August 24, 2021
What Is There Left to Say?
There it is, for all the world to see: the shame, the violence, and the incredible stupidity of the United States. It's quite amazing, how we keep repeating the same unworkable formula: attack or invade a country that poses no real threat to us; plan to remake that nation in our image, since obviously, we are the shining city on the hill; ignore the fact that while we've been around for 250 years, Vietnam/Iraq/Afghanistan have been around for ages; then get handed our asses on a platter, because these yellow and brown folk don't want the great gift we are offering, for some odd reason, and because their spirit is stronger than our technology; pull out in a fog of humiliation, leaving death and disaster in our wake; and then rinse and repeat, start the same absurd cycle somewhere else, having learned absolutely nothing.
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He goes way back and has been consistent in his lack of applause for
ReplyDeletethe direction the US has been taking for decades. When the Wafer
Hall of Fame opens, he should be one of the first honored.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=louis+lapham
MB, Your post reminds me of 9/11/01. Right after Bush declared ‘war on terror’ and invaded Af, one of the Profs in the Universe of IL @Chicago (where I was then) put a poster on his office door which said something like ‘Afghanistan, the centre of terrorism’. I laughed. What do you do with such ignorance? Even the ‘educated’ Americans have no clue that Afghanistan has been one of the most civilised places since ancient times. One of the queens in the Indian epic ‘Mahabharata’ comes from that region. The style in which Buddha’s statues are found in India originated there, and is called the Gandhar style of art. Babur, the 1st Mughal emperor talks about the classy societies of Herat in his memoir. And so on it goes.
ReplyDeleteInterestingly, Afghans only accepted the Mughal rule. No other empire, not the Soviets, not the Persians, not the British or the Amiracans could subjugate them. Something to think about.
Dear Dr. Berman
ReplyDeleteCheck out an article from the BBC written by an Afghan journalist who has witnessed the fall of Taliban in 2001 and its recent ascent to power. He said that the US missed the opportunity to establish a victorious peace deal with the Taliban back in early 2000s when Taliban men were ready to lay down their weapons and reassume their civilian existence. The American were ruthless and hellbent on "revenge" and never wanted to achieve an early peace deal. American was fighting with a new form of mechanized warfare - i.e., with droan and unmanned vehicles, which were employed to terminate targets with minimal American casualties. After more and more guiltless Afghan civilians in the villages were arrested and massacred, the trust in America (among the Afghan populations) severely eroded and any long-lasting peace deal became impossible. The ruthlessness and hubris of America's operation in Afghanistan thus became the very key that opened the door to the grand defeat which is still unfolding.
I'd say it's a fucking well-earned defeat. But I guess you're right. This country learns no lesson.
Matt
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-south-asia-58071592
.."made to look like fools. Truth be told, we are worse than foolish; we are jokes...(Berman).
ReplyDelete100%-spot on. Bad jokes for all the world to see.
However, would respectfully say that most US-ians don't think they're jokes. They likely think they're intelligent, "democracy" loving patriots ready and willing to "save" the world from very very bad bad socialism, communism, fill the blank "enemy" de jour etc...and promote "liberty" for all...(consumerism, exploitation, capitalism).
Most Americans (and WASPs in general) were empty and stupid sick fucks. The US "government" was the embodiment of the populace's pathology.
Curious if 51st states/puppet states are 'side eying' the US empire (Japan, Israel, UK, Taiwan, AU, S. Korea)? Likely not. Strange bed fellows indeed.
https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidiarity
ReplyDeleteAn interesting concept for post-secession organizing
Wafers-
ReplyDeleteHere's what's bothering me, in particular: In this Afghan debacle, where is Tulsi? Why hasn't she flown to Kabul, with her workout tape, to oversee our w/drawal? As one of our leading intellects, and mediators, she has so much to offer. Her absence has me both disappointed and depressed. I suggest that Wafers start displaying the following bumper stickers:
WHERE IS TULSI?
TULSI TO AFGHANISTAN!
TULSI MORE THAN EVER!
(etc.)
No sympathy here. The savage and cowardly US military got kicked out again by resistance fighters. Western media is working overtime now to make the Taliban appear like monsters and the US as beloved heroes of the Afghans, with Afghan women lamenting the departure of those blue-eyed saviors. Nauseating bullshit.
ReplyDeleteNot surprising seeing the US unable to correct its disastrous trajectory. William Ophuls's Immoderate Greatness is a great little book explaining how empires and civilizations always follow a certain timeline, part of it is endless expansion that leads to self-destruction, and they cannot avoid this fate even if they try and even if they know they're headed that way.
======================================
I remembered something from 20 years ago that only recently made sense. I used to watch Jay Leno and during Jaywalking bit he spoke to a Ukrainian guy who was funny in a naive way and said some slightly outrageous things (think Borat lite). He had him doing some correspondences that made for funny segments, because of how unassuming and gullible he was. Ukrainians sent saying the accent sounds phony. The Tonight Show set up a trap for him and he got caught, turned out he was an American faking the accent to get on TV. I expected Leno to be pissed, but oddly he actually clapped and complimented the guy for fooling him (his studio audience applauded too), and even had him be a regular correspondent on the show! It was bizarre to see a liar rewarded like this, but through Dr. Berman's framework (e.g. a nation with no noble or honest core, a culture that rewards hustling) does Leno's response make sense. I doubt a guy with that kind brazen dishonesty would be rewarded in the Eastern cultures I visited.
======================================
Two questions to Dr. Berman: how many words/how much exactly is half-page when posting in this blog? What paid publication is worth it in your opinion?
What is there left to say? British novelist, journalist and academic Philip Hensler asks rhetorically why “we” can’t have a public discussion about Empire, and presents the experience of the British in Afghanistan in the first half of the 1800’s:
ReplyDeletehttps://unherd.com/2021/08/why-were-we-shocked-by-afghanistan
However, “We”, neither the “we” in charge in Washington DC nor the “we” at large, are very likely to initiate a discussion Hensler wants. The larger “we” has all the attention span and geographical knowledge of a fruit fly. Where is Tulsi in this "discussion"?
Now taking bets: the next country for a future “Operation Freedom” by U-S-A! U-S-A!
Jack-
ReplyDeleteYou are Our Man in Olympia, so I hafta ask if the following rumors are true:
1. Evergreen College has established a Tulsi Gabbard Chair in International Relations. To enroll in this program, students must present an essay showing, in specific detail, how Tulsi's workout tape can be used to promote world peace, including mitigating our relations w/the Taliban.
2. They have also endowed a Herman Cain Chair in 999 Studies. In this case, students will be required to elaborate on the role of the 999 Plan in bringing socialism to the US.
Cherith-
I don't understand yr question abt paid publication, but can tell you that your latest post is just abt at the max for half page. So let that be yr guide.
Glans-
It hardly matters whether they think they're jokes or not.
mb
Greetings MB and Wafers,
ReplyDeleteShort poem:
Tulsi:
What does the world need?
It needs a gal named Tulsi
I saw her today at the reception
She was practiced at the art of deception
Why don't we place her in Afghanistan?
The Sudan?
Iran?
How about the Isle of Man?
There she could launch a series of Zumba classes
A Parnassus of tight asses
Afterwords relax w/a Mary Jane
Listening to Coltrane w/Herman Cain
Oh, Lord, won't you hear my plea?
Right now the world is really crappy
We need Tulsi
and her Hawaiian hospitality
Miles
Jeff-
ReplyDeleteVery moving. She cannot be praised enuf. Meanwhile, am waiting to hear from Jack re: the Tulsi Chair in Douche Bag Studies at Evergreen.
mb
Hello Wafers:
ReplyDeleteI heard about this on CBC radio this morning and thought you'd appreciate it. I don't know from Nirvana, but the guy who is the baby on the record cover from 30 years ago is suing the band for sexual exploitation.
https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-58327844
For one thing, there's nothing sexual about that image. It's pretty obvious that it's some sort of commentary on the corruption of innocence by the pursuit of filthy lucre (or else that there's no such thing as innocence), but that the baby would grow up to actually pursue filthy lucre via a lawsuit is pure poetry.
Life imitates Art. The baby grew up into a man who is still chasing the $20 bucks.
ReplyDeleteProfessional victimhood - a particularly low form of human activity.
https://www.rte.ie/news/newslens/2021/0825/1242812-nirvana-nevermind/
Rollo-
ReplyDeleteWaiting for links, evidence.
mb
Note to Sam-
ReplyDeleteSorry, we don't host antisemitic propaganda on this blog. But there are thousands of blogs that do, so I suggest you post to one (or more) of them. Best of luck.
mb
https://nypost.com/2021/08/25/spike-lee-spews-9-11-conspiracy-theories-and-liberal-media-promotes-it/
ReplyDeleteSpike Lee’s disgraceful conspiracy theories about 9/11 — and how liberal media promotes it
Pour guy I really like his films and he seems very thoughtful otherwise
Indeed, "What Is There Left to Say?" View for the next 11 minutes
ReplyDeletethe obvious solution and realize that obvious means impossible to
the minds who have created the happy blunders. The bleak prospect
is that the lesson will only be learned after the sane reversal
becomes impossible.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omcUaD8pxaY
Cosmo-
ReplyDeleteOn the issue of consumerism, check out 2nd story in my bk "The Heart of the Matter."
mb
Well said. Indeed we are nothing more than bad jokes. Thanks for all the relevant links on the fiasco in Afghanistan. I especially enjoyed the non-western perspective by the Iranian professor Mohammad Marandi in the last blog post.
ReplyDeleteOn the issue of degrowth, a book that comes to mind and I think was recommended in the past on this blog. I finally got around to reading it. "Post Growth Living" by Kate Soper. It was a good read. But I have no hope that it will help Americans wake up to the ecological disaster in which they and their country and the global corporations (mostly American ones) are complicit. It serves as a decent guide for a more fulfilling life nonetheless. https://www.amazon.com/Post-Growth-Living-Alternative-Kate-Soper/dp/178873887X
Note to Theorist-
ReplyDeleteYou refer to 'recent reports', then provide no links or refs. This seems to be a continuing problem for you. I wd suggest that you engage with a different blog. Gd luck.
mb
Maurice Merleau-Ponty on the Mind-Body Problem
ReplyDeletehttps://www.planksip.org/merleau-ponty-on-the-mind-body-problem/amp/
@Orion- Subsidiarity is a good concept. Thank you for the link.
ReplyDelete@Cosmo Cosmo and @Krakhed- A good intro video. It does have the typical ending of most socialist analysis I have encountered over the years- a glorious future of mass democracy and cooperation but no specifics on how to overcome US culture's narcissism and violence, etc. And the Soper book looks good.
Degrowth is certainly the future. Conscious controlled adaptation is certainly the best way to get there, and I know many people working on it both in their life and in organizing and such. But I think that the overwhelming number of USians will simply have no choice but to degrow soon. The big fear is how big a temper tantrum they will throw before they accept the new reality. I think that Auster's 'In the Country of Last Things,' Lessing's 'Memoirs of a Survivor,' or McCarthy's 'The Road' are the near future, not Callenbach's 'Ecotopia' or A. Huxley's 'Island.'
https://www.amazon.com/Country-Last-Things-Paul-Auster/dp/0140097058
https://www.amazon.com/Memoirs-Survivor-Doris-Lessing/dp/0394757599
https://www.amazon.com/Road-Cormac-McCarthy/dp/0307387895
https://www.amazon.com/Ecotopia-40th-Anniversary-Ernest-Callenbach/dp/159714293X
https://www.amazon.com/Aldous-Huxley-Island-20-09/dp/B00HTK3966
Dan D-
ReplyDeleteTo that list add Lionel Shriver, "The Mandibles."
mb
Living in Fernando Pessoa’s world
ReplyDeleteHow the Portuguese writer’s multiple identities pre-empted the modern condition.
by John Gray
https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2021/08/living-fernando-pessoa-s-world
Beside the obvious brilliance of Tulsi's 'mind,'not to mention her awe inspiring work-out videos!
ReplyDeleteAnother fascinating US empire "news" story (marketing=economic propaganda)....chicken sandwiches, except, it's a taco with chicken in it! How innovative! Is it really a taco OR a sandwich? How will it do sales wise? Tulsi any thoughts from one of America's preeminent 'thinkers.'
Such important questions in an Empire without universal healthcare, without free university, massive student loans, no employment rights /employment at will doctrines, no mandated vacation leave, FATCA/CBT double/triple taxation, no real retirement, huge geriatric care costs, etc.
https://hypebeast.com/2021/8/taco-bell-crispy-chicken-sandwich-taco-nationwide-debut-announcement
https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/22/business/taco-bell-crispy-chicken-sandwich-taco/index.html
Hi Dr. Berman and Wafers:
ReplyDeleteWikileaks editor-in chief Kristinn Hrafnsson views on the nature of the US occupation of Afghanistan for 19 years is an interesting read. Near the end of the report, "However, it [the withdrawal by the US] is unlikely to change the political course of the western elites that still prefer to 'punish the truth-tellers' rather than draw lessons from their own mistakes", sums up American incapacity to learn from their policy failures.
https://www.rt.com/news/533076-afghanistan-war-extraordinary-lie-wikileaks/
Patrick Lawrence, a news correspondent and writer, echoes this last opinion that America will learn nothing from Afghanistan - that it cannot remake other lands (or the world) into American clones - a foundational foreign policy he says dates back to Woodrow Wilson, although perhaps this view really goes even further back in time.
https://consortiumnews.com/2021/08/25/patrick-lawrence-no-insight-after-afghanistan/
Michael-
ReplyDeleteThis is abs. true, and frankly, good news from a declinist pt of view. Declinists hardly want American elites to wake up. Not learning from mistakes can only hasten our decline. Of course we shall do this ridiculous caper over again, until opposing forces will not let us. Force is the only thing America understands.
Dr. Shit-
TULSI, BE BOLD! WEIGH IN ON THE CHICKEN ISSUE, POR FAVOR! IF THERE'S ONE PERSON WHO HAS HER FINGER ON THE PULSE OF THE NATION, IT'S YOU!
MB
Hello Wafers and Dr Berman,
ReplyDeleteHere's an insightful editorial by General Sadat, the commander of the Afghan National Army explaining to the world that the Afghan Army didn't simply quit, tuck tail and run but that they were betrayed by the U.S. who lost interest and withdrew support leaving them in impossible situations. He makes a pretty compelling case.
The misery this country visits on others is heart wrenching and embarrassing.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/25/opinion/afghanistan-taliban-army.html
Marble-
ReplyDeleteA lot gets clarified if one realizes that whether one is talking abt domestic policy or US foreign policy, we are dealing w/douchebags. And as George Carlin told us, it is from this (heavily damaged) gene pool that our leaders are chosen. Hence, no shitty behavior shd surprise us; it's all we know how to do.
mb
Would like to recommend two books I've been slowly reading thru the summer:
ReplyDeleteBeyond Geography: The Western Spirit Against the Wilderness
https://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Geography-Western-Against-Wilderness/dp/0813519098
Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water
https://www.amazon.com/Cadillac-Desert-American-Disappearing-Revised/dp/0140178244/
Chris-
ReplyDeleteYes, I read the 1st bk many yrs ago, thought it was terrific.
mb
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/daniel-hale-drone-wars.html
ReplyDeleteThis is a story about how a man risked everything trying to tell us about what we were doing in Afghanistan, but almost no one cared to listen.
Jon-
ReplyDeleteThis is a terrible story. What a sham democracy the US has become.
mb
Amazed the Guardian (one of the bigger whiners about Afghanistan) allowed this to be published:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/25/blame-afghanistan-war-media-intervention
good line: "Bush’s presidency was secured, and his wars promoted, by American ultra-conservative religious fundamentalists who had more in common with the Taliban than with the brave women seeking liberation."
Knish-
ReplyDeleteStraight talk from an honest man. Thank you. The problem is that the media will keep doing what he says they are doing. No lessons learned at all, oh no. Impressive how intelligent people can be stupid, and get caught up in the latest frenzy. Why did Arthur Miller even bother to write "The Crucible"?
mb
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2021/aug/26/us-politics-biden-harris-afghanistan-covid-latest-news?page=with:block-612801508f08b1506f20fea7#block-612801508f08b1506f20fea7
ReplyDeleteClearly, Biden has got the Islamic State quaking in their boots.
ps: "Oh please, Mr. President, don't hunt us down and make us pay. You are so powerful, and we are so weak. Of course, we defeated you in a 20-yr war and kicked yr ass but gd, but let's not talk abt that. u.r. Numero Uno, and we are nothing. We beg of you, go easy on us. ALL HAIL THE ALL-POWERFUL SCHMIDEN!"
ReplyDeleteDr. Berman & Wafers,
ReplyDeleteObviously contributing to the downfall of the Dysfunctional States of America in more ways than one is this pandemic. For instance,instead of USAins shooting and killing each other with guns, Covid 19 kills non violently. It also has had an enormous strain—both physically and psychologically—on the healthcare system.
An interview with an ICU doctor from the 1:13 to the 1:25 mark is interesting. Like the top epidemiologist who does this weekly podcast who incessantly receives hate mail, this ICU physician also has taken insults from angry patients and their families. With money of course being the center of a USAin’s life, she and her staff have been threatened with lawsuits. And many patients and families are downright unappreciative of these stressed out/overworked professionals. One can regard this as just another example of a typical USAin’s arrogance, rudeness, and anger.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wW4tFK1Ea6Q
While our problems are growing, Americans are getting dumber. The future looks bleak indeed. As I was watching the pension gamble documentary below, I couldn’t help but think that America is turning into a third world country. In addition, the American value system is like a double-edge sword, that’s not only destructive to people in other countries like Afghanistan, but also to Americans. It’s not surprising and it’s pretty obvious where this mess is headed for anyone who is willing to look.
ReplyDeleteThe Great Climate Migration Has Begun | Amanpour and Company
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvaI9nxSKAw
“The climate crisis is forcing thousands around the world to flee as their homes become increasingly uninhabitable. Abrahm Lustgarten is a Pulitzer Prize-winning environmental reporter and has spent years looking at how climate migration will reshape the world. He speaks with Hari Sreenivasan about his latest project. Originally aired on May 24, 2021.”
Disappearing States of America: The USA's first 'climate change refugees' - The Feed
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIP_3rhxloo
The Pension Gamble (full documentary) | FRONTLINE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_r0htm5uHPQ
This 2018 documentary investigates the role of state governments and Wall Street in driving America’s public pensions into a multi-trillion-dollar hole.
Now that the Islamic motorcycle gang is back in the news, I'll add
ReplyDeletelinks. (a)With the Taliban you get total male chauvinistic piggery
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYe81PDJR7k; (b)just like the Hell's
Angels you get an economy funded by drugs
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20210819-taliban-vow-to-ban-heroin-but-can-they-survive-without-it; (c)they can expect parts and
ammunition for all the US weapons they captured.
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/biden-promises-to-hunt-down-terrorists-behind-devastating-kabul-attack-220247134.html
Paper Tiger Dept.:
ReplyDelete1. Schmiden won't do fuck-all abt hunting down perpetrators etc. But it was a rousing speech.
2. Schmamala will do abt the same in the Pacific Rim:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/aug/27/kamala-harriss-south-east-asia-trip-reveals-limits-of-us-strategy
With no coherent foreign policy, and no real muscle power, what's really on deck for the US?
Bupkis!
mb
MB,
ReplyDeleteCall me crazy, but I think Biden deserves some credit for withdrawing from Afghanistan and not being willing to start new wars. Biden's problem is his lack of conviction and his unwillingness to take a stand against right-wing lunacy. Like nearly all Americans, he lacks cojones.
Oh yes!!! They are now going to monetize sleep. Capitalism, like rust, never sleeps, though. How is everyone's stock portfolio doing this week?
ReplyDeletehttps://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/aug/27/sleep-is-venture-capital-employers-wake-up-to-benefits-of-a-nap
A question for those with more experience of overseas colonial adventures: why, with 14 months notice of the handover to the Taliban, WHY???? would any Western foreign national have still been in the country? This wasn't just the US; Britain, Sweden, New Zealand, on and on.... The following article says that 7,000 people were airlifted out of Saigon. 95,000 and counting out of Afghanistan.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/27/joe-biden-afghanistan-kabul-airport-bombs
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/27/afghanistan-kabul-afghans-crowd-airport-gates-evacuation-bombing
Other than soldiers who have no choice, what were all these people doing there??
Nadine-
ReplyDeleteGreat, but how long b4 we start another war somewhere? Biden already gave us the roadmap in his "we will fight terrorism" speech. I think 1st on his list was North Africa. Keep in mind that America has always been in conflict w/someone else; psychologically speaking, war is part of its makeup. It can't live w/o war. Just give it time...
Dan D-
Not hard to figure out. They were preparing a new line of Taliban products, such as T-shirts, baseball caps, coffee mugs, and in particular, Taliban Juice! All this to sell on the American mkt. Love that juice, amigo...
mb
Genuinely surprised at this: Green voters more likely than those of almost all other parties to say the Afghanistan intervention was a good idea. https://amp.zdf.de/nachrichten/politik/afghanistan-politbarometer-militaereinsatz-100.html
ReplyDeleteVery strange
Bo-
ReplyDeleteIt's not that surprising. Green or purple, these folks are Americans, and Americans are stupid. That stupidity overrides any party affiliation.
mb
MB,
ReplyDeleteFYI the article is about the German green party (it's in German)
Bo-
ReplyDeleteGott in Himmel! My bad. How did I miss that? In any case, I'm guessing the American Green Party has 42 members, all told.
mb
"No matter how cheap and desperate the depicted situations might be, there is almost always a core of decency in Orwell’s characters; an irreducible minimum of common sense, goodwill, and hard-won humour”
ReplyDeletehttps://quillette.com/2021/08/27/theres-a-lot-more-to-george-orwell-than-nineteen-eighty-four/amp/
Pixie-
ReplyDeleteOne of the greats of the 20C. He once wrote that the real enemy was not Left or Rt, but "the gramophone mind." Imagine what he wd think of the bubbas and the wokes, if he were alive today.
Meanwhile, speaking of gramophone minds...
I need to take a moment out to address the antisemitic trollfoons. What's frustrating me is that most of them seem to have left the field. There are only a couple of hangers-on, who do a kind of hit-and-run posting, wh/I delete in abt 2 seconds (once I see the word 'Jew'). I miss them, in other words, and am writing this in the hope of baiting them to come back; they are too stupid to realize they are being baited. They are also too stupid to care that I don't read their messages, because their purpose is catharsis, not dialogue. Sartre wrote abt this in an essay of around 1945, that the antisemites need the Jews badly, to fill up their empty lives. (I wd recommend Sartre to them, but they are so stupid, they never even heard of Sartre.)
Trollfoons! You worry that the Jews will rule you? They already do! I've been living in your heads rent-free for years now. I'm all you think about, you silly little pieces of dreck. What a bunch of cowards you are. You have no testes, and I can prove it. A # of times I've told you exactly where I live: a block away from the Trotsky Museum in Mexico City. (You don't even know who Trotsky was, do you, you fucking morons.) In 1940, Ramon Mercader planted an ice pick in Trotsky's skull, polishing the poor guy off. He didn't bother sending the guy bitter messages, because he was a man, and men are capable of action. Boys such as yourselves, who have no testes, are not. All you can do is write to my blog. If you had testicles, you wd show up in front of the Trotsky Museum w/an ice pick, wait for me to come by, and then step up to the plate. But you are not men, and thus you will stick to words, not actions. You clowns are so pathetic: no testes, and penises that are 2" long. I challenge you to come and get me, but you won't, will you, you dickless wonders. Yr just like the Proud Boys. Trumpi told them to step up, and at the moment of truth, their dicks were limp--like yours.
(ps: Mercader subsequently spent 20 yrs in a Mexican jail.)
Jesus, if that don' bring them back, nothing will.
mb
Boy did this song ever age like milk in the sun.
ReplyDeletehttps://youtu.be/ruNrdmjcNTc
There isn't a single part of me that feels even the slightest bit sorry for the idiots in this video who are now having personal crises because they feel that their 'sacrifice' was for nothing.
Vets: Yes, your fighting was pointless. Yes, your only function was to fatten the bottom line of defense contractors. Yes, you were all cannon fodder and nothing more. If it's any consolation, Dick Cheney's great great grandchildren will never have to work a day in their lives.
Greetings MB and Wafers,
ReplyDeleteRe: Biden and the American tendency to never learn
Personally, I'm glad that our merciless Afghan slaughter campaign is coming to an end. Biden now, however, sounds like he wants to go back *in* to seek justice for the Kabul airport attack. I'm scratching my head as I sit here watching Don Lemonhead on CNN: Wasn't it revenge that got us into this mess in the first place?
Miles
Jeff-
ReplyDeleteThis alleged revenge caper will accomplish shit. Plus, we never learn squat.
Louis-
Have you ever thought of how many Americans need to be slapped? It correlates well with the Runaway Douchebag Index (RDI). But then, nothing is as inspiring as a degraded douchebag.
mb
Louis,
ReplyDeleteI agree, but better not say it to their faces (I know you know). Plenty of those folks are incredibly violent people who upon hearing you neigh rationally irrefutable point, will glance at you with those 'fractured, frightened, angry, hawk eyes' and beat the ever-living sissy "shit-lib" outta you.
But yeah, what a horrific humiliation... really awful for them but do they deserve to suffer from PTSD and die for Bullshit they believed in?
Maybe/Kinda?
Ahh well, who am I to judge. I didn't go through Bootcamp; after all, to care and not split into Manichean thinking is for "the weak" in America.
Re: Kabul airport attack.
ReplyDeleteHas anyone considered that the airport attack may have been carried out by those who want America to stay in Afghanistan? No proof yet, but consider it a distinct possibility.
Louis- the taliban should right a song called courtesy of jihad. I’m not a taliban supporter but how they humiliated the most powerful military in the world is impressive.
ReplyDeleteSupreme Court Ends Biden’s Eviction Moratorium
ReplyDeleteThe ruling followed political and legal maneuvering by the administration to retain protections for tenants. It puts hundreds of thousands at risk of being put out of their homes.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/27/us/eviction-moratorium-ends.html
Supreme Court halts Biden eviction moratorium
The court's three Democratic appointees dissented.
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/08/26/supreme-court-halts-biden-eviction-moratorium-506982
Millions at risk after Supreme Court overturns eviction ban in latest “shadow docket” ruling
More than 7 million people at risk of eviction while 89% of rental assistance funds go untapped
https://www.salon.com/2021/08/27/millions-at-risk-after-supreme-court-overturns-eviction-ban-in-latest-shadow-docket-ruling/
Hello Wafers:
ReplyDeleteWafers' favourite standup hack does everything but sing "God Bless America" in his most recent monologue.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8LxraECD5E
al-
ReplyDeleteHe cd probably use a fair amt of therapy.
Noura-
At least the judges will have a nice place to sleep.
mb
A great example of someone slowly and methodically laying out the American mind in its grand stupidity: how an anti-parasitic (and neurotoxin) used in horses has become a 'fad' among Facebook idiots to fight Covid, what the drug is, how even the maker of the drug who could be making millions has, despite being US money grubbers, tried to stop people from using it.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dByVMsE08FA&t=310s
Of course he is using facts and logic, so the people who need to hear him won't understand a word he is saying.
Nadine-
ReplyDeleteTry to stick to the format of presenting an argument and then providing evidence for it. For the most part, this isn't really a 'chat' blog. Thanks.
mb
Here is a man on the street interviewer trolling the buffoons, these are our neighbors.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwfuNl1wiss&list=WL&index=17
Alan-
ReplyDeleteWhen I think of the amount of slapping that is necessary, I get dizzy and hafta lie down. As far as urine (for shoes) goes--don' get me started! As you said, our neighbors. In WAF, I show that the seeds of American douchebaggery were planted in the late 16C.
mb
Wafers-
ReplyDeleteAs you can imagine, very few Americans give a shit abt Afghanistan. What, then, *do* they care abt? 1st, check out Kanye's face:
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/08/27/investing/gap-yeezy-kanye-west/index.html
I doubt I've ever seen a more stupid-looking face in my entire life. It actually gives me the shudders. Meanwhile, Americans are falling over themselves to buy his new jacket. What do they think it will do for them? What bozos these people are! This country is a fucking joke.
mb
ps: Even the jacket looks stupid:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.google.com/search?q=yeezy+jacket&hl=en&source=hp&ei=YJkqYb_EN5PemAXWrq-ICg&iflsig=ALs-wAMAAAAAYSqncFpX4m_29XehoDIzcmyps3-vDdDt&oq=yeezy+jacket&gs_lcp=Cgdnd3Mtd2l6EAEYADIFCAAQgAQyBQgAEIAEMggIABCABBDJAzIFCAAQgAQyBQgAEIAEMgUIABCABDIFCAAQgAQyBQgAEIAEMgUIABCABDIFCAAQgAQ6DgguEIAEEMcBENEDEJMCOgsILhCABBDHARDRAzoFCC4QgAQ6CwguEIAEEMcBEK8BUP8yWKpLYLZYaAFwAHgAgAF0iAGlCZIBAzcuNZgBAKABAbABAA&sclient=gws-wiz
The following is another nail on humanity's coffin -
ReplyDeletehttps://finance.yahoo.com/news/what-the-metaverse-is-and-why-it-matters-to-you-090642725.html
Also, please check out the comments section, you will find a WAFER or two. Opinions are extremely varied on the subject.
Sang-
ReplyDeleteThe horror, to quote Jos Conrad. Can Zuckershmuck be stopped? But I enjoyed the comments from Waferish people who understand how destructive all of this techno-dreck is. Just when you think there are limits to our stupidity, we reach even higher in that direction. As for the masses: Gee, ain't it all groovy?
mb
Greetings MB and Wafers,
ReplyDeleteChristina Revels-Glick, 34, arrested for masturbating w/a vibrator on a public beach. She didn't think anyone witnessed her because it only took "20 seconds" for her to climax. I hafta say that I'm behind Christina 110%! This is the kind of *action* America needs at this critical juncture:
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/world-news/woman-caught-masturbating-beach-thought-24860474
Miles
Jeff-
ReplyDeleteInasmuch as all of America is beating off, esp. in Afghanistan, Christina might as well enjoy herself. At least she's not harming anybody. Also nice that the news article gave us a foto of the vibrator. These visuals are so important.
mb
I just read the 'metaverse' piece and all I can say is beware of geeks bearing grifts.
ReplyDeleteThe eviction moratorium is ending. The federal government's unemployment subsidies end on September 5. Throw in a surge of COVID-19 infections and we have the makings of a perfect storm. Some of our neighbors will be struggling to make ends meet. I hope the fast food purveyors can come up with an extra special chicken sandwich to help us get through. I demand more pickles!
ReplyDeletehttps://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-supreme-court-ends-federal-residential-eviction-moratorium-2021-08-27/?utm_source=reddit.com
https://dol.ny.gov/fedexp
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-coronavirus-hospitalizations-hit-eight-month-high-over-100000-2021-08-27/
https://www.numerator.com/resources/blog/chicken-sandwich-wars-2021
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/south-dakota-covid-cases-quintuple-after-sturgis-motorcycle-rally-n1277567
ReplyDeleteSouth Dakota recently had a maskless motorcycle rally. Half a million bubbas attended, after which COVID cases in South Dakota quintupled. Governor Kristi Noem and her supporters have always insisted on not wearing masks, not getting vaccinated, gathering in large groups and doing whatever the fuck they want during the pandemic, and have learned zilch from the sharp rise in COVID cases. Can you imagine a more childish, self-indulgent response to the pandemic? I can't.
Nadine-
ReplyDeleteSlapping: the only answer.
Mike-
Slapping for the Supreme Court, chicken sandwiches for the masses.
flan-
Gd one! There's a Zucker born every minute. Metaverses, chicken sandwiches, invading countries for 20 yrs--clearly, this country has its priorities straight.
mb
Greetings all. Our crazy ugly Karens obviously enjoy riding motor scooters while they make total jackasses of themselves. Ha!Ha!Ha!
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWdivW4lVAo
p.s. To Wafer Mike Kelly: I say sit back, relax, and enjoy the show. Throw in with what you said: no more stimulus checks; folks having to find jobs making those chicken sandwiches; another possible lockdown; the World Series and the NFL ( if they aren’t cancelled ) restricting the number of fans in the stands; the fistfights among the angry testosterone filled bubbas in the bars watching these sports over wearing masks; and a possible stock market correction. Yes. A perfect storm indeed may be approaching. It should be fun to watch it here in our dysfunctional States of America. LOL.
Hahaha when I read this:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/04/29/990899374/retail-therapy-cvs-plans-to-expand-mental-health-care-in-stores
It was only a few years ago that "urgent cares" (chain doctor’s offices) were thought of as ridiculous.
No doubt in my mind that this will not be “psycho-therapy” in the real sense of the word. What will they call this psychotherapy? “Buttfuckers-CBT”?
More recent article on same trend:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/cvs-wants-to-be-your-therapist-too-11630238400#comments_sector
(Behind a paywall, but the title should suffice to show that this is relevant and progressing).
Dr. B and Wafers:
ReplyDeleteA reminder, relevant to our times, from Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death (p. 282):
What are we to make of a creation in which the routine activity is for organisms to be tearing others apart with teeth of all types—biting, grinding flesh, plant stalks, bones between molars, pushing the pulp greedily down the gullet and then excreting with foul stench and gasses the residue. Everyone reaching out to incorporate others who are edible to him. The mosquitoes bloating themselves on blood, the maggots, the killer-bees attacking with a fury and a demonism, sharks continuing to tear and swallow while their own innards are being torn out—not to mention the daily dismemberment and slaughter in "natural" accidents of all types: an earthquake buries alive 70 thousand bodies in Peru, automobiles make a pyramid heap of over 50 thousand a year in the U.S. alone, a tidal wave washes over a quarter of a million in the Indian Ocean. Creation is a nightmare spectacular taking place on a planet that has been soaked for hundreds of millions of years in the blood of all its creatures. The soberest conclusion that we could make about what has actually been taking place on the planet for about three billion years is that it is being turned into a vast pit of fertilizer.
Talk about a pop culture moment that really underscores the WAFer understanding of America!
ReplyDeleteIf you haven't seen the "Woodstock 99" documentary on HBO, I highly suggest doing so. It's an amazing post-mortem on how EVERYTHING in America (even counter-culture) eventually turns into a low-grade hustling scam.
This video is THE singular moment of that concert. A band called Limp Bizkit dove into one of their anthems, a song called "Break Stuff", and laid bare how empty American culture is.
Woodstock 99 billed itself as '2 More Days of Peace and Love' and devolved into price-gouging for water, rape, and arson.
Just the first 15 seconds of this video will tell you everything you need to know about how hollow it was:
https://youtu.be/wabVdWfm3lk
Musical Wafer.
ReplyDelete15. "BORN IN THE U.S.A." // BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN
No list of misunderstood songs is complete without "Born in the U.S.A." Music critic Greil Marcus believes the use of The Boss's hit as a rah-rah political anthem fuels its legacy: "Clearly the key to Bruce's popularity is in a misunderstanding," he said. "He is a tribute to the fact that people hear what they want to hear."
As Songfacts points out, "Most people thought it was a patriotic song about American pride, when it actually cast a shameful eye on how America treated its Vietnam veterans ... with the rollicking rhythm, enthusiastic chorus, and patriotic album cover, it is easy to think this has more to do with American pride than Vietnam shame."
"Born in the U.S.A." is the antithesis of the American Dream-chasing optimism that listeners construe the rock number as; the song captures the desperate feelings of a working-class citizen in post-Vietnam America. Springsteen explains that the song's protagonist is "isolated from the government, isolated from his family, to the point where nothing makes sense."
Louis-
ReplyDeleteAmerica is a large machine for turning everything into crap.
Brian-
Well that's gonna work, no doubt abt it. But I have a better idea. Wafers go door to door with chicken sandwiches and a bucket of KY jelly. Americans answer door, pull down their pants; Wafer greases up the sandwich and rams it up American's ass. Now that's therapy!
mb
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/aug/29/the-smartest-person-in-any-room-anywhere-in-defence-of-elon-musk-by-douglas-coupland
ReplyDelete‘The smartest person in any room anywhere’: in defence of Elon Musk, by Douglas Coupland
He’s the Silicon Valley Übermensch, the maverick boss of Tesla and SpaceX who wants us to colonise Mars and who can wipe out billions of dollars with a single tweet. So what’s not to love?
God this sort of hagiography is so nauseating
Borealis-
ReplyDeleteThink about the difference between intellectual knowing and ontological knowing, which we have discussed a few times in the past. I'm not sure Musk even has the 1st of these, let alone the 2nd. But he is very representative of the American 'mind' and value-system.
mb
On the metaverse article above, I want to present a glimmer of hope and positivity in thinking about it. It's something I learned during the Super Bowl. I lived in a city that often had a team in the Super Bowl, San Francisco. And we discovered that the streets were EMPTY during the Super Bowl. You could go to Point Reyes for a hike and find empty trails. One year we went to the Monterrey Bay Aquarium, usually wall to wall people. There was still a good-sized crowd, but there was a camaraderie as people smiled at each other, acknowledging that yep, we aren't watching it either.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite was when there as an exhibit of paintings on loan from the Maurithuis in The Hague. It was sold out for weeks, but on Super Sunday late afternoon there were tickets available. We went at 3:30, by 4:30 it was almost empty, and I stood five feet from Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring for half an hour and have a nice talk with the security guard about the painting, the reactions, etc., with no pushing, shoving, etc.
So, remember, the metaverse will remove whole demographics from the streets, from the trails, from the museums. People you don't want to be near will be holed up in their houses wearing virtual reality glasses. Enjoy!
Of course the darker side down the road is the Longterm elitists...
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2021/07/the-dangerous-ideas-of-longtermism-and-existential-risk
Dr. Berman & Wafers,
ReplyDeleteThe upcoming school year should be very entertaining. School board members are quitting in droves because of possible hostility from angry parents, many of whom are otherwise known as your “friendly” soccer moms. But hey: The mask debate can instill into children cries about their “freedom” at a young age. In short, it can spawn our next generation of “U.S.A.!, U.S.A.!, U.S.A.! “patriotic” conservatives. LOL.
https://apnews.com/article/health-education-coronavirus-pandemic-school-boards-35db5c9eec87b85ca8eb95a64c2f6dd7
Hatred so ravaged American life that people can't get go to school board meetings without unbearable hostility and nastiness. It's not even over anything real, just the politicization of a pandemic. Comically stupid people. Surreal. Hopeless.
ReplyDelete=================
To Dr. Berman and the Wafers: What online source deserves a paid subscription? I'm talking about Wafer-ish and high quality journalism sites, producing beautiful and well-thought out essays and analyses that always add something new to you.
Cherith-
ReplyDelete1. These people need to be beaten severely and then thrown on a dung heap.
2. I don't subscribe to any myself, but I'm sure they're out there. Perhaps other Wafers will have some suggestions 4u.
Joe-
See my reply to Cherith, #1. Add urine on shoes.
mb
EU takes U.S. off safe travel list; backs COVID-19 travel restrictions
ReplyDeletehttps://www.cbsnews.com/news/eu-reinstate-covid-restrictions-us-travelers/
"The European Council updates the safe travel list based on criteria relating to coronavirus infection levels. It gets reviewed every two weeks. The threshold for being on the EU list is having not more than 75 new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 inhabitants over the last 14 days.
Last week in the U.S. new coronavirus cases averaged over 152,000 a day, turning the clock back to the end of January, and the number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients was around 85,000, a number not seen since early February.
U.S. coronavirus deaths have been over 1,200 a day for several days, seven times higher than they were in early July."
When AI runs amok, disaster:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.wired.com/story/opioid-drug-addiction-algorithm-chronic-pain/
https://theweek.com/afghanistan/1004326/trump-bomb-the-hell-out-of-us-equipment-left-behind-in-afghanistan
ReplyDeleteFuckin statement from Trump calling for reinvasion! Can't make this stuff up, what a piece of shit!
Jordana-
ReplyDeleteThis is why we need Trumpi reelected in 2024. My god, the damage he cd do!
Patty-
What a horror story. As I've said many times, the American collapse is not going to look pretty. As the nation disintegrates, the horror escalates.
mb
This is how fascism takes hold--wear down regular people trying to do their jobs and then gather up all the marbles. Anti-mask parents attacking school board members (who are largely elected volunteers). These imbeciles will soon be dictating school policies:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pjl3PWbKmuU
Listen to the idiot at 2:38: "Science is not fact". Wow. I suppose I pissed away thirty-five years of my life studying physics to learn that it is not "fact". You just can't fix stupid. Vidal was right--we don't learn anything, that's our charm.
ps: The greatest jackass/douchebag alive in the US today:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/aug/30/kanye-west-donda-review-misfiring-lyricism-from-a-diminished-figure
Millions of Americans (of course) think he's fabulous.
And a bit more in the total doofus dept.:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/30/go-back-to-afghanistan-men-like-mcmaster-and-panetta-are-addicted-to-war
A turkey country run by turkey people. Jesus, what shmucks we are!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHWXMpQsvm0
ReplyDeleteTrump recently did an about-face, and is now telling his followers to get vaccinated. I guess he's worried that if enough of them die, he won't have any chance at being reelected. He recently tried to tell a crowd of supporters to get vaccinated, and they booed him and wouldn't let him talk. It turns out Trump's supporters are even crazier than he is.
Instead of reelecting Trump, who appears to have a tenuous connection to reality, we need to elect one of his followers, i.e. someone who is totally disconnected from reality and suffers from psychosis. Such a president would probably destroy America completely within the space of a few short weeks. Marjorie Taylor Greene and the Qanon shaman are examples of people who fit the bill.
Dan D. Great point. Up here in the upper-midwest of Amerikkka, most bars and restaurants are closed stupid bowl Sunday at 4 or 5pm. If only it wasn't -10 degrees F out the first week of February, I'd be out for a hike too.
ReplyDeleteDr. B-
ReplyDeleteCheck this out-
https://smithsonianassociates.org/ticketing/tickets/american-schism-healing-divided-nation
It includes the mandatory offering of a solution-
"He also proposes a plan to begin the process of repair and reconciliation..."
Birn-
ReplyDeleteHe's a "leader in consumer marketing." What a surprise. He looks like he has meat in his head. Yeah, no doubt he'll heal our poor, divided nation. I understand he's also selling the Bklyn Bridge at a discount price.
mb
Secunder Kermani is a BBC correspondent covering Afghanistan and Pakistan. He interviewed eyewitnesses of the blast in Kabul, who said that in the ensuing panic, many shots were fired from US troops adding to the death toll. If this is proven, this would be truly cowardly and monstrous.
ReplyDeletehttps://twitter.com/SecKermani/status/1431517279859224579
'The Impact of Marx on the Nineteenth Century', a lecture given by Isaiah Berlin at Stanford in 1964, was recorded, I have recently discovered, and can be heard here: https://berlin.wolf.ox.ac.uk/lists/nachlass/stanford.wav
ReplyDeleteFascinating
Wafer Mike Kelly et al.
ReplyDeletePlease find more recent "news" stories abt US-ians obsessions with chicken sandwiches. It truly is fucked.
https://www.chewboom.com/2021/08/31/wendys-introduces-new-big-bacon-cheddar-chicken-sandwich/
Who needs health care/education/retirement/employment rights/ etc..when good ol' capitalistic Yankee doodly "innovation" and "can do spirit," created a spicy chicken sandwich with ice cream!
https://www.msn.com/en-us/foodanddrink/foodnews/this-wildly-spicy-chicken-sandwich-with-melty-vanilla-ice-cream-might-just-be-the-sandwich-of-the-summer/ar-AANM9XZ
Mike R-
ReplyDeleteI'm excited abt these new sandwiches, because I think they wd make gd suppositories.
Brock-
Many yrs ago, Berlin did a bio of Marx that is excellent.
mb
@pastrami & Coleslaw-
ReplyDeleteThe great thing about the metaverse is that it will always be on, unlike the Super Bowl. So the kind of people who find such things interesting will be off the streets and fields in spring, summer and fall, also!
Everyone needs to talk about the metaverse and Second Life and such as much as possible to strangers. The next big thing!!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Life
Of course the environmental cost of the internet, more than aviation, bubbled up and then disappeared like a stone in a pond a few years ago. Tough choice- idiots off the streets but killing the planet... hmmm...
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/17/internet-climate-carbon-footprint-data-centres
Jung felt war is one of society's favored forms of negative transcendence. When people say they "need" a war, they are saying they need to break out of the prison-house of reason, and indulge a bout of unreason, usually at the expense of another people, nation or race.~D Tacey
ReplyDeleteStu-
ReplyDeleteLink? Reference?
mb
Aoologies MB,
ReplyDeletehttps://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Jung/dp/0393329534/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=how+to+read+jung&qid=1630442310&sr=8-3
On p.110
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/10/new-puritans-mob-justice-canceled/619818/
ReplyDeleteThe New Puritans
Dr. Berman & Wafers,
ReplyDeleteEnjoy and get some more good hearty laughs. The comedy show continues. Listen to what these idiots say. Listen to what these idiots sing. Look at what is written on some of these these idiots’ shirts. Ha!Ha!Ha! Ya gotta love it! LOL!
https://nbc-2.com/news/local/2021/08/30/lee-schools-mandates-masks-eliminates-form/
Joe-
ReplyDeleteI think Jesus might be the answer. Either that or guns. :-)
mb
Harper -
ReplyDeleteThis was an interesting read, thanks!
“I think people’s tolerance for discomfort—people’s tolerance for dissonance, for not hearing exactly what they want to hear—has now gone down to zero.”
I wonder what Sacvan Bercovitch would make of the puritan ecosystem of today.
Wafers,
ReplyDeleteEmpire in action. Goodness what horror the United States doles out to the world, and yet these assholes wonder why the U.S. is so hated.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-58380791.amp
Ryan-
ReplyDeleteA great thinker, Bercovitch; I cite him in my own work at one pt. Wd be gd if you had given Wafers a link to his writings (always helpful).
mb
Note to Dave in Van-
ReplyDeleteI literally cdn't understand yr list of infection data. However, I'm wondering if you have any arguments to make regarding the collapse of the American empire (the subject of this blog). Thank you.
mb
''Christmas Present grabbed America by its nightshirt and bellowed, “Listen!” He read one of Berman’s most powerful passages. As a nation plummets, “its culture no longer believes in itself, so it typically undertakes phony or misguided wars, or promotes its symbols and slogans all the more'' https://www.courier-journal.com/story/opinion/2019/12/24/america-must-confront-its-christmas-ghosts-before-its-too-late/2737333001/ ; https://www.express.co.uk/entertainment/books/981297/Graham-Nash-six-best-books-glow-kids-the-hunt-for-zero-point
ReplyDeleteUS gov't has tortured a taxi driver for 19 years at Guantanamo with no charges ever filed.
ReplyDeleteThe U.S. Has Held Me For 19 Years Without A Charge. I Have Just One Chance To Be Freed.
“I have been tortured using over 60 different methods... Nearly two decades of my life have been stolen because the U.S. thought I was someone else.”
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ahmed-rabbani-guantanamo-prison-without-charge_n_612657c0e4b0926643475246
Neil-
ReplyDeleteThat 1st link is amazing! Am I becoming famous? Problems w/2nd link: it says "Twilight" is out of print, wh/it's not, and says the problem of the US is Trump, wh/I don't say.
mb
Wafers-
ReplyDeleteA new foreign policy paradigm for the US? Have we actually learned our lesson?:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/01/us/politics/biden-defends-afghanistan-withdrawal.html
I'll believe it when I see it. Our nation depends for its psychological existence on war. We are an empty country w/empty people in it, so we need something to fill the void. However, Biden says he will direct American bellicosity toward China and Russia. This shd be fun: China will hand us our ass on a platter. Why? Because the Chinese are very smart, and we are very stupid.
mb
Stupidity (really irrationality) of Amerikka, "I'll take meds made for horses like shots of tequila, but not a vaccine because some loony vet on facebook said so."
ReplyDeletehttps://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/09/01/ivermectin-covid-treatment/
Dr. B, what's the chance that America's need for war turns inward? Although secession is often mentioned here, I wonder if it can also fulfill the need for an 'external' enemy? The country is so tribalized as it is. And the precursor to war is already in place internally, dehumanizing the enemy. Are there examples in history of internal civil war being integral to the end of an empire?
ReplyDeleteSeems to me that both Russia and China are smart enough to see where America is going.I figured that al Queda would not do another 9-11 scale attack because the first one was so effective in getting the US to shoot itself in the foot, the knees, the groin, the elbows. Why risk an attack that might just get Americans working together against a common external enemy? If I was China, I would play rope-a-dope if need be, but focus on patience as the US slowly pancakes down like the world trade center towers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rope-a-dope
The "War on Terror" has cost $8 trillion and almost 1 million lives:
ReplyDeletehttps://theintercept.com/2021/09/01/war-on-terror-deaths-cost/
More US empire 'exceptionalism;' how exciting- hustlers and hucksters in action...
ReplyDeletehttps://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-08-31/tarzana-couple-convicted-of-18-million-pandemic-relief-fraud-flee-considered-fugitives
Also, what is the deal with Anglo-Saxon countries and their obsession with fast "food" chicken sandwiches. Please see evidence in the UK (America's equally fucked-up 'father'). Seriously--that's what their "news" considers 'important'...
https://www.dw.com/en/uk-supply-chain-shortages-could-mean-no-mcdonalds-milkshakes-and-fewer-chicken-sandwiches/a-58979934
What is there left to say (Berman)?
ReplyDeletehttps://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-fake-maderna-vaccine-card-sees-woman-facing-a-year-in-prison-and-5-000-fine-in-hawaii-11630509244
maderna, modshmerna, who cares! It's likely CRE (cranial-rectal embedment): pathognomonic for the american dipshit (redundant).
https://www.axios.com/migrant-children-biden-administration-a597fd98-03a7-415c-9826-9d0b5aaba081.html
ReplyDeleteExclusive: Government can't reach one-in-three released migrant kids
For real,, why is the government allowed to be this incompetent?
I think the point is that Graham Nash is recommending "Twilight." What's really important, of course, is what Neil (Young) thinks.....
ReplyDeleteWafers,
ReplyDeleteSit back, enjoy, have some more fun, and get even more hearty laughs at your “U-S-A”ins in action. This here newest comedy show perhaps should be called “The Great American Mask Debate”. Ha!Ha!Ha! Dr. Berman, these psychos ( especially the ones in the second video) that show up at these school board meetings are even funnier than the Karens! LOL!
What a country! Ha!Ha!Ha! Yeah, Baby!!!!! LOL!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2eDe92PhiI
https://m.facebook.com/watch/?v=182107657234116&_rdr
“These are your your neighbors. They borrow sugar from you.” -GSWH, speaking on Book TV while discussing a Notable Book, “The Twilight of American Culture”.
Joe-
ReplyDeleteReally, the whole problem of the US cd be solved if every American were issued a semi-automatic weapon, and told: If you are pro-mask, go hunt down people w/o masks and shoot them in the street like dogs; and if you are anti-mask, go hunt down people with masks and shoot them in the street like dogs. There will be no legal consequences of your actions, of which we (the gov't) in fact approve. Also, when you kill someone, be sure to cry, "Gotcha, sucker!"
Holst-
Really, who's gonna stop the government? The people, who are just as incompetent? What if an experiment were done on 10,000 citizens (including members of the gov't), brain biopsies, and that these revealed that 99% of them had significant amounts of dogshit in their heads? (I'm not speaking metaphorically.) This cd clear up lots of mysteries in our culture.
Dr. Shit-
But this is exactly what I'm talking abt. This pathetic young woman has surely got pieces of dog-do in her head, rather than gray matter.
Glans-
I think my earlier suggestion, of using chicken sandwiches on Americans as mandatory suppositories, is one of the best ideas I've had in a decade. Suggest all of you invest in the co. that makes KY jelly, also the one that manufactures crowbars.
Dan D-
China is probably already doing that. I suspect they have little respect for the US, realize that we are a collection of duffers, and will play us like a violin. As for the issue of regimes turning on themselves, check out Mary Douglas, "Purity and Danger," and Norman Cohn, "Pursuit of the Millennium."
Hans-
But as Ronald Reagan usta say, At least we're not spending this $ on welfare mothers hooked on dope. More wars! More stupidity! Full speed ahead! Pass the chicken sandwiches and damn the torpedos!
Ya'qkub-
Sorry, cdn't run it. We have a half-pg-max rule on this blog. Pls compress by 50% and re-send. Thank you.
Kev-
Sure, but everyone will think it's out of print, and also that it's abt Trump. I dunno if the guy did me a favor. As for Neil: as you know, I'm a miner for a heart of gold. ("I've been to Hollywood, I've been to Redwood...")
mb
Dear Dr. Berman: Our critiques, as almost always in the past, may amount to little or nothing more than efforts to flog a dying horse—and the dumbness or indifference from the other side may well be part of some historical process that propels dying empires into oblivion. It was therefore encouraging to read a Wall Street Journal oped (see link below) on the penultimate day of August, titled "You Are Living in the Golden Age of Stupidity," to which I might have added, "Welcome!"
ReplyDeleteThree excerpts, especially for those who might not have full access to the article:
- "Stupidity and irresponsibility are evil twins."
- "Stupidity is entitled to no moral standing whatsoever, and yet it sits in a place of honor at the tables of the mighty; it blows in their ears and whispers promises."
- "The '60s set forth a paradox: It's possible for a decade to be filled with tragedy and ideals, and at the same time be essentially stupid." (Let's not forget the millennium ended with the coronation of King George W. Bush, proving the idea that politics in America revolves in 40-year cycles.)
https://www.wsj.com/articles/idiocy-stupidity-afghanistan-covid-vaccine-maga-trump-civility-privacy-common-sense-11630271666
MB,
ReplyDeleteThe article says that Biden's bellicosity toward Russia and China will be limited to economic and cybersecurity competition. This isn't the kind of genocidal imperialism we've come to expect from America, but you're right in pointing out that it's still destructive, and that China will clobber America if it acts aggressively in any way. Also, I actually think Biden's being sincere when he says he doesn't want to do any more nation-building, because he actually lived up to his word and ended a "forever war" that was all about nation-building. However, the article also says he'll still use drone strikes from time to time, making Biden a war criminal, albeit a much less horrible one than any president in recent memory.
Of course, the American people aren't happy that Biden has decided not to nation-build. His popularity is plummeting:
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/24/bidens-approval-ratings-plummet-bad-news-for-democrats-in-congress.html
I'd bet money that if Biden digs in his heels and refuses to nation-build, the American people will elect someone who will in 2024.
Nadine-
ReplyDeleteWe may wait a while b4 undertaking another nation-bldg disaster, however. Not nation-bldg is the popular mood rt now. But Biden looks bad at the moment because of our messy exit from Afghan, wh/will probably hurt the Dems in 2022, as yr 1st link pts out. I'm guessing that after the midterm elections, he won't be able to get anything done; and I'm also guessing that starting another war in 2024 will still be very unpopular. Trumpi can and will also promise no nation-bldg, I'm sure. In any case, we have no sensible or coherent foreign policy, and any sensible domestic policy will be unlikely after 2022. We're just a wounded dinosaur, limping along.
mb
Morris-
ReplyDeleteCongrats on the 10 year anniversary of WAF.
Dan Daniel-
I've come to opposite conclusion. Ivermectin is a drug for people. Saying it's for horses is like pointing out that there is aspirin marketed for dogs. In 2015 it won the Nobel prize b/c of its role in treating parasitic diseases:
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2015/press-release/
Here is a live meta-analysis showing that it is extremely effective against Covid-19:
https://c19ivermectin.com/
Here is a website run by doctors who treat covid: https://covid19criticalcare.com/
Here's how to avoid getting covid: https://covid19criticalcare.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/FLCCC-Alliance-I-MASKplus-Protocol-ENGLISH.pdf
Ya'qkub-
ReplyDeleteThanks for your congrats, and the info. In future, pls address me as Mr. Berman or GSWH. Thank you.
mb
Americans never learn, it's part of their charm (Vidal).
ReplyDelete"Memorable" quote from the war monger and war criminal (sorry, cough "statesman" cough).
"It was not possible to turn the country into a modern democracy, but creative diplomacy and force might have overcome terrorism, says the American statesman."
There's a paywall from this US empire propaganda rag.
https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2021/08/25/henry-kissinger-on-why-america-failed-in-afghanistan
Mike R-
ReplyDeleteThis from the guy who said of his interference in Chile, 1973, into a free democratic election, "Well, we couldn't allow them to make a mistake."
What is the US? A genocidal war machine run by a plutocracy and cheered on by millions of clueless morons.
What is the current American agenda? To commit national suicide.
From a declinist pt of view, Kissinger is the type of guy we want.
mb
Hello WAFers,
ReplyDeleteApparently San Francisco is considering paying people not to commit violent crimes? Figures this culture would need to commodify non-violence..
https://video.foxnews.com/v/6270615274001#sp=show-clips
In the wake of the U.S. withdrawal from Kabul Airport, I’ve been reading mentions of the country of Qatar in a number of reports, such as the Qataris dispatching a team to help the Taliban resume operations at Kabul Airport.
ReplyDeleteQatar is an autocratic state, ruled by one family, with a legal system based on Sharia law. Wait, isn’t that just like the intended Taliban regime in Afghanistan? But the U.S. has a major base in Qatar. And Qatar has deposits of petroleum and natural gas. A major base and resources partially explain why the U.S. considers the Qataris as allies just like the Saudis. But I knew there was one unanswered question: are there Burger King franchises in Qatar? And the answer is … YES! There are three Burger King outlets in the heart of the capital, Doha, alone, and two more outlets farther out. Chicken sandwiches with condiments go far in explaining the nuances of the continuing War on Terror… U-S-A! U-S-A! An amalgamation of corporations and their buffoonish consumers masquerading as a country. Carry on!
www.onlineqatar.com/living/dining-and-entertainments/burger-king-locations-in-doha
Streets paved with gold,' 'land of opportunity,' 'hopes and dreams,' 'shining city on that hill (dung pile),' 'greatest 'country' in the world,' and...
ReplyDeletehttps://www.ibtimes.co.uk/man-shot-dead-after-being-tortured-hours-blowtorch-knives-forced-walk-off-cliff-naked-1694088
-Wonder what inspired this "exceptional" behavior? usa, usa!
More on American stupidity. A nation united (rather than divided) in stupidity cannot long endure.
ReplyDeleteEsquire won't allow me to read the article without subscripting to the magazine, but its in the Summer 2021 edition. The article is titled "The Rise of Elevated Stupidity" and is on page 17 of that issue.
Difference between regular stupidity and what he calls "Elevated Stupidity"
"Stupidity is saying two plus two equals five. Elevated stupidity is doing the same thing, except you invoke Pythagoras, decry cancel culture when someone corrects you, then get a seven-figure book deal and a speaking tour out of it. Elevated Stupidity has permeated all facets of life - reality TV, social media. Congress, your group chat, and your softball team". In other words, ES is the art of appearing smart and correct when you have no idea what you're talking about. Stupidity trying to fake it by pretending to be smart.
JFriedman-
ReplyDeleteSorry, I don't post antisemitic stuff on this blog. However, there are thousands of blogs that wd be eager to have it, so maybe you could check them out.
Graeber-
This is from beyond the grave, rt?
mb
And still more laughs from The Great American Mask Debate comedy show. LOL!
ReplyDeleteWomen doctors getting shoved in the first video. Look also at the woman wearing a flag dress. And the idiot with a prayer shirt. The circus is in town.
https://news.yahoo.com/fights-break-doctor-shoved-florida-212015893.html
For the second video we have the usual conservative anti-maskers talking about “the Constitution” and “their freedom”—the two stale repeated words from the two sides of their broken record. And the final angry “tough guy” doofus is an epitome for the Dysfunctional States of America.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuDDto9PUMA
In out third one, check out the sign at the 1:14 mark. The PARENTS can’t even spell a simple word! LOL! Check out also the maniac at the 1:40 mark. And side B of the conservatives’ broken record is being played at the 5:41 mark.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmtfFAqUwtI
What’s great about this is that the fun actually hasn’t started to begin. It’s still very early in the school year!
Dr. Berman, these angry antimaskers also certainly are part of a declinist’s dream! LOL!
@ Ya'qkub-
ReplyDeleteThanks for the info on ivermectin. I know that there are lots of studies and lots of different opinions, which is to be expected during an ongoing pandemic.
I must admit, the 31 random controlled trials, worldwide, seems like a low number, compared to over 1800 drug trials noted here-
https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/covid_view
https://c19ivermectin.com/
And I am not certain what ivermectin's mode of operation is with parasites, and how that relates to its mode of operation is with Covid. I find that to point to its role in the 2015 Nobel Prize is deceptive in discussions of Covid without saying how its effectiveness with parasites translate to viruses, a very different mechanism of infection.
But I am not a trained medical researcher. I hope that if ivermectin is as effective as some of the study summaries suggest that it finds use. I have a sense that we will be playing whack-a-mole with Covid variations for some time.
Joe-
ReplyDeleteYou might wanna read my story called "The Wire Cage Experiment," in "The Heart of the Matter." I wd also call for processing Americans, 1000 at a time, by putting them in a wire cage, half maskers and half anti-maskers, giving them all guns, and telling them: "Go for it, bozos!"
If this is the way the US is going to collapse, then declinists are going to split their sides laughing. Never did I ever imagine that the nation would collapse because of mask fights. Re: poor spelling: I mention in the Twilight bk walking by the Children's Hospital in DC and it was spelled "Childern". What utter clowns Americans are. Tell me that our fellow-citizens don't need chicken sandwich suppositories.
mb
Thanks for the infallible image, Dr. Berman: "We're just a wounded dinosaur, limping along." But, Brontosaurus or T-Rex?
ReplyDeleteDr. Berman - I just don't understand why you're getting so many trollfoons on your blog. What did you ever do or say? Surely, these people are hollow inside. I will pray for their souls.
ReplyDeleteYa'qkub-
ReplyDeleteCdn't run it. Another blog rule: post only once every 24 hrs, max. Pls wait out 24 hrs since yr last post and then re-send yr message. Thank you.
Sofia-
Actually, I'm a bit frustrated, because most of them seem to have disappeared. I love getting these hate messages, because they reveal how deep the poison is in the American soul, and suggest that collapse is not far off. A few diehards do a hit-and-run, occasionally; they are too stupid to realize that I'm not rdg their stuff, or just don't care. However, I think what esp. put them off was my challenge to them: sticks and stones, etc. Any fool can type out a message; so what? This shows that they have no testes; they are not real men. A real man shows up in front of the Trotsky Museum w/an ice pick, waits for me to come by, and then plants the thing in my skull. These boys w/o balls are all talk and no action, and their penises are very small.
Ajay-
Was there a T-Shmuck?
mb
Hi, I am new to your blog. Saw you on Geopolitics and Empire previous shows. I really like your analysis on there. I have a non topic related question. I am from the UK would appreciate if you could recommend a list of books to read.
ReplyDeleteThanks
Regards
Mo
Mo-
ReplyDeleteAny particular area of interest?
mb
mb-
ReplyDeleteJust generally. Whatever you think is good ? As broad as possible to come out of blissful ignorance.
Mo
Mo-
ReplyDeleteSorry, I wdn't know where to begin w/o a specific area of interest. You might go online, check out university rdg lists for courses in Western Civ.
mb
Mo, try searching through the comments over the past few years. I seem to remember other WAFers posting reading lists.
ReplyDeleteOff the top of my head try anything by Joe Bageant, Neil Postman, Dr. Berman of course.
Watch out WAFers stuck in Amerikkka, the 20th anniversary of 9/11 is coming up a week from tomorrow. It's going to be bad, maybe a few people will use it to reflect upon an empire in decline ... but I doubt it.
A great interview on class structures in the United States:
ReplyDeletehttps://kersplebedeb.com/posts/raceburn/
Dan D -
Calling me deceptive misses the point, my point being this: ivermectin is a drug for people. What I want to warn people away from is the media framing of ivermectin as a drug solely for livestock, a claim which actually is deceptive.
In regards to the number 1,800, if a good novel has 150 pages and your criticism is to point out that Merriam Webster dictionary has 1,500 pages, then I can only scratch my head. Doctors who treat Covid-19 everyday think that 31 RTCs out of 100+ studies is more than sufficient to justify prescribing it. If you could provide several RTCs showing the opposite conclusion, you might be able to change their minds.
The science of ivermectin in the treatment of Covid-19 is that it binds to the virus' spike protein, preventing the virus from entering the cell and replicating.
Wafers-
ReplyDeleteRegarding the Chicken Sandwich Suppository Treatment, it turns out that crowbars will not be necessary. The Jewish Space Laser now has an attachment that rams the sandwich into the rear ends of American citizens, altho KY jelly is still advised. Don' tell me there's no progress in this country!
mb
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYnqSQQ_Ep0
ReplyDeleteCounties where nearly everyone voted for Trump have triple the COVID death rate than counties where nearly everyone voted for Biden. Clearly, Trumpers want to die. Why else would they gather in groups of hundreds of thousands, mask-free, during a pandemic? These are celebrations of their own impending death.
MB hit the nail on the dead when he said America's current agenda is to commit national suicide. And why shouldn't it have this agenda? America is mired in terrible, incurable, existential anguish, and naturally yearns for the sweet release of death. Seriously, how many Americans have you met that are happy to be alive? I only know a handful.
Nadine-
ReplyDeleteWell, the Trumpites think that the masks are part of a communist plot. So by going maskless, they think they are rejecting communism. As for national suicide: 2 ways of looking at this. One, it's sad (obviously). But a 2nd way is to scratch yr head and say, "WTF? Why wd the country be plunging a knife into its own heart? Can they be that stupid?" Answer: yes, they can, and they are.
mb
Dr. B, did your time teaching writing to the CIA also include being brainwashed about rectums and food?
ReplyDeletehttps://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/hayesbrown/cia-used-rectal-feeding-as-part-of-torture-program
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/dec/09/cia-report-rectal-feeding-detainees
Inquiring minds want to know- is the wrapper kept on the chicken sandwich for insertion? This could be important if we face a surgical glove shortage again.
@Ya'qkub- Yes, I took your invocation of ivermectin's role in a Nobel Prize as sort of the equivalent of 'aspirin reduces fever so of course it will help with a broken finger!' type of argument. I see what you meant now, that ivermectin is well-accepted as a medicine to give humans and is not just an animal medicine. So giving it to humans is a real option.
I was also confused by the jump from parasite to virus. I will look into its mechanism. Variations in spike proteins seem to be significant in new strains, based on the little I understand.
Dan D-
ReplyDeleteI confess I was not privy to their torture techniques, but my own desire to distribute chicken sandwich suppositories nationwide is an expression of wanting to *help* Americans. After all, nothing has worked thus far. Plus, it seems that much of their lives revolve around chicken sandwiches. (ps: no wrappers)
mb
Hello Wafers:
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure that this is a typical Wafer reading list, but it's what my eyeballs have been looking over this past summer:
Stalingrad - Vasily Grossman (currently reading)
Culture of Complaint - Robert Hughes
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight - Marie Borroff's modern English version (I browse through the original occasionally)
What's the Matter with Kansas? - Thomas Frank
The Gallant Cause: Canadians in the Spanish Civil War 1936 - 1939 - Mark Zuehlke
Coming to Our Senses - some guy named Belman
The Big Sleep - Raymond Chandler
A Stranger to Myself : The Inhumanity of War : Russia 1941-44 - Willy Peter Reese
The Idiot - Fyodor Dostoevsky
Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Independent People - Haldor Laxness
The Damnation of Theron Ware - Harold Frederic
The Odyssey – Homer
Islands of the Damned : a Marine at War in the Pacific - R. V. Burgin
Dan, thanks for taking up the argument for our resident swordmaker Ya'qkub, you're more diplomatic than I am. Brass tacks? If it helps great, but the problem is the redneck is taking Ivermectin instead of the vaccine, and that's bad. End.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, all this talk of chicken sandwiches has aroused my appetite. Alas, Dr. B, I don't see how much shipping is to MX:
https://carnegiedeli.com/collections/best-sellers/products/pastrami-sandwich-kit
Mo: try anything by Murakami or Kurt Vonnegut or Don DiLillo. Revisit the classics like Red and Black or Marcus Aurelius or Steinbeck. Super Sad Love Story, Fight Club, You Are Not a Gadget ... and on and on. Get started!
Why Do They Burn a Man at Burning Man?Or dark truths René Girard should have told us about pop culture, but never got around to saying
ReplyDeletehttps://tedgioia.substack.com/p/why-do-they-burn-a-man-at-burning
Interesting study in the footsteps of René Girard's "La violence et le sacré"
The common excuse used by both Dems and Reps when confronted with legislation that might actually help Americans is that "we just don't have the money for that". Convenient but untrue. If we had not invaded and occupied Afghanistan for 20 years, we could have used the 21 Trillion wasted there for projects that help the average American. The nation that continually lies to itself "shall not long endure".
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgFNoSwFGBk
As the decline accelerates an uglier and scarier society is coming into view.
ReplyDeletehttps://eand.co/texas-is-the-gops-template-for-a-totalitarian-america-4866c06da8b4
Dr. B and Wafers:
ReplyDeleteWe who follow the news and subscribe to news alerts (trying to keep track of the meltdown of the American empire) get lots of notices about emergencies. Today an email alerted me to the climate emergency. On other days I am asked to donate to groups that claim to be confronting the immigration emergency, the pandemic emergency, the voting emergency, the opioid emergency, the free speech emergency, the terrorist emergency, the poverty emergency, and so on.
Thus far, no one has alerted me to the lunacy emergency.
Attention Mr. Hedges and other "proud" US-ians who want to turn the empire "around" and "save" it....these are your folks/recruits below.
ReplyDeleteThey are definitely resisting and revolting.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/arizona-dad-rishi-rambaran-arrested-after-angry-trio-threatens-to-zip-tie-principal-over-covid-rules
usa, usa.
'It's a lie', claims resistance force commander Ahmad Massoud on Panjshir takeover by Taliban
ReplyDeleteFormer Vice-President Amrullah Saleh, one of the leaders of the Opposition forces, said his side had not given up
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.tribuneindia.com/news/world/its-a-lie-claims-resistance-force-commander-ahmad-massoud-on-panjshir-takeover-by-taliban-306620
Massoud is going to fight. A true hero & the type of spirit our occupation has been strangling for decades.
Corporate boards, consulting, speaking fees: How U.S. generals thrived after Afghanistan
ReplyDeleteStanley A. McChrystal exemplifies how ex-generals sell their battlefield experience in other arenas, from corporations to covid-19 response.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/09/04/mcchrystal-afghanistan-navistar-consulting-generals/
Reading Jackson Lears' 'No Place of Grace'. Wondering if Dr Berman (aka 'Great Seer') or wafers have any thoughts regarding this book? https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/N/bo3635283.html
ReplyDeleteThere must be secret declinists in the state government of Florida.
ReplyDeletehttps://ca.news.yahoo.com/15-miami-dade-public-school-021517732.html
Dr. Berman,
ReplyDeleteThe Karens! They’re everywhere! And they even have come to the county where I live! This Karen was spotted at one of my local supermarkets.
https://www.tmz.com/2020/08/09/long-island-anti-masker-supermarket-employee/
And elsewhere in our Dysfunctional States of America they’re as crazy as ever!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTvjGXif2Is
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saM6qXBPPbI
While we’re at it, Dr. Berman & Wafers, perhaps we all should participate in a sample.
The question: Who are more insane? The Karens or the anti-maskers at the school board meetings? LOL!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7buqyUUv_0
ReplyDeleteChris Hedges has mentioned many times over the last couple months that America is finished, but once again goes off the deep end in this video. He says we should embrace "sublime madness" and revolt for its own sake, regardless of the cost to ourselves. It is, quite frankly, appalling that he would suggest we revolt, because he knows full well it won't accomplish anything, and will only put us in grave danger. It seems like he's trying to be a cult leader or something.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mR1w5SyvBGo
ReplyDeleteDo you know how many thousands are crippled each year because the
ReplyDeleteweight of a mask puts a great strain on the spine?
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/hundreds-florida-parents-lined-chiropractors-121035592.html
"A large portion of MSNBC’s existence is characterized by a lust for ratings, endless coverage of trivialities and a craven echoing of officialdom. It may occasionally have a good take, segment or even host, but it will always be operating in service to profit—and corporate power"
ReplyDeleteWith apologies to Gore Vidal, there is only one media in America with 2 wings: the corporate media, whose primary interest is profit.
https://fair.org/home/after-25-years-theres-a-reason-msnbc-cant-look-back/
Dr. Berman & Wafers,
ReplyDeleteThe Karens. The School Board Anti Maskers. And don’t forget the daily mass shootings. Here are a few of the latest in our Dysfunctional States of America as this pathetic wasteland falls further apart.
https://apnews.com/article/florida-8bb467238fbcf4f96de5b69c93d044e8
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2021/09/05/Washington-DC-shooting-September-5/5261630879876/
https://www.khou.com/article/news/crime/four-people-dead-southwest-houston/285-1f7b3656-daa1-4c86-902b-e760c4d2c699
Nadine-
ReplyDeleteRe: Hedges: the guy is sicker than I thought, and I don't mean metaphorically. Talk abt the Pied Piper. This is really shameful: young people shd die for the sake of his twisted ideology. BTW, pls don't post more than once in a 24-hr period. Thank you.
Art-
Apparently the kids had been wearing masks made of lead.
Joe-
Slapping and urine: the only solution.
Neil-
Big fan of Lears. Quoted that book somewhere in the American empire trilogy.
KV-
Now there's a shock.
Dr. Shit-
See post by Nadine.
Pete-
The Buffoon Emergency Epidemic shd be #1 on the list. 332 million Americans crippled by buffoonitis.
Anjin-
America is full of wonderful people. Texas is clearly in the lead.
mb
An essay by Lionel Shriver on the eve of 9/11, now become a religious holiday replete with everything but self-reflection.
ReplyDeleteThis is written as a letter to her brother, who died in the South Tower. She goes on, using those events as a springboard, to assess her birth country (born Margaret Ann Shriver on 18 May 1957 in Gastonia, NC) and its social ills, many self-inflicted.
https://unherd.com/2021/09/we-need-to-talk-about-9-11/
ps: https://edition.cnn.com/2021/09/06/us/florida-shooting-infant-what-we-know/index.html
ReplyDeleteHedges' Sublime Madness idea dates back a ways for him. And is nothing new to Western thought. Neitzsche and Dionysus, William Blake, mystics and cranks for centuries. Here's a 2013 essay by Hedges that Moore cribbed almost verbatim for his recent podcast title-
ReplyDeletehttps://www.truthdig.com/articles/a-time-for-sublime-madness/
I guess the question is what is important to the individual. If survival and freedom to pursue personal activities without opppression or suppression is paramount, then NMI it? But some people are driven by other things, other values, and would find keeping their head down inside an inhumane and despicable culture unlivable in its own right, even knowing that 'victory' is not achievable. Dr. B, you seem to know this battle to a degree, having foregone certain possible rewards and securities, knowing that praise from mainstream academia and the larger culture would not be yours, but that you needed to follow that crazy idea of 'truth'?
In an alternative version of 1969, the Soviet Union beats the United States to the Moon, and the space race continues on for decades with still grander challenges and goals
ReplyDeletehttps://imdb.com/title/tt7772588/
"For All Mankind" has become very addictive viewing!
Victoria-
ReplyDeleteFor another take on it, check out "Moonies" in "The Heart of the Matter."
Dan D-
True, but then I never put other people's lives in danger. Potentially speaking, Hedges has. Check out the Wiki entry for "Reflections on Violence." Hedges reminds me of Georges Sorel. There is no getting around the fact that for the sake of his blind and stupid ideology, Hedges is encouraging widespread self-destruction. (Blake, BTW, can't be put in the same camp.) And is he walking his own talk? Is he out in the streets, organizing the uprising of the masses? Last I heard, he was warm and cozy in a luxury apt. in Princeton.
mb
A vignette on what’s wrong with the current media landscape: Too Good To Check: A Play In Three Acts https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/too-good-to-check-a-play-in-three
ReplyDeleteGreetings MB and Wafers,
ReplyDeleteNicolas Ruthenberg, 25, blows a fuse following a car crash on his wedding day. Upon being arrested, Ruthenberg pledged allegiance to Trumpi by saying, "All hail Donald Trump" then jammed his two fingers into his anus:
https://www.rawstory.com/nicholas-ruthenberg/
And, oh, in case you guys missed it:
https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/06/entertainment/cardi-b-baby/index.html
Miles
Jeff-
ReplyDelete1. Why 2 fingers? And wdn't that bump up against the chicken sandwich already lodged up there?
2. As for 2nd link: Offset? Seriously?
3. All this reminds me of the film "Idiocracy".
mb
Recent post from John Michael Greer - yet another indication that the Limits to Growth model is on track.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.ecosophia.net/a-prayer-for-nonbelievers/
In response to Hedges tripe:
"We had a window of opportunity; between the total failure of our managerial elite in the Vietnam war, the trauma of the 1973 oil embargo, and the revelations of government corruption and abuse of power that followed Watergate, enough people in the United States had been shocked awake, and we could have made the necessary changes while there was time for them to matter. The US Bicentennial in 1976 brought us close to that choice—closer, I think, than ever before or since—as a great many Americans thought about what we’d lost in our frantic quest for empire overseas and excess at home.
But we didn’t make that choice, and here we are."
Kev-
ReplyDeleteSounds gd, but I question Greer's characterization of who 'we' is. Once you analyze that, the picture becomes a lot more complicated.
mb
Who will pick up Deep State's garbage after the depopulation?
ReplyDeletehttps://ca.news.yahoo.com/parent-tells-school-board-vaccines-172213872.html
Wafer Kevin's comment--Exactly! Who is this "we" that these 'intellects' 'thought-leaders' keep referring to? The 99.7% of usians who voluntarily and gleefully want what america is offering them.
ReplyDeleteThese treatises/analyses miss this fact quite often as if 'helpless'/'brainwashed' usians were being forced into their actions or if they could maybe just get hip to the jive then this, then that.... F no. They like america and want what it offers and/or want to "improve" the empire bc they ontologically believe in it.
They really want what america is offering. Hence, why there will be absolutely no meaningful change/'shocked awake' whatsoever bc they 'believe' in the US empire-it's their identity (Protestant, Catholic, Jew--Herberg). America itself was their religion.
Of course, these 'analysts' need to pay their for lifestyle so they continue the rise up/resist/we should-ought-need to be 'shocked awake'... It's selling hope to dopes (Hedges and Co). Many likely believe their own bullshit. When in reality, us truth is far more depressing and of course, it doesn't sell.
There were 2 shootings several hours apart in my neighborhood. Same day.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/1-dead-1-hurt-after-two-sunday-shootings-in-northwest-dc/2793308/
Just another day in a decaying trigger-happy failed empire. The only thing amerikkkans are good @ now is killing each other. They got no real manufacturing base left, (almost everything is Chinese made),a crumbling infrastructure, joke political system, etc. The curtains have just about closed on this experiment
Glans-
ReplyDeleteHedges is now apparently selling hopelessness to dopes. Well, America has a whole lotta dopes. Maybe this will get interesting, as suicidal revolts become popular. As for the "civil religion": yes, Herberg in 1955, Robt Bellah in 1967, and then me in 2010 (QOV). Which explains why, if you criticize America to an American, he turns red, waves his arms, and saliva flies out of his mouth. He can barely speak.
mb
US: vast resources but no imagination or goals.
ReplyDeleteHistorically, the impulses that have substituted for goals amount to nothing more than attempts to perpetuate the myth of omnipotence and purity even as these same spasms belie the shock and awe they’re intended to announce. Sadly, FDR may be the only figure in modern history who had any imagination at all, yet his imagination could be mustered only in response to a threat from outside our borders. Yet 1948 with the Marshall Plan, the US had their moment in history when imagination could have been applied to remaking the world. Nevertheless, we got lost down the rabbit-hole of Containment, which became ersatz for vision for the next 50 years. Then when Communism fell in 1989, we were already too invested in the need for an enemy to cobble together a fresh menu.
Now in 2021 the threat has finally been recognized to be where it always was: at home.
Over the next 14 months, domestic threats might easily destroy what’s left of the Republic. Is it too late for a wake-up call to imagination? We’ll soon find out.
Justin-
ReplyDeleteI don't think the location of the threat *has* been recognized. Jimmy Carter wanted us to point our finger at ourselves, and he got voted out of office. Not much has changed since 1979 in that regard.
Regarding your message: we tend to discourage "broadcasts," and ask for links or reliable references to any argument being made. In future, pls supply them. Thank you.
mb
OK then let me say this Mr Berman.
ReplyDeleteAs a younger man, I read most of your books: Re-enchantment, Coming to our Sense, Twilight, probably others too. You've been a prpfound influence into my intellectual life.
...and like you, I had the good sense a ways back to leave the motherland.
I'm not sure I'll continue posting but I will stay tuned.
Thank you for your wisdom over the years
Justin Weiner
Justin-
ReplyDeleteGlad I cd make a difference 4u; I appreciate yr appreciation. And pls continue posting...but we do have a very few rules here. Besides the one on links/refs, we ask that Wafers post only once every 24 hrs, max. So pls post away, but w/in those parameters. Thank you, and thank you for yr kind words. ps: glad u managed to get out.
mb
Dear MB
ReplyDeleteAs I mentioned in a previous post, I'm in Australia wanting to move to another country and your reply was really helpful. Thank you so much.
I had an unrelated question for you. Reading through your monographs, I'm astounded by the breadth, depth and clarity of your thoughts. Reflecting on myself, as a millennial, I've come to the conclusion, which you argue in your chapter titled "Jonathan Swift Revisited" in "Are We There Yet?", that perhaps my brain has turned to mush from digital screens and social media. But at the same time, reading your blogposts here I notice the same clarity, depth and breadth in your thoughts! So I wanted to ask, do you have any advice on getting such clarity, depth and breadth in one's thoughts?
Thank you again
Jang
Jang-
ReplyDeleteI'm tempted to be cute and say, Eat lots of pastrami and chopped liver, but I won't. What can I tell you? I try to stay away from screens as much as possible. All the evidence suggests that they can only hurt you. Otherwise, meditate, exercise, eat healthy, etc.--the usual advice. In order to cultivate those qualities, esp. the ability to focus on something for long periods of time, you need to spend a lot of time in silence. The digital world is a noisy and destructive one, largely immersed in garbage. Reach, instead, for quality in your life. Don't be afraid of being alone.
mb
Dr Berman
ReplyDeleteIf you don't mind perhaps you could expand on your comment to
Jang.."Don't be afraid of being alone".. We are already alone.
Society has moved socially to digital devices and all the illusions
of being connected through social media. I have probably taken
your statement out of context. The question comes to mind after
reading "What About Me" by Paul Verhaeghe quite awhile back.
Thanks
NEW: How the Biden Administration now has the power to share COVID vaccine recipes with other countries — but has so far refused to use that authority.
ReplyDeleteThis has gone completely unreported up until now. https://www.dailyposter.com/biden-could-share-vaccine-data-with-the-world/
Thanks Patty for the reference to the Wired magazine article about the use of flawed AI algorithms by health care workers to provide or not provide pain medicines. Today while in the exam room waiting for the surgeon to appear, I was reading the five notices taped to the back of the door. I would never have paid any attention to the one from the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program in Pennsylvania. It seems patients are entitled to a free copy of their report once every quarter. (Of course, you need a computer!) There is also some process to “correct” information. My bet is this process is cumbersome and difficult. Will asking for your score increase your score? I asked the surgeon about pain medication post surgery and he went into detail about how he only gives 7 pills in an effort to prevent addiction. He seemed to feel the drugs administered during the surgery were good for 72 hours and patients often did not use the 7 pills.
ReplyDeleteTim2-
ReplyDeleteI meant learn to spend a lot of time by yourself. When Isaac Newton was asked how he came up with the Law of Universal Gravitation, he said, "I thought abt it for a very long time." He didn't go to parties, in other words.
mb
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdHNr-k7kb4&t=308s
ReplyDeleteThe Supreme Court has ruled that vigilante violence against those who provide or facilitate abortions is perfectly legal. Because it sets a new precedent, it also provides a legal defense for other types of far-right vigilante violence. Maybe it will be legal for bubbas to shoot anyone who disagrees with their political agenda a few years hence? Apparently, the far-right lunatics that dominate the Supreme Court are stupid enough to think this won't destroy America in the blink of an eye.
This is the nation Hedges, Moore and other progs have vowed to save. If they were serious about saving people, they'd urge them to leave America as soon as possible and never look back. It's clear they'd rather make money peddling false hope than be honest with themselves and others about America's future, which is ironic, given their condemnation of other charlatans who peddle false hope - Oprah, Joel Osteen Steven Pinker, etc.
Nadine-
ReplyDeleteIn declinist terms, it might be gd if the Court legalizes thuggery, across the board. Really, why not?
mb