26a1
Noura-
ReplyDeleteMarilyn Monroe made famous a song called "We're Having a Heat Wave," many yrs ago. I've changed the lyrics to coincide with the rising Buffoon Levels (BL's):
"We're having a buffoon wave
An American buffoon wave
The #s are rising
It isn't surprising
They certainly can, can-can!"
Meanwhile, anti-semitic trollfoon attacks continue, but come in as a trickle--one might say yiddle by yiddle (a joke, wh/the trollfoons are too stupid to get). (It doesn't bother them that I delete their messages by the 3rd word.) This is disappting, since I wd prefer a torrent of attacks rather than a trickle (I love these guys, they're so dumb). All I can do is bait them some more, in hopes that it will get them all fired up. E.g.: Trollfoons! Yr rt, Jews rule the world. In particular, they rule you, because they are smart and u.r. stupid. And there's fuck-all you can do abt it. Make no mistake: we will replace you!
That oughta do it (here's hoping; god, these shmucks are so dumb). Come on, you limp dicks; show yr teeth.
mb
I am very late to the party, but wondering if any Wafers have read the book Middlesex, from the early 2000's? (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2187.Middlesex)
ReplyDeletePerhaps not an intentionally WAFER-ish book, but tells the traditional multi-generational immigrant story, wherein the promise of a shining city on a hill breeds in the first generation a small businessman with delusions of Rand-eur [I'm hoping this phrase catches on!] in the second generation a pathetic and futile attempt to ingratiate itself with the WASP establishment as the country [in this case late 60's Detroit] crumbles all around them. Fantastic read.
Wafer Noura--"Making more money as fast as possible seems to be the priority. The more I think about it, the more I realize that America is not a real country, it’s a business enterprise masquerading as a country." Spot on.
ReplyDeleteReporting from Texas, there's many restaurants that have tons of advertizing that state they're veteran owned/former law enforcement with (actual) shrines to Trump and to the imperialistic goon squad (us military) in a concerted efforted to drum up customers for that (low pitched voice) good ol' american hu$tle----We support our military, now buy the 'best' bbq brisket!
It appears that us empire style capitalism had NO bounds-like the universal solvent, DMSO, it diluted anything of value. Everything was about getting more money in that "business enterprise masquerading as a country (Noura)."
El A-
ReplyDeleteYes, read it many yrs ago. Gd novel.
Noura, Dr. Shit-
Chris Rock, a wonderful comedian, once said that when u.r. talking to an American, u.r. actually talking to that person's agent.
mb
(NOT) Having it your way....Shooting over too much hot sauce on a chicken sandwich.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/2-arrested-after-burger-king-shooting-over-chicken-sandwich-with-too-much-hot-sauce/ar-AALvgwG
https://www.wavy.com/news/national/pair-charged-in-shooting-over-spicy-chicken-sandwich-at-tennessee-burger-king/
Ha ha ha. I assume that I am not the only one who reads an article like the following- a serious problem in the US with reasonable proposals for a lasting solution- and has to laugh at the possibility of such change happening. In this case, housing and evictions.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.jacobinmag.com/2021/06/us-eviction-crisis-post-pandemic-covid-cdc-moratorium-housing-courts
"The Poverty and Race Research Action Council, among other advocates, has outlined how the federal government could change those programs to invest instead in government and nonprofit housing. We should move our housing billions out of the private market and into social housing, built on a foundation of full public-sector ownership and management. In so doing, we will commit to democratic control of housing, which will minimize costs and include mechanisms to remedy race and income segregation.
"Social housing is not a pipe dream concocted by a random think tank or tenant advocacy group: it is an approach with a proven track record in multiple European communities. For example... the majority of Viennese live in municipal and cooperative housing, and three of every four Finns are eligible for publicly financed housing."
Ha ha ha. Nope, we'll continue to squeeze every last drop of decency from people so a few can maintain their rapacious ROI.
Dan D-
ReplyDeleteThe author is a jackass, quite obviously. This worked in Europe, so it's going to work in America, is the idea. Sure: when pigs fly in V-geese formation over the White House.
Here's an interesting (never tried) expt: walk down the street, and the 1st American you come to, strike up a conversation over any topic of real substance. Doesn't hafta be politics; cd be art, or literature, or medicine. Listen for the answer, watch the reaction. Now do the same thing in France, or Germany, or Italy. Do you perceive any difference in the response there?
The point is that when you walk down the st. in the US, and you see an American, what you are looking at is a buffoon. Europeans might (and do) think about social housing; buffoons--not a chance. And as George Carlin said, it's from this gene pool of buffoons that our elected leaders come. So what serious social changes can we expect from such a situation? The American idea of social change is to start capitalizing the word 'black' (for example). 'Nuf said.
mb
Dr. Berman,
ReplyDeleteThis supports your thesis that the Civil War never really ended. Back in 2014, my wife and I visited the Confederate Memorial Hall Museum in New Orleans. It was and is paid admission. In retrospect I feel like a putz for giving the institution money.
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/us/revealed-neo-confederate-group-includes-military-officers-and-politicians/ar-AALwLIR?ocid=mailsignout&li=AAggFp5
Dr. Shithouse, MB – I wasted so many years not realizing what America really was. Fortunately, I woke up. Better late than never. For example, in a workplace, I noticed that another department was struggling. I went out of my way to help because nobody else was. I was told that this was beneath me and I had to stop. Someone else was hired with the intent to solve the issue along with other things. This person instead focused on other things to advance himself and dumped the issue on a subordinate who had no skill or ability to solve the problem. In America, being successful means advancing our interests at the expense of the whole, it means not only ignoring other people’s suffering, but stepping on them on our way to success. Imagine what would happen if we were to run out of basic resources in an environment like this. This is the kind of stuff horror stories are made of.
ReplyDeleteI wonder what else China and the rest of the world are thinking of America …
https://bit.ly/2SxPTb7 “A Chinese state-run newspaper on Sunday cast doubt on the U.S.' ability to hold its officials to account … The editor also noted that U.S. officials weren't held to account for the country's high COVID-19 death toll. ‘The US seldom holds officials to account,’ he wrote. ‘Over 600,000 Americans died from the COVID-19 epidemic, but so far, no officials have been held accountable. By contrast, many officials across China have been dismissed due to negligence in the epidemic fight.’"
The value system of America is turning it into an increasingly unsafe place to live, both physically and psychologically. This wise quote from Carlin is part of my psychological survival toolkit “Never argue with an idiot. They will only bring you down to their level and beat you with experience.” Remaining grounded in reality in America is no small feat.
Noura, Michael-
ReplyDeleteNavigating the US: just keep in mind that practically everyone you encounter is a dolt.
mb
Greetings MB and Wafers,
ReplyDeleteDid the civil rights movement actually accomplish anything?:
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-06-28/l-a-segregation-problems-unchanged-in-decades-study-shows
Turns out that very little has changed in decades in terms of inequality and segregation patterns in California and other urban cities. Brass tacks: we're a joke civilization.
Miles
Jeff-
ReplyDelete% of wealth held by black people in 2020 was same as it was in 1960. Wow!
mb
"If we want to fight the climate crisis, we must embrace nuclear power" - argues the founding editor of Jacobin, and author of The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequality, Bhaskar Sunkara https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jun/21/fight-climate-crisis-clean-energy-nuclear-power
ReplyDeleteHeterodox but smart thinking.
Noura, Dr. Shithouse--it's really laughable when american dolts (redundant) and Europeans, Asians, South/Central Americans, etc..keep referring to the US as a "country."
ReplyDeleteThe place is a imperialistic, hyper-capitalistic, slaughter machine laughing stock. Yet, the marketing/propaganda was really good. Plus US movies, teevee, "news," (propaganda) shows portrays a farcical image of americans/america that many foreigners have embraced and hence been effectively, bamboozled.
It's a head scratcher (to me) as to why the foreigners think the US "saved"(not about global full spectrum imperialistic dominance) Europe during WW2, the US is abt "freedom," making a 'killing,' looks so nice...it's as if they're regurgitating talking points from a real estate /travel brochure. Foreign dolts too.
Mike R-
ReplyDeleteIt was the Red Army that did the heavy lifting in defeating the Nazis. We lost abt 600,000 men in WW2; Russia lost something like 27 million.
mb
Good evening Dr. Berman and Wafers:
ReplyDeleteI haven't posted for a bit, but right now I have a question to pose. How many Wafers are familiar with Sydney Watson? I came across her site at SydneyWatson.com a few weeks ago. She's an attractive woman, presents herself well, and makes a point of mentioning her educational level. She has a Master's Degree. Occasionally she makes a good point about Woke/Cancel Culture (which isn't hard to do), but if one scrolls the site one finds the usually far right nonsense. My question to everyone is this: There are a number of right-wing voices that make sure to tell everyone how smart they are. We know the names--Shapiro, Knowles and others. But I can't believe they really make a bond with the morons who go to listen to the head jackass Trump. Why would they want to if they're so smart. At least William F. Buckley truly believed what he was writing. So is it simply an act and a grift? Are they playing a part like Lawrence Olivier played Crassus in 'Spartacus'? Stay safe all.
Art-
ReplyDeleteI haven't the faintest idea. But I've been thinking abt slogans for new Wafer T-shirts. Here's my latest (a sure-fire conversation starter):
AMERICANS LIKE TO KILL PEOPLE
You cd send one to Sydney Watson, tell her to ram it up her educated ass.
mb
Hi Dr. Berman and Wafers:
ReplyDeleteUmair Haque has not only the United States collapsing but everywhere where Western values hold sway collapsing as well along with climate disaster, ecological collapse - Haque certainly presents this very convincingly - for me at least.
https://eand.co/the-beginning-of-the-end-of-western-civilization-dee7c1598f45
Couple the above article with the New York Times article on projected human population declines by mid-century throughout the "First World" plus China and this collapse as has been frequently noted on this blog might happen in the next 20 years or less. I think the increasing costs and availability of fossil fuels might kick in around that time frame too. I hope the NYT article opens for everyone because it's very interesting.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/22/world/global-population-shrinking.html?ct=t(RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN)
Covid deaths may be closer to 900K: https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/05/06/994287048/new-study-estimates-more-than-900-000-people-have-died-of-covid-19-in-u-s
ReplyDeleteTo conform to the model of the 1918 flu, the US needs to lose 2 million and we may in fact, over the course of 3 years (which is how long the 1918 flu was a big thing) we might match the 1918 model after all.
MB - Long ago in the Before Times I was hanging out at a coffee shop downtown, and some people were debating logic, with some actually rather simple problems but they were getting pretty heated; not so much at each other but at the difficulty of the problems (for them). I butted in and told them that symbolic logic had been come up with over 100 years ago to attack the same problems they were, and introduced them to the Pons Asinorum. I thereby attained a reputation as some kind of logic master. Source: I took a 1-semester college class in logic aimed at dumbos who didn't like math, years and years before. If you have a crumb of smarts in the US, hide it!
Michael-
ReplyDeleteHaque probably needs a girlfriend. As for collapse...of course, it's in progress rt now (just read the papers). But I've said repeatedly, the US will be a v. different country in 2030 than it is now. And that's only 9 yrs away. What do Wafers think might happen between now and then?
-Trumpi gets reelected
-Massacres of 10 or more people happen 2x/day
-Mark Zuckershmuck is permanently sent to the moon
-Shaneka Torres gets released, shoots up another McDonald's for no bacon, goes back to jail
-Kim's buttocks explode
-Kanye admits that he's stupid and ugly
-Mike Pence is reduced to selling toilet paper on street corners
-The Capitol gets blown up, reduced to rubble
-Nancy Pelosi gives birth to an aardvark
-Millions of Americans start wearing Wafer T-shirts
-The US Mint changes IN GOD WE TRUST on currency to BUFFOONVILLE USA
-Sarah Palin begs me to shtupp her on an ice floe (I turn her down)
-Etc.
Wafers are encouraged to add to this list.
mb
ps: I just thought of a few more.
ReplyDelete-Trumpaloni shits himself during his inaugural address, claims it was a good thing
-Jewish Space Lasers land in Yankee Stadium; Hasidic Jews come out, sing "Hava Nagila"
-As a result, Majorie Taylor Greene launches the Bowel Movement; millions cheer
-Katz's Deli erects a statue of Reince Priebus in Times Square, made of chopped liver
Meanwhile, I'm sorry to report that my recent bout of trollfoon antisemite-baiting has born little fruit. Cd these bozos be wising up? I was hoping for a torrent of hate, but it's still a only trickle. What's a Jew to dew?
I can think of a few:
ReplyDelete•Kim Kardashian is given her own national holiday
•Trump's corpse receives 80 million votes in the 2028 election, making him the only deceased person ever to be elected to public office
•Ted Cruz is arrested for shitting in Nancy Pelosi's soup
I just screened "The Imitation Game" a 2nd time. It's a biopic abt Alan Turing, the mathematical genius who cracked the German Enigma code, thereby shortening the War by 2 yrs and saving more than 14 million lives. The British gov't then rewarded this War hero by persecuting him for being gay, until he finally committed suicide in 1954, at age 41. By the end of the film, I wanted to scream at this horror perpetrated by the State.
ReplyDeleteThe British gov't finally made a posthumous apology to him in 2009 (whoopee!), and in 2019 the BBC named him the greatest person of the 20C.
The film is gd on challenging conventional notions of normality, showing that a-normality can be a powerful and positive thing. Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley are terrific.
mb
Is it just me or does the state map of Florida resemble a handgun?
ReplyDeleteFlorida - “The Handgun State”
https://images.app.goo.gl/ejdKmSwvTaRxAG7B7
Nadine - Our great country already elected 5 dead people [https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/26281/4-dead-politicians-who-still-got-elected], so it would merely be continuance of grand tradition.
ReplyDeleteHowever, there is still progress to be made. Senator Ted Stevens only narrowly missed re-election in 2008, despite being convicted on corruption charges just a week before Election Day. To truly progress in WAFER-dom, Trump could perhaps be convicted of high treason and still win office.
As for other potential 2030 happenings:
- Nursery school shootings
- A majority of Americans not knowing what July 4th commemorates
- 60% of working age Americans spend their days trying to sell digital advertising space to each other
- Large swathes of the rust belt become the personal fiefdoms of Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, a la the Belgian Congo. They begin launching drone strikes at each other's cryptocurrency mines to manipulate.
El Al-
ReplyDeleteJay Leno once did a "Jaywalking" episode in wh/he asked people what country we separated from on July 4, 1776. Most didn't know; answers included 'China'.
mb
Art V, it depends on what you mean by "right wing." The goal of GOP Inc at this point is to channel Trumpism into supporting them while delivering nothing in return. They want the MAGAtards to stay on the GOP reservation, and clowns like Ben Shapiro and Michael Knowles opperate in service to that end.
ReplyDeleteReal men of the Right tend to get their ideas from obscure philosophers like Julius Evola, Rene Guenon, Giambattista Vico, Carl Schmitt, and Gabriele D'Annunzio. We don't pay much attention to the gatekeepers of the GOP except as a source of amusement.
Hola MB and Wafers,
ReplyDeleteRobert Golwitzer, Jr., 42, of Ankeny, Iowa arrested after threatening to blow up a McDonald's restaurant for neglecting to include dipping sauce w/his order of Chicken McNuggets:
https://www.foxnews.com/us/iowa-man-blow-up-mcdonalds-sauces
Miles
Jeff-
ReplyDeleteIn the great tradition of Shaneka Torres. Look at that face! Talk about bozos. How is it that all Americans seem to look like that, w/that dull, lost look?
Christian-
You failed to include Tulsi Gabbard on yr list. And since when is Vico esoteric? Well, I guess to 99% of the American population, anything intellectual is esoteric. Meanwhile, Oprah will soon be endorsing my new bk, "Tulsism for the Masses."
mb
Wafers-
ReplyDeleteThe antisemitic trollfoon attacks are still at a low ebb. Maybe these clowns have migrated to another blog, I dunno. But here is something that shd bring them back in full force: The largest comet ever found is moving toward the earth, and it's called Bernardinelli-Bernstein. Which means that space is at least half-Jewish, and suggests that Marjorie Taylor Greene is probably rt abt Jewish Space Lasers. Bad enuf that Jews control the Earth; now, w/the help of certain Italians, they are going to control Space. Their symbol is a pizza covered with gefilte fish. Vey iz mir.
mb
Enjoying the discussion as usual. I have a few of ideas to contribute for possible events to occur by 2030.
ReplyDelete-Trumpi loses his temper in the debate for the 2024 election, and bitch slaps Biden into a coma
-The public cheers this and he wins in a landslide, and establishes the first American dictatorship announcing his children as heirs to the throne
-Tulsi Gabbard leads the the military takeover attempt, and she is crushed
-Bill Gates and Elon Musk create a cyber sex robot that fucks Americans into a stupor
Miles- I am befuddled as to why Robert Golwitzer, Jr. didn't just throw a grenade in their faces for leaving out the dipping sauce with his McNuggets. A true American shows no mercy.
Krak-
ReplyDelete1st off, if Mr. Golwitzer had been equipped w/a nuclear device, as he shd have been, the dipping sauce wd have become a nonissue. I keep writing the Pentagon abt this, but they apparently think I'm some sort of crank. (Can you believe it?)
More events for the next 9 yrs:
-Kamala Harris declares that she hates black people, gays, Jews, Hispanics, and Asians. She also refuses to wear a mask at a 7/11 and shoots the clerk like a dog in the street. Oprah proclaims her 'an American hero'.
-She also slaps Tulsi's face until it swells to twice its size.
-My 5-vol. work on "Philosophy of Tulsism" becomes a best seller, thanks to Oprah; I retire to Majorca.
-Marjorie Taylor Greene gets officially married to a dildo in a Qanon church. Jewish Space Lasers attack the church.
-Sarah Palin takes her act to the Borscht Belt, together w/Ging Newtrich and a life size wax doll of Hillary.
-Progs go nuts, kidnap Trumpi and bake him in a casserole dish.
-Obama suffers from hemorrhoids, becomes poster boy for Preparation H.
mb
Christian – in response to your comment about “real men on the right”. In “Jesus and John Wayne”, Professor of History Kristin Kobes Du Mez makes what is for me a convincing argument that 80% of white conservative American Evangelicals continue to support Trump, because 50 years of religious propaganda have prepared them to idolize rugged, militant, “pussy grapping” males in the manner of John Wayne and Ronald Reagan – white men ready to defend the country with violence and promote and live by the claim that real Christian men are made by God to rule women and children. The core of Evangelical theology, she argues, is patriarchal. The good American is a Christian American who accepts that men are in rightly in charge. This, of course, is appealing to men who want to rule and/or abuse women and children. And in Trump. they have a hero who agrees with them - or at least appears to.
ReplyDeletehttps://kristindumez.com/books/jesus-and-john-wayne/
down we go -
ReplyDeleteGood book. I agree. I believe I may have mentioned it here recently as well.
Christian -
I have to admit, I'm curious. I remember you from earlier days on this blog. Is this you? [https://twitter.com/cschulzke26]? If so, how did you go from WAFER-ism to openly advocating for fascism and the ethnostate? I am not trying to woke-shame you here or anything so please don't accuse me of that. We're among friends here. I am just curious as to how somebody goes down that journey intellectually.
Christian-
ReplyDeleteSorry, cdn't run it (24-hr rule).
mb
Wafers-
ReplyDeleteA very funny, endearing film, with Greg Kinnear: "Phil". It's obvious he made it as a way to work out his own philosophy of life.
mb
USians were passion folks. They authentically cared abt important things: citizen-based double taxation (with Eritrea), FATCA, no universal health care, employment at whim/will doctrines, living wage with real benies, student loan debts, no real retirement, war mongering-military imperialism, etc...and....chicken sandwiches taking too long to prepare.
ReplyDeletehtml
The USian grew irate while waiting for his chicken sandwich. Employees tried to appease the man with chicken tenders. He then flew into a rage and started repeatedly punching the door.
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article252468868.html
"On Monday, Morning Consult released a troubling poll that shows that 26% of Americans meet the definition of "right wing authoritarian," which is defined by psychology researcher Bob Altemeyer as "as the desire to submit to some authority, aggression that is directed against whomever the authority says should be targeted and a desire to have everybody follow the norms and social conventions that the authority says should be followed." For comparison, the percentage of Americans who are right-wing authoritarians in the U.S. is double that of Canada and Australia. It's a mindset that has come to define the modern GOP."
ReplyDeletehttps://www.salon.com/2021/06/30/trumps-arizona-audit-is-unpopular--and-thats-the-point/
Hello Wafers:
ReplyDeleteIt appears that Donald Rumsfeld will never hang for his war crimes.
al-
ReplyDeleteAny evidence for this claim?
Hans-
I'm surprised that the figure is so low, in fact.
mb
Hello Wafers:
ReplyDeleteShould I have added the qualifier, "...in this world?"
He cheated the hangman, in not quite the same way as did Herman Goering, but in any case, he got away with his many crimes.
al-
ReplyDeleteCheck it out:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jun/30/donald-rumsfeld-dies-us-defense-secretary
Certainly he was a war criminal. But what abt Bush, and Cheney, and that scumbag Paul Wolfowitz? There is a whole list of them, in fact. All of them need to be hung at The Hague.
mb
How pesticide companies corrupted the EPA and poisoned America https://theintercept.com/2021/06/30/epa-pesticides-exposure-opp/
ReplyDeleteLet's not forget to add Condoleezza "mushroom cloud" Rice to the list of war criminals needing punishment at the Hague. Oh yeah, Colon Powell, too. Both of these people surely knew they were lying to get us in war with Iraq.
ReplyDeleteccg-
ReplyDeleteI don't get it: doesn't diversity guarantee decent and virtuous behavior? I'm shocked! But surely their diverse backgrounds are more important than the millions of people they killed or displaced, no?
Kerala-
Note that Dow also manufactured the napalm used in Vietnam.
mb
NYT reports that younger and younger children, and increasingly more of them, are having serious mental health problems. But how cd that be? The country itself is a paragon of mental health, so these data must be incorrect.
ReplyDelete(Link is behind a paywall, so I didn't reproduce it.)
mb
I am just curious as to how somebody goes down that journey intellectually.
ReplyDeleteThis question begs for a long answer, but I will keep it somewhat brief out of respect for our host. For me it started with the financial crisis in 2008. One thing you notice with guys who have gone down the path I have, is that there is some incident that happens that they cant reconcile with the prevailing orthodoxy.
2008 did that for me. It started me thinking that this wasn't a normal crisis and that it was rooted in our culture. Soon after I happened upon a YouTube video of a professor I had never heard of giving a talk about his book Why America Failed. I bought it, read it, and came away with the distinct feeling that Liberal Democracy is a death cult. Nihilism masquerading as progress. That impression was subsequently reinforced with I read Patrick Deneen's Why Liberalism Failed and, perhaps most importantly, Carl Schmitt's The Concept of the Political. It's a short jump from there to reading about traditionalism and what imbues cultures with a sense of purpose and meaning. How are transcendent truths curated and passed down to subsequent generations. How does one feel part of a greater whole that one contributes to and passes on. Well, it isn't accomplished with free trade and mass immigration.
Against this backdrop Obama (who I voted for) became president. I am ashamed to admit it, but I got caught up in the irrational exuberance that this would be a cathartic moment. That the shadow of racism would finally be gone and we could move forward together. Obama played identity politics and made it very clear that wasn't going to happen. And since then the Left has double, triple, quadrupled down on it. Meanwhile, the migrant crisis happened in Europe and I started to hear about the rising rate of rape in Sweden and of a town in Britain named Rotherham. The US seemed to be a real life contest of how degenerate can a society actually become. Drag Queens reading to kids, homosexuals leading children around by a leash in parades, young girls with no ambition other than to become whores on Only Fans. I could go on and on but I think you get the idea.
The key problem for the Right is how to reconcile Tradition with modernity and Third Positionism (Fascism) seems to offer an ideological framework for doing so. And well, real Fascism has never been tried – hey, come on, that excuse works for the Marxists. :-)
MB - It is the opinion of my cousin, a clinical psychologist focusing on adolescents, that these behaviors are not new but being better diagnosed now. Just one man's anecdotal opinion, of course.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting to determine which ways America is getting worse and in which ways it's always been deficient. I think mental health fits the latter category. An interesting exploration of this issue in the culture was The Sopranos tv show, which spent as much time lampooning the pathetic state of 90's suburban America as it did questioning whether the good old days were all they were cracked up to be. In the therapy sessions, it is gradually revealed that Tony's issues were directly inherited from his forebears, who similarly tried to bury their crippling neuroses in work, crime and indulgence in food/alcohol/mistresses.
Christian-
ReplyDeleteA bit long, but OK. Myself, I think we can find better ways of reconciling tradition and modernity than Fascism, even if it's only to hold them in a dynamic balance--something I (and probably a lot of Wafers) have struggled with for much of my life. Using Fascism to do this is an easy way out, imo; a collapse of that balance. It reminds me of that story by Elia (Charles Lamb) of the guy who burned down his house so as to roast a pig he kept inside it. Real Fascism has certainly been tried, and we know the result: the house burned down, and 6.25 million Jews along with it. And let me pt out that yr hero, Carl Schmitt, was a prominent member of the Nazi Party. (I also have a particular distaste for some of your other heroes, such as Julius Evola, an antisemitic conspiracy theorist.) While it's true that America is a decadent society--a crucial factor in the collapse I've been predicting since the Twilight bk--Trump came close to providing a Fascist 'solution' for it, and his minions are certainly interested in burning the house down (e.g., Jan. 6). Amigo, you can surely do better than that, and them. Just my opinion, but going to extremes is a short cut, not the thinking man's solution.
mb
El Al-
ReplyDeleteCd be, but we're going to need a larger database than 1 person b4 we can come to that (or any) conclusion.
mb
Hello Wafers:
ReplyDeleteWell, yes, Bush, Cheney and Wolfowitz (as well as Rice and Powell) ought to be hanged as well, if the precedent of Nuremburg is applied, but Rumsfeld is the only one of them who died yesterday, which is why I mentioned him.
I'd add to that list Richard Perle and Donald Feith, and since Julius Streicher was hanged for his propaganda efforts, Thos. Friedman, Judith Miller and especially William Kristol should also receive a ticket to the gallows.
Dear Dr. Berman. wafers,
ReplyDeleteI just watched a short documentary (an interview) about the climate issue by UK's channel 4 regarding the corruption in US politics that allowed the "big oils" to lie about the impending climate disasters for 40 + years. I mean whatever evil and ills there are in this world, it always boils down to one factor: the unfathomable greed of the American way of life.
Matt.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5v1Yg6XejyE&ab_channel=Channel4News
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/30/climate-crimes-oil-and-gas-environment
Matt-
ReplyDeleteThanks for the refs. The truth is, that if you replaced these CEO's by average Americans, they wd proceed to do the same thing. Hustling is all we know. BTW, always, always, capitalize Wafers.
al-
See my reply to Matt. The problem is that we wd hafta hang everybody.
mb
Christian,
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, a huge percentage of people throughout the world have fallen into the embrace of authoritarian ideologies like fascism, Communism, radical feminism, theocracy and woke ideology. I understand their appeal: most democratic governments are corrupt and incapable of giving people what they need. However, this doesn't mean authoritarianism is a viable solution. History has shown us what authoritarianism does: it leaves countless corpses in its wake. It's much, much worse than the corruption and stagnation of democracy.
Surely, there are better solutions to the problem of modernity than using brute force to impose traditional values and kill countless people. IMO, the Native Americans, the Basques, the Japanese and most nomadic peoples have found good solutions. We should give their solutions a try.
Interesting contrast to any American or Canadian leaders of the 2000's.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bogorlab.com/uncategorized/germany-bid-farewell-to-merkel-with-six-minutes-of-warm-applause/
If Germany had won the war do you think we'd still have transgender story time for children?
ReplyDeletenam-
ReplyDeleteThat, plus free distribution of pastrami sandwiches and platters of chopped liver. Gehakte Leber ueber Alles!
Anjin-
Well deserved. There are few like her.
mb
Nadine-
ReplyDeleteRe: the Japanese: check out NB, for what the Japanese did to the Ainu. Unit 731 is also instructive (discussed in my bk):
https://china-underground.com/2012/10/17/35-rare-images-of-the-infamous-japanese-experiment-unit-731-in-china/
mb
Christian, what do you think of Russia. It seems to me that the Russians have found an alternative to neo-liberalism & negative freedom that doesn't involve fascism or state communism. Certainly they have less freedom of speech than Americans & the Orthodox Church might be exercising some undue influence on the state (as a former Jehovah's Witness, I find their persecution of that sect deplorable), but overall it looks like they are slowly finding a balance between individual rights & the good of the community.
ReplyDeleteWhile I believe that western democracy in its present form is ultimately unsustainable, the problem I see with fascism is that in seeking to preserve & perpetuate traditional values, it can't help but force a particular, narrow subset of such values on large swathes of people who won't necessarily agree.Even Russia has succumbed to this tendency in its persecution of the JWs. JWs practice traditional values, but their idea of the good life isn't the same as Russian Orthodoxy & so they, being the weaker of the two sects, get suppressed.
Greetings MB and Wafers,
ReplyDeleteRe: Don Rumsfeld
Well, it looks like Rumsfeld finally got his peaceful transition...
I would place Rummy in the top 10 list for democracy's greatest enemies. Rest in hell, you bastard!
Meanwhile:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/30/climate-crisis-crime-fossil-fuels-environment
Miles
Likely other WAFers have noticed this as well: https://www.scoop.co.nz "The Weird, Creepy Media Blackout On Recent Assange Revelations"
ReplyDelete(Yes, and very, very shameful).
flan-
ReplyDeleteWhat a horror. Disgusting.
Sybok-
I guess we shd get some input here from Alexei Navalny.
mb
Speaking of human garbage:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jul/01/donald-rumsfeld-defense-secretary-lies-crime-death
And think of how the wo/man in the street, including war whores like Wolf Blitzer, cheered at the destruction of Iraq. "Shock and Awe" was reported in practically erotic tones. And now, for the typical lunkhead American, this is just some vague historical episode (if remembered at all). Tell me it's not karma, that we are now falling apart; that we did not bring abt our own collapse.
mb
Smooth Move Dept.:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jul/01/los-angeles-police-fireworks-explosion
There is, in the US, no upper limit to douchebags.
Nor to douche baguettes. Here's one in action!:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/01/nyregion/arlo-hotel-hate-crime-keyon-harrold.html?surface=most-popular&fellback=false&req_id=571940754&algo=bandit-all-surfaces-uh-lastthismonth-alpha-01&variant=7_bandit-all-surfaces-uh-lastthismonth-alpha-01&pool=pool/91fcf81c-4fb0-49ff-bd57-a24647c85ea1&imp_id=608410103&action=click&module=Popular%20in%20The%20Times&pgtype=Homepage
Diversity in war criminals! That's progress, right?
ReplyDeleteAnd it didn't stop after Bush II. Obama's people were pretty adept at that sort of thing, too. Everyone should read Obama's Unending Wars by Jeremy Kuzmarov where you can read about the war mongering of (cackling) Hillary Clinton, Samamtha Power, and Susan Rice. Just recall what they wrought onto Libya. And the latter two are in the Biden administration in some capacity. Biden almost certainly wanted Rice as Sec. of State but knew she wouldn't get approval by the Senate, as I recall.
And now we have our first black Sec. of Defense. The Syrians and Iraqis must be overjoyed by the fact that they've been bombed twice now by an agency headed by a black fellow. Who came to that position almost directly from the army but with a short stop at Raytheon.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/27/us/politics/us-airstrikes-iraq-syria.html
ccg-
ReplyDeleteWho knows? The Syrians and Iraqis may not enjoy being bombed, but perhaps knowing that the person doing it to them is black might take the sting out of it. "At least he's black," they'll say, just b4 they die. I'm telling ya, diversity is a wonderful thing.
mb
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/547248/rules-displaying-american-flag
ReplyDeleteI am sure #8 is incorrect, because we are told that the stars on
the goddam flag must be positioned to the viewer's LEFT. Does this
not suggest some sort of commie lie, something that only a Wafer
would consider proper?
Sorry if this has been posted before but I just discovered this
ReplyDeletehttps://thecorrespondent.com/466/the-neoliberal-era-is-ending-what-comes-next/61655148676-a00ee89a
I really enjoyed this writer's book (Humankind 2020) https://www.amazon.com/Humankind-Hopeful-History-Rutger-Bregman/dp/0316418536
I wish I could be as hopeful as the author about the possibilities for new social arrangements based on the principle that most humans are good intentioned. If we were able to measure good intentions or something like that in the USA, I fear it'd be closer to most humans are pieces of dreck.
Ziggy-
ReplyDeleteNot too many commies on this blog, amigo.
mb
There is dysfunction inside the VP’s office, aides and administration officials say. And it’s emanating from the top. https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/30/kamala-harris-office-dissent-497290
ReplyDeleteWell-sourced & indepth report in2 the dysfunction @ the VP level
Klein-
ReplyDeleteHow can this be? The Biden admin's slogan seems to be "diversity = quality". See ccg's post abt the new Secy of Defense. I'm sure that like that gentleman, Kamala is top notch. Both of them represent not only quality, but massive social change, the kind of change that will turn America around.
mb
NEW: The Pentagon wants to spend $190 billion on new nuclear weapons and progressives are just rolling over
ReplyDeletehttps://theintercept.com/2021/07/01/nuclear-weapons-pentagon-spending/
Marble-
ReplyDeleteDeclinists, on the other hand, are dancing in the streets. To quote Chandler Bing, "Could we *be* more self-destructive?"
mb
Christian,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the response. It sounds like we are roughly the same age and went down similar paths, with the disillusionment with both Boomer Conservatism under W and liberalism under Obama. I only made it as far as Spengler though, never got to Evola or Schmitt. I never saw fascism as a desirable or practical solution to their failures, not least because my family on one side had the brief pleasure of living in a fascist state [and Communism on the other side, so I'm not advocating for that].
I could write essays on my more detailed critiques, but on a more basic level, I think that fascists seemingly consider most of society's ills to be the product of some elite conspiracy, usually tied to Judaism somehow, and that the way to fix those problems is for some equally cunning right-wing cabal to outsmart them. I think this is seriously off-base. "Degeneracy" as you and your friends like to call it, is not the product of Adorno trying to destroy the white race from beyond the grave, but simply the reflection of the hollowness that has always been at the core of American society. The works of Dr. Berman and others have shown this convincingly, I think. Having the government stage Gestapo-style raids on OnlyFans camgirls or gay pride parades is not going to fix any of that. What all those people need is better parenting, and there's only so much any government, even a Totalitarian one, can do to mandate that.
Ultimately, the "Dissident Right" is just a slightly repackaged version of the John Wayne rugged individualist myth. Some very smart, right-wing supermen are going to save America from itself by instilling discipline and "cleaning up the streets". Boomer Conservatism with less Christianity and more Pagan mysticism. However, America has no Pagan, or really any kind of traditional pre-Industrial path, to draw on.
Hear ye, Hear ye, Dr. Berman & Wafers. There is no mass shooting epidemic. It’s all an illusion! There only “is an epidemic of fear,” according to this “scholar”. Only about “two dozen,” occur annually, according to him.
ReplyDeletehttps://news.northeastern.edu/2021/06/30/the-myths-and-the-realities-of-mass-shootings-in-the-us-today/
Bravo for this professor! It’s about time someone put this mass shooting canard to rest! America actually is a loving, peaceful, placid culture!
Joe-
ReplyDelete1. You see how effective American brainwashing is.
2. You recall my assertion, that in the US, even the smart people are dumb.
There will never be a wake-up moment for Americans. They'll be chanting USA! even while the country is bankrupt, and they are lying broke, in the gutter, sniffing glue. The Chinese army cd be occupying all of the major cities; it wdn't make any difference.
mb
Christian, what do you think of Russia.
ReplyDeleteSybok, Russia is an interesting case, they already went through their collapse and successfully beat back the outside attempt to plunder the nation and destroy it. They seem to have found a third way that is neither completely authoritarian or completely democratic, but is decidedly anti-liberal. We'll see if it survives the passing of Putin or if it was all a temporary reprieve until a pro-western stooge, like Navalny, can be counted on to complete what took place in the early 1990's
EL
The JQ is a touchy subject. I think the Dissident Right overdoes it, but I don't think they are entirely wrong either. Adorno, Horkheimer et all aren't responsible for the degeneracy, but they certainly did everything in their power to exacerbate it.
As for Fascism, its not a computer program we can input into the system and save the West. I think the philosophy at the root of it offers a useful framework, but that is all. A strong, successful culture for people of European descent is going to have to arise organically, which, is no easy feat. As you and Dr B have pointed out, the US was born bourgeoise. Its Liberalism or bust, we have nothing to fall back on.
Christian-
ReplyDeleteLots of opinion (much of it wrong-headed), and no evidence at all--not a shred. Not exactly impressive. Navalny and Kasparov are hardly stooges; rather, they are trying to fight Putin's authoritarianism, and to create an open (democratic) society. As for the Jewish Question: you can't be serious. Attacks on the Frankfurt Schl, wh/I admire greatly, and whose work I have drawn on from time to time, are standard in the playbook of antisemitic tropes. This is what you want to be part of? And fyi, they were hardly trying to exacerbate American decadence. In fact, much of their critique was precisely *of* American decadence. But then, I'm guessing you haven't actually read their work. In any case, it sounds like you have managed to modify your (simplistic) commitment to Fascism somewhat; at least that's in yr favor. You might now want to modify what appears to be yr flirtation w/antisemitism. Ugly shit, amigo; it will poison yr soul.
ps: Marble: I forgot to add something I've mentioned b4: Toynbee notes that in the declining stages of civilizations, they will do precisely what caused that decline in the first place, in other words, exacerbate the situation. More nuclear weapons wd be a gd example of this.
mb
Wafer Joe McIlnen re: your apt reference,
ReplyDeletehttps://news.northeastern.edu/2021/06/30/the-myths-and-the-realities-of-mass-shootings-in-the-us-today/
Most US empire "academics" were dead from the neck up-basically, braindead, likely needs to tell his audience what they want to hear and of course, generate 'grants' for continued relevance. Brainwashing was quite strong with buy-in to what the US was offering.
Many Europeans *still* wax poetic abt the US "saving" Europe during WWII (it was Russia who did the most to save Europe), and other foreigners thinking the US was one big "Friends" teevee episode, and everyone driving a lux car, as they regurgitate: "It's the land of opportunity™©." "American Dream.©"
Personal experience only: Next time you're with a Taiwanese, Japanese, Kiwi, European, Central American person, etc. tell them the US empire was an utter shit hole, and that it was 'good' at only 2 things: killing and hu$tling. See what they say-watch their body language. Many will give you: resting bitch face, stink eye, snort, a nervous laugh etc.as that cognitive dissonance was quite uncomfortable when clashing with American propaganda.
ps: Christian:
ReplyDeleteI also want to add that even your reference to the "JQ" has an antisemitic flavor to it (Die Judenfrage). What "Question" are you talking about? We may constitute a question (and a problem) for antisemites, but not for ourselves. For ourselves, there is no 'Question'; like Muslims or Bahais or whatever, we just want a decent life, and to be free from external hatred, discrimination, and persecution. And rest assured, we know what the antisemitic 'solution' consists of (Endloesung).
You seem to be confused by Fascism, not sure where it leads. You can clear this 'mystery' up by paying a visit to the Holocaust Museum in DC. Apparently this even worked for Marjorie Taylor Greene(!). However, if you do go, watch out for those Jewish Space Lasers (the latest item in our arsenal of tools for world domination).
mb
I recall that after just a few days in office Trump was deemed
ReplyDeletecertain to be close to the bottom of loser presidents. Turns out
that historians are accurate at predictions. Does this suggest that
he could actually get a second term because he is so bad and wants
to give Wafers a reason to believe that the end must be near?
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/648016/the-worst-american-presidents-according-to-historians
Christian,
ReplyDeleteI've traveled all across America, and have stayed in many racially homogeneous towns. White it's true that racial conflict in such towns is impossible for obvious reasons, other problems often rear their ugly heads: racism, religious fundamentalism, anti-intellectualism and a deeply provincial worldview. If this is what happens in many racially homogenous towns, what do you think will happen if we establish ethnostates all across the West? In all likelihood, a return to Medievalism.
Being around people who are different from you helps you step outside yourself and see things from many different angles. This helps you become more tolerant and curious, and shows you the vast possibilities of human existence. When you're living in a homogenous society, none of this is possible, which is probably why constant warfare was the norm throughout most of the world until societies became open and heterogenous. Simply put, people living in homogenous societies tend not to develop the qualities that allow them to peacefully coexist with those different from them.
Of course, tradition is necessary, but I've already written too much, and will have to finish this post in 24 hours.
“State a specific argument you have abt the collapse of America”
ReplyDeleteI have been reading for decades about the inevitable collapse of America. For decades preppers have been prepping for the imminent economic collapse, banks with no money, gas stations with no gas, mobs roaming the streets shooting at will, hyperinflation, grocery store shelves empty, “civil war 2” complete with massive govt “internment camps” etc. etc. each claim NOT supported by evidence. My evidence is there is no hyperinflation, cw2, empty store shelves, etc. None of the much hyped dystopia has occurred. Instead we have a third presidential term with a Black president or VP. For all the speculation that Biden is demented and old he is running around a lot (literally running up to stages and mics) giving unscripted talks. Today he met with new citizens being sworn in and thanked the immigrants for choosing the USA. The economy is growing at the highest rate since 1984, wages going up, employers fighting for workers, 67% of the population vaccinated, troops being withdrawn from Afghanistan, rejoining the world, focusing on cooperation, climate, clean energy, childhood poverty, nuclear proliferation, respect for science, respect for evidence-based policies, etc. Do I need to provide cites to peer-reviewed sources or accepted news sources for what seems obvious and common knowledge: America is evolving, growing, becoming non-white … and is thriving in its incredible diversity. White supremacy is losing support daily. Proud Boys, 3 % ers, Oathkeepers, etc. are in prison and are flipping to avoid long prison terms. Fortunately, the future is non-white. Demographic changes cannot be stopped. And America is not collapsing.
futuro-
ReplyDeleteWell, *that's* gd news! What a relief! At last, I can relax.
Nadine-
Any links? We tend to avoid just pure opinion on this blog. Thank you.
mb
ps: futuro: on a more serious note, you seem to have confused trend with destiny. What you are pointing to is short-term, window dressing. Structurally, on the other hand, the US is in a bad way, as analyzed by many political scientists, starting w/Andrew Hacker in 1970. For a more recent structural analysis, check out my Twilight bk, and also the following:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.amazon.com/Headed-Into-Abyss-Story-Future/dp/0578594110/ref=sr_1_1?crid=122XL4S8YD3LP&dchild=1&keywords=headed+into+the+abyss&qid=1625298553&s=books&sprefix=headed+into+the+abyss%2Caps%2C361&sr=1-1
You also confuse diversity with substantive social chg; they are hardly the same thing. Obama did 0 for 8 yrs, during wh/time the gap between rich and poor widened. It is now at an all-time high, and a nonwhite future is no guarantee of anything. Were you aware that economically speaking, black people made no progress at all between 1960 and 2020? Meanwhile, millions of your fellow-citizens are unemployed; millions go to bed hungry; and something like 40% are one paycheck away from financial disaster. Last I heard, the GDP was equal to the national debt--an amazing statistic. And we have qualitatively entered a new phase of American history: more than 1 massacre on a daily basis, opioid use wiping out entire communities, escalating rates of alcoholism and suicide, and so on. Levels of ignorance are unprecedented, as documented by myself and numerous other researchers, while levels of empathy are way down. Our schools, including our universities, are jokes: students graduate w/o the slightest ability to do critical thinking. The country is extremely polarized between red and blue; raw hatred seems to be ubiquitous. I cd go on and on, but if you start scrolling thru the various blog posts here, you'll see the evidence that Wafers have collected to show that we are clearly on the way out.
So much of what you say is just plain wrong. Employers are not fighting for workers; the Pentagon seeks to enlarge our nuclear arsenal; nearly half the country has no respect for science, or for evidence-based policies, and is committed to the fraudulent notion that the last election was stolen, and that Trump is the true president. Cops shoot down unarmed civilians like dogs, and Americans are shooting each other down like dogs. If any of this constitutes 'thriving', I might hafta shoot myself down like a dog.
As for 'accepted news sources': who, an ass-licker like David Brooks? Those accepted sources have a vested interest in getting Americans to believe the delusion you yrself are caught in. I guess they are pretty effective, but those millions in desperate conditions are not terribly impressed by politically engineered optimism. Trust me, they know shitloads more than you do abt the US of A.
Wake up, amigo; time to smell the (rancid) roses. In the meantime, I'll leave it to other Wafers to set you straight, try to help you out of the fog you are embedded in.
mb
@Futuro,
ReplyDeleteI think the issue is that you are getting your news from "mainstream and credible" sources. I have a feeling you haven't heard Noam Chomsky's expose of traditional corporate news media. If you spend all of your time listening to them, then things can seem to be going ok. The issue is, is that news sources like the NYT, Fox, CNN are basically pro-elite propaganda apparatuses; they have become next to worthless. Something like 5-6 corporate conglomerates own something like 90% of the traditional news organizations.
Also, in November the US literally came within a hairs breath of utter tyranny with Trump as king of the USA. Only a society in deep deep shit would make it possible for 70+ million people to vote for a fascist lunatic. It's becoming harder and harder for the traditional news media to keep the myth of American greatness and democracy alive as reality asserts itself.
https://www.businessinsider.com/these-6-corporations-control-90-of-the-media-in-america-2012-6
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RPKH6BVcoM
Brian-
ReplyDeleteActually, I think it was 47 million, w/Biden ahead by 8 million; electoral college votes were 306 to 232. So not really a hair's breadth, but yr pt is still well-taken. And of course, the NYT et al. are abt as reliable as a comic bk. In my reply to Futuro, I didn't say anything abt US foreign policy. Sure, Biden is running around, as he says, but to what end? We don't *have* a coherent foreign policy, while China and Russia do. There's nothing Biden can do vis-a-vis Xi or Putin, and anyone w/half a brain can see that China is in process of eclipsing the US as the global hegemon. Bill Maher has a hilarious clip on "Americans Are Dumb," in wh/he compares China to the US and gives concrete examples of how smart they are, and how stupid we are. He's not getting his info from the NYT.
mb
OK, citations will be lacking because EVERY SINGLE ARTICLE about the heat wave in the Pacific Northwest has someone(s) saying the same thing: 'This shows that it is time to act to reduce greenhouse gases!!!'
ReplyDeleteOnly once, one time, did I see a quote where the person said that we need to focus on how to handle the new reality (cooling, water supplies, fire control, etc.). Of course they also started with the obligatory, 'This shows that it is time to act to reduce greenhouse gases!!'
Are they scared to discuss the reality? It is far too late to stop what is happening. Billy Bob Clinton was the last hope for reasonable mitigation, and no way would he rain on the Baby Boomers' 'Have Your Cake and Eat It too' parade of consumption.
The heat that has built up over a hundred years? Ain't going anywhere for some time. Deal.
Ziggy-
ReplyDeleteNot too many commies on this blog, amigo. Was your reply back a few
days to Ziggy Zag. I used 'commie' in the old Cold War sense to
describe a person who does not know that God created America as the
highest form of righteous civilization. Just hear some of the remarks
of Trumpists declaring that he was trying to save us from socialism
and the loss of our precious freedoms. Perhaps a more fitting term
for Wafers would be 'malcontent' or 'subversive'? Do they refer to
themselves in some other specific term?
@Christian
ReplyDeleteI had a similar experience to you, but came to the opposite conclusion. I came of age during the Afghan and Iraq wars, lived through all the subsequent economic collapses and am now staring down the ecological disorganization produced climate change. But the problem with modernity is that it needs to evolve and we need to find that Communitarian balance along with furthering the Enlightenment goals of the emancipation of the individual. And the greatest "tradition" to fulfill this goal is Ecological Humanism, laid out by thinkers like Lewis Mumford, Rene Dubos, Kirkpatrick Sale, EF Schumacher, Henry David Thoreau and Murray Bookchin.
I get why these movements are so appealing to men like you, it is a way to satiate your spiritual hunger, fill that emptiness at the heart of your being. They give you a road map to make sense of everything that is going on, gives you an identity in a culture that labels you nothing more then a hustler. It's not the way as thinkers like MB have shown, there's a whole cosmos out there waiting for you to come home, ditch the Fascist bullshit and step through the front door. I would like to end this rant with a Wafer poem from Wendell Berry,
In the dark of the moon, in flying snow, in the dead of winter,
war spreading, families dying, the world in danger,
I walk the rocky hillside, sowing clover.
Dead-
ReplyDeleteTime to check out my essay on Mumford in AWTY, and also story #2 in "The Heart of the Matter."
Sale did a v. positive review of DAA; as for Murray, I knew him during his last yrs. Thanks for yr observations.
Zig-
I was just having fun.
mb
Consuming Less Can Increase Physical and Emotional Wellness
ReplyDeleteJ.B. MacKinnon explains how ending overconsumption can save our planet.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/animal-emotions/202105/consuming-less-can-increase-physical-and-emotional-wellness
Musings about Afghanistan from Cascadia…
ReplyDeleteI wonder how Afghanis feel about their country being regarded as just another Pokemon playground:
www.stripes.com/theaters/middle_east/2021-07-02/pokemon-go-bagram-troop-withdrawal-2027917.html
Meanwhile, as most of the U.S. troops are pulled out, the atmosphere in Afghanistan’s capital is such that the fall of Kabul may be a matter of weeks, not months. Generals think they can stave off the inevitable by acting like Curtis LeMay. But, bombing back to Stone Age doesn’t have much impact in a country closer to Stone Age than Modern Era. As MB keeps observing, learning is absent as even so-called smart people are dumb. A dispatch from the NY Times printed in our regional paper:
www.seattletimes.com/as-afghan-forces-crumble-an-air-of-unreality-grips-the-capital
Jack-
ReplyDeleteA quote from Gore Vidal: "Americans never learn. It's part of our charm."
Zelig-
See story #2 in "The Heart of the Matter."
mb
Here's the link to the Bill Maher rant:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMOxj8w0K-c
And the great riff on American stupidity by George Carlin:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLODGhEyLvk
Man-in-the-street videos on YouTube are also revealing - Google "American stupidity"
Wafers-
ReplyDeletePrecisely a situation in wh/nuclear weapons wd have been beneficial--for both sides. Why won't the Pentagon listen to me?
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/07/03/us/shelter-in-place-wakefield-reading-massachusetts/index.html
down-
Not the episode I was referring to. In that one, Bill's focus is on comparing Americans to the Chinese, and showing what a joke the former are. But this clip is pretty good, in any case:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihiu_gZr8gs
What utter buffoons. This is why, from a declinist pt of view, issuing nuclear weapons to the entire population wd be a step in the rt direction.
mb
Tragedy of the commons?
ReplyDeleteThe Dream of Florida Is Dead - The Miami condo collapse is a crisis for the entire state.
https://bit.ly/366aWVa “Mary Harris: An important thing to know about Champlain Towers South is that it’s a condominium. Different people own individual units, and when repairs need to be made to the building as a whole, they’ve got to find a way to pay for them collectively. They elect a board to manage these kinds of decisions. All the way back in 2018, the condo board retained an inspector who assessed the stability of the tower. He found a “major error” in the integrity of the bottom floor of the building. Residents were informed of the problem but spent years negotiating how and whether to fix millions of dollars of damage.”
https://on.mktw.net/3hdRfRO
“Millions of Americans of all ages are suffering in COVID’s aftermath. Already 100,000 small businesses have closed. Thousands of cars wait hours at food banks. Nearly eight million Americans fell into poverty between June and November. Black and Latino people are bearing the brunt of it, in COVID deaths and economic damage, while unemployment has hit women harder than men.”
Opinion: Half of Americans over 55 may retire poor
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/half-of-americans-over-55-may-retire-poor-2020-10-01?mod=article_inline
‘Our schools, including our universities, are jokes: students graduate w/o the slightest ability to do critical thinking.” In USA! only 34% of 8th grade students are proficient in math. I’m amazed (but shldnt b) that this is acceptable in our great land. From experience I know math is built on a foundation and once behind you never catch up.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.nationsreportcard.gov/math_2017/nation/achievement/?grade=8
On the bright side it’s up from the 15% in 1990
Noura, Gunnar-
ReplyDeleteI don't get it: futuro told us that everything is coming up roses. Cd he have been mistaken?
After all, he drew on mainstream sources, known to be credible and impartial.
mb
US empire condo evacuation due to shoddy US crapsmanshit.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.kansascity.com/news/nation-world/national/article252545778.html
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/florida-condo-building-deemed-unsafe-evacuation-ordered/ar-AALInez
Futoroexpat--what's going on? The mainstream propaganda "news" keeps telling us to work hard, america's 'back,' greatness, eat a hot dog, wave a flag, everything's just fine?
That US condo collapsing and another condo in imminent danger is emblematic of the failed US empire; e.g., doing things on the cheap, not working together, no community, tons of hold-ups, dysfunctional boards/committees, non-responsive/unresponsive govt, focusing on all the wrong things, not contributing adequate building repair reserves because well...that would be helping others...
Futoroexpat, perhaps, "I gut mine Jack, fuck you" should be placed on every 100$ bill? Si?
Glans-
ReplyDeleteThere is a great metaphor here, in the condo collapse: the problem was that the foundation was faulty. This too can be said of a country whose entire philosophy of life amounts to hustling. The great Southern historian, C. Vann Woodward, in 1953 wrote that no country cd last if its economy were based on a single ideology. Of course, this applied to the antebellum South; but it also applied to the laissez-faire capitalist North. So the South fell apart, and now it's the North's turn. The neoliberal system is crashing down.
The condo collapse also reminded me of how many Americans need to be slapped. When I think of it, I get so dizzy, I hafta lie down.
mb
A gd wake-up bk for futuro:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.amazon.com/Cruel-Optimism-Lauren-Berlant/dp/0822351110/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1G686HVETA4U5&dchild=1&keywords=cruel+optimism+lauren+berlant&qid=1625362453&s=books&sprefix=cruel+optimism%2Cstripbooks%2C201&sr=1-1
Lauren Berlant just died.
mb
Wafers-
ReplyDeleteI'm taking a poll. I don't think Trumpi will be reelected in 2024, but I do have the feeling that he will manage to evade all charges against him, both political and economic. That he will not be indicted, or convicted, for anything. What say you all?
mb
El Alamein, hopefully I answered your question. If you ever want to chat, send me a message in twitter.
ReplyDeleteMB,
ReplyDeleteRegarding your question about Trump 2024, I wonder if they make an under the table deal with him and make the charges go away in exchange for him not running. The system is so corrupt I don't think this is a stretch, but what the hell do I know.
Since Krakhed referenced his work in a comment above: a word to the Wafers on Rutger Bregman:
ReplyDeleteHe is a self-confessed true believer in capital-P Progress. Very literally translated, the title of his first Dutch book was, "The history of the progress" (not available in English), and it extols the virtues of progress and its triumphant march through time. There may be hope for him, since his new book "Most people are good: a new history of humanity" (English: Humankind: a new history), marks a significant shift in his thinking, as he considers the evidence that hunter-gatherer society was not the bare-knuckled struggle for existence that it has commonly been made out to be. This message is particularly apropos for the Dutch, haunted as their culture is by the bleak Calvinist anthropology, and its dogma of essential depravity.
He is a talented writer, and his heart is in the right place (he has 'lef', guts, from the Hebrew 'lev', heart). Already in his first book, he questioned why progress no longer seems to deliver the way it used to, if only to sadly double down. If he would develop an appreciation for the tragic, and an understanding of the alternative traditions, he could definitely be Wafer material.
Here he is at Davos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5LtFnmPruU
What we have done to others is now coming home.
ReplyDeletefrom NYT: Domestic Terrorists Outpace Jihadists
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/25/us/domestic-terrorism-laws.html?.?mc=aud_dev&ad-keywords=auddevgate&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI7LOL55TJ8QIVxZ6zCh12PwjwEAAYASAAEgLWpvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds
Do you speak out about racism, animal rights, abortion?...you are on the terrorist watch list. Other official sources include anti-religion and anti-capitalism as terrorist.
MB - Put me in for the 'rump not being re-elected, but like Nixon, not really held to account for anything.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteLatest from Caitlin Johnstone - waiting for revolution is a BIG waste of time.
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2021/07/04/happy-independence-day-notes-from-the-edge-of-the-narrative-matrix/
"Western Marxists talking about violent revolution when they can't get 20 people at a protest are like a little boy talking about fighting supervillains when he can't even tie his shoes. There won't be revolution, violent or otherwise, while propaganda rules public consciousness.
Any talk of any kind of revolution is just vapid LARPing as long as people are being successfully propagandized away from rising up, and they are. Your dreams of revolution are so very, very far away right now you might as well be talking about magic. The violent revolution vs peaceful revolution debate on the left is as meaningless as arguing over what company makes the best model of magic wand. No revolution is happening, at all, until the left addresses the problem of mass-scale media psyops first."
Which, of course, is not going to happen because the "liberal" press is owned by the multinationals as well whose only concern is ever more clicks and eyeballs.
down-
ReplyDeleteWhat will Hedges do w/himself now? His future looks bleak.
Eric-
Once again I make my pitch for everyone having a nuclear device, and being encouraged to let fly.
Xair-
Certainly a possible scenario. This gov't is so full of shit that anything cd happen.
mb
MB, thanks for the referral to the Lauren Berlant text. I am not familiar with it but it looks very good.
ReplyDeleteMatty-
ReplyDeleteYr welcome. This is the Greatest Blog On Earth--a one-stop shop. When I hear of people going to other blogs, all I can do is shake my head in disbelief.
Meanwhile, I say again that I doubt Trumpi will get reelected. Reports are that he is now half-mad. The next pres election is nearly 3.5 yrs away. In that time, it's likely that he will go fully bonkers and implode. If he will be put away anywheres, it will be in a mental institution. His associates will go to jail, but not him. So 2024 will see Kamala elected, or Biden reelected. Rt now, on the domestic front, it's not clear how much legislation can get passed given the Senate deadlock, the Manchin factor, etc. After the mid-term election of 2022, very little will get passed. And changes on the basis of protest movements have come to nothing. The founder of BLM owns millions in real estate; Amanda Gorman is on the front cover of Vogue; we now capitalize Black; Kamala's office is in total disarray; etc. Bill Cosby goes free; Woody Allen gets crucified, wh/is a scandal, not a triumph. Corporations get 'woke', wh/amounts to little more than window dressing. Police depts. across the country are *more* funded after the murder of George Floyd, not defunded. Some chg will occur between now and Nov. 2022, but none of a significant, structural kind.
On the foreign front, we flail around w/no clear sense of what we are doing. Several yrs ago, the WashPost did a series of front-pg stories on how the war in Afghanistan was a farce. Nearly 20 yrs, 0 accomplished, no sense of the pt of it all, and so on. All the $ spent on nonsense that cd have been spent on pressing domestic needs. Putin can be all smiles to Biden, but he doesn't hafta pay any attn to him whatsoever, while China rises like a dragon, patiently expanding its military, its economy, and its foreign investments. The new hegemon, no doubt abt it; the "American Century" (Henry Luce) is over. My prediction is that by 2040, secessionist movements in the US will begin to have some real traction.
We brought the wrong values to the world, and poisoned the world w/visions of endless hustling and the American Dream. As in the case of the condo in Florida, the foundation was wrong from the get-go, and now we are paying the price. In any case, China absorbed that poison; in the preface I wrote to the Chinese edn of WAF (it exists online somewhere), I said that China was basically the US in Mandarin. A pity, really, but power is power. For an alternative future, check out the 2nd story of my bk "The Heart of the Matter." Hey, a man can dream.
But the reality is that America is not a gracious country, and Americans are not a gracious people. The denoument of the US will be both ugly and stupid; of that I'm pretty sure. What's a Wafer to do? I think E.M. Forster had it rt in his essay, "What I Believe". I quote from it in the Twilight book. This wd be the path of the NMI. For those who can manage to emigrate, that wd be the optimal solution.
Anyway, thoughts for a rainy day.
-mb
Prof. Berman-As you just posted "Corporations get 'woke', wh/amounts to little more than window dressing." Well, here it is, yet again: https:/www.usnews.com/news/business/articles/2021-07-04/6-months-after-capital-assault-corporate-pledges-fall-flat
ReplyDelete(Would "It's all about the Benjamins" look good in Latin?)
MB- about Trump being reelected in 2024, knowing the Americans it might be possible. As you have said, the US is a joke and the Americans themselves are jokes. About secessionist movements, do you think the reelection of Trump or his loss of another election or maybe any other election could start a secessionist movement?
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeletehttps://www.pennlive.com/nation-world/2021/07/ohio-police-chief-resigns-after-putting-kkk-sign-on-black-officers-desk.html
usa, usa!
Dr. Berman,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you about Trump: won't be elected again and won't be convicted of any crimes. Nixon set a precedent. He should have been imprisoned as a war criminal but his only punishment was to lose his job. After Watergate he made a fortune on his books and the silly interviews with David Frost. For some years I've been casting a wary eye on the Arkansas Senator, Tom Cotton. Truly a fascist for modern times.
Hola all. Let’s look at a road rage Karen argument at a Burger King. Our Karens also are getting younger! LOL! See for yourself this teenager bloviating. And it goes without saying, our Karens are racial.
ReplyDeleteWhat a pathetic joke of a country this is!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUm_BgStFVY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKOx_StBPt8
Dr. Berman,
Regarding Don Trump: He shall escape justice. He’s gotten away with it his entire life; this time shall be no different.
But his short-lived political life is over. The Repugnantcans most likely will look for fresh, younger far right blood. I can see Gaetz, DeSantis, Hawley, Greene, Boebert, and even a huckster like Ben Shapiro running on their ticket in 2024.
In the meantime Don the Con shall cry like the immature baby he his. He’ll throw temper tantrums inside Mar-a-Lago because his popularity isn’t what it once was and he no longer garners the very large media attention he once did.
Joe-
ReplyDeleteKarens: lifeblood of America. I love 'em. As for Trumpi: I look forward to the day that the medics come in a panel truck and take him off to the Happy Valley Lunatic Asylum. Shock, stelazine, IV Haldol drip, and perhaps a few beatings. Perhaps some urine on his shoes. He's my guy.
Dr. Shit-
What did this joker think was gonna happen? Is there a dumber population in the world, than Americans?
flan-
Link didn't work. That quote is from Ilhan Omar, stereotyping Jews. When I think of my grandparents nearly starving to death in Russia, I wd personally enjoy beating her to w/in an inch of her life, then throwing her on a dung heap.
mb
MB/Futuro/Matty
ReplyDeleteMy personal favorite read from Berlant here:
https://www.amazon.com/Desire-Love-Lauren-Berlant-ebook/dp/B013YWAKZU/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8
Was surprised to see her name mentioned here!
From the “Thank God George Isn’t Around for This Department”
ReplyDeleteDon’t say “disabled,” say “differently abled”
Don’t say “mentally ill,” say “person living with a mental health condition.”
Don’t say “meshuga,” say “batshit crazy” (as applied to the woke wankers writing the new liberal lexicon.)
Even Trigger Warning Is Now Off Limits
The “Oppressive Language List” at Brandeis University could have come from countless other colleges, advocacy groups, or human-resources offices.
Read in The Atlantic: https://apple.news/A-RPn1w3iSP-ohSXLvR0pUg
And, from Michael King’s mention of Tom Cotton, a proposal for a new line of discussion: which future Administration and cabinet (individuals and their portfolios) would be most likely to accelerate the collapse? President, Vice President, Secretary of State, etc.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs&feature=youtu.be
ReplyDeleteI thought this was well thought out. On this day that we celebrate our liberation from monarchy by becoming just another predatory country.
Here's an interesting story that happened nearby. Make sure you read to the bottom.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/03/us/wakefield-ma-lockdown-rise-of-the-moors.html
Xair-
ReplyDeleteCdn't run it (24-hr rule).
James-
I'm hoping for a Shaneka Torres/Lorenzo Riggins combo. Also that guy who fucked a goat: Freddie Wadsworth (check out his pic online).
Nathaniel-
No need for surprise. We know all, we see all. We are the GBOE.
Kevin-
Go, Moors! Go, Karens! And when is the Boogaloo, already?
mb
People Will Believe Anything Dept.:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jul/04/allison-mack-nxivm-cult-smallville-actor
mb
Here’s how Mark Zuckerberg spent his Fourth of July. Prepare to cringe
ReplyDeletehttps://www.google.com/amp/s/www.marketwatch.com/amp/story/heres-how-mark-zuckerberg-spent-his-fourth-of-july-prepare-to-cringe-11625434350
Maybe other Wafers have noticed the idiocy of idiotic Scientology
ReplyDeleteselling itself to morons by using its customers in Hollywood as a
recommendation. In a way they are telling the truth about the weak
mind needed for potential customers. Dr. Carlin would have found
humor in this.
Cosmo-
ReplyDeleteRe: Scientology: pls provide links. There are many. Just blasting opinions: not terribly effective.
Mahan-
WHAT an asshole. Why do I want to beat him senseless?
mb