September 21, 2021

We've Been Ized!

Wafers-

Speaking of being Ized, I recently realized that while it has taken a bit of time, the American public has been completely Ized, most especially within the last 20 years. Here are the Izes I've counted up; if you can add to this list, please feel free to do so:

-Weaponized -Monetized -Digitalized -Virtualized -Cellfoneized -Moronized -Buffoonized -Consumerized

No wonder the average American doesn't know his/her ass from his/her elbow: with all of these Izes, what else would one expect? All of which means that in one form or another--culturally, socially, politically, economically, and intellectually--the country is going to be pulverized. This Ize will be our last frontier.

-mb

195 Comments:

Anonymous Cosmo Como said...

You left out the most important "ize," namely, "to incentivize"
with its meaning "to make the benighted masses believe that what
their leaders tell them is in their best interest to find happiness,
freedom, and all the other bullshit we've been telling them since
grammar school."

8:08 PM  
Blogger Gunnar said...

A few more off the top of my head:
Categorized, monopolized, stigmatized, legitimized (falsely), fantasized, colonized, ostracized (in process), and finally (de)militarized ��

8:31 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Gunnar-

Gd show! I had forgotten abt all of those. To which I wd add, Chickensandwichized.

Cosmo-

Is that similar to douchebagized?

mb

9:00 PM  
Anonymous Democritus said...

Here's a few more: destabilized, uncivilized, brutalized, hypnotized, trivialized. Perhaps the best an American can hope for is to be...Euthanized.

9:17 PM  
Blogger David said...

I would add de-humanized.

9:25 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Demo, David-

What abt pasteurized?

mb

9:42 PM  
Blogger Joe McIlnen said...

Dr. Berman,
You left out an obvious entertaining one: Karenized! LOL! Also illiterateized.

I can say roadrageized but that doesn’t sound quite right. But anyway, here are a few that occurred recently in our U.S.A.!, U.S.A.!, U.S.A.!

https://www.wkyt.com/2021/09/20/woman-accused-trying-kill-two-people-road-rage-incident-i-64/
https://www.click2houston.com/news/local/2021/09/20/bullet-misses-10-year-olds-head-by-inches-in-north-harris-county-road-rage-incident/
https://krcrtv.com/news/local/redding-driver-arrested-for-dui-after-road-rage-incident-ends-in-crash
https://www.abc57.com/news/gunfire-exchanged-during-road-rage-incident-in-osceola

9:49 PM  
Anonymous Pastrami and Coleslaw said...

Some good ones Gunnar, Coz and MB. As befitting my handle I must contribute:

Pastramized, Knishized, Bagelized, Loxized, Egg Creamized, Gribinized, Schmearized, Space Lazerized?

Actually ... yeah none of those are any good. Any better WAFer ideas?

9:55 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Pastrami-

Kishkized; schmaltzized; circumcisized; dreidelized; bulvanized.

Joe-

Bubbized; progized; wokized.

mb

10:19 PM  
Blogger Lobster Goldmine said...

Cannibalized

11:14 PM  
Blogger Ya'qkub said...

Your post reminds me of a song, "Ize of the World" by the Strokes. Be content, Wafers. We have music to perfectly encapsulate this moment.

https://youtu.be/MOE-fDy1Cgo

5:49 AM  
Blogger NeilW said...

Add parts of Australia to analysis: an alternative view on Chicken Sandwiches https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bg3wsMCz5Ds

6:04 AM  
Blogger flanagle said...

Balkanize, (and gaining steam daily).

7:05 AM  
Anonymous Nadine Bupkis said...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MB9hLJ-HIag

Tulsi Gabbard is very upset that Biden withdrew from Afghanistan. She says she wants "targeted attacks" instead of invasion, but knows full well that the American military has been making targeted attacks in Afghanistan and elsewhere for the last two decades. I wonder if she wants to redefine the word "invasion" in such a way that Americans can claim they never invaded the Middle East at all. Nothing could be more Orwellian.

7:08 AM  
Anonymous Patricia said...

Homogenized, mechanized, and televised!

7:20 AM  
Blogger Dan Daniel said...

"Poll"arized? Biden and Trump tied in favorability rating. Let this sink in- the odds are that every other person you see on the street, in the cars next to you, in the grocery checkout line, has a favorable opinion of Donald Trump. And the other ones? Favorable towards Joe Biden. Be afraid out there, be very afraid-

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/573036-poll-biden-trump-statistically-tied-in-favorability

I know little bubbles of decency and people helping each other won't slow the decline, bu I do think that they are pointing to one possible post-collapse approach. Look, at some point- 10 years? 20 years?- the ammunition will run out and people will climb out of the rubble and have to find better ways. A local group who have been running a daily free meal for two years has now made it to Google Maps as a 'buffet restaurant' That's how reliable they have been. No non-profit status, no Board of Directors, just people making things happen. Along with serious fundraising to get people clothes, blankets, etc. For those of you thinking about getting the new iPhone, how about putting that money to good use instead? Varieties of mutual aid are hidden everywhere.

https://www.restaurantji.com/vt/burlington/food-not-cops-/
https://www.gofundme.com/f/community-mutual-aid-btv-copwatch

7:25 AM  
Anonymous Cherith Cutestory said...

How do millions of Americans behave during a global pandemic? Why in the most sensible way possible, of course:

1) Concoct moronic conspiracy theories about the virus and politicize it for some reason.
2) Religiously reject miraculous science that invented the vaccine in record time based on cutting edge technology and mountains of medical expertise.
3) Spread the pandemic and cause Delta variant to appear. Overburden the healthcare system while refusing the vaccine to their last dying gasps.
4) Upon seeing that the hospitals are crowded and crumbling, heap abuse on the medical professionals saving their lives, and - just like they compete with others in hustling and keeping up with the joneses - compete for the last hospital beds and ventilators.

https://www.rawstory.com/montana-hospitals-icu-beds/

"Not so long ago, the cheers of community support could be heard from the hospital parking lot. Now, tensions are so strained that Billings Clinic is printing signs for its hallways, asking that the staff members not be mistreated". Christy Baxter, the hospital's director of critical care, said the ICU was operating at 160% of capacity. "Threats have on occasion required a police response. Screaming, profanity-laden insults are a daily occurrence. One patient threw his own feces at a doctor. Some, even in the face of an intubation tube, question the need to be vaccinated or the effectiveness of the medicine being prescribed".

7:57 AM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Cherith-

Well, I was hoping to be done with vaccine discussions, but let me just pt out a problem w/#2. My doctor told me that it takes at least 2 yrs of testing to develop a reliable vaccine. Due to panic and political pressure, vaccines starting appearing in the US only 3 mos. after covid was detected. Now, every wk I read online abt this or that death or blood clotting from the vaccine, or that its effectiveness doesn't last, or that it can't work vs. Delta, etc. Of course the current crop of anti-vaxxers are rejecting the vaccines based on a supposed communist plot, wh/is obviously demented. But there wd seem to be some rational reasons to be wary of them. I also suspect there will be no end to it. There is now a mu variant; it won't be the last. Ultimately, we cd wind up needing to get vaccinated every 3 mos.

Nadine-

I wd recommend a targeted Wafer urine attack on her shoes. This wd be videoed, and shown along w/her workout tape. Meanwhile, do we know her position on chicken sandwiches?

mb

9:53 AM  
Blogger David said...

If you ever wondered why it is so difficult to get Americans to discuss issues seriously or that you are shut off when the topic veers away from what they have always been taught or believed then perhaps you might wonder if Americans are brainwashed. Granted we call ourselves a "Democracy" so how could a public in a democracy be brainwashed? Very simple--by peer pressure. You don't need a Torquemada to do the censorship much less the Holy Inquisition. Your inquisitors are your neighbors and social circle who have been brainwashed into Mob-think, aided and abetted by the Media and its corporate masters.

https://agingcapriciously.com/2018/01/09/are-americans-brainwashed/

12:29 PM  
Anonymous yeah, no said...

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/534520-al-qaeda-us-911-tragedy/

12:59 PM  
Blogger Rook said...

@David

“I do not know any country where, in general, less independence of mind and genuine freedom of discussion reign than in America”.

“There is no freedom of mind in America.”

- Alexis de Tocqueville (Democracy in America)

1:30 PM  
Blogger Miles Deli said...

Greetings MB and Wafers,

super-sized
lobotomized
pulverized
unimmunized
mesmerized
atomized
Louie Gohmertized

Miles

1:43 PM  
Anonymous Pete Christen said...

Dr. B and Wafers:
Excellent book about mob-think through the centuries by William J. Bernstein, titled The Delusions of Crowds (2021). One of Bernstein's sources was an 1841 book, Extraordinary Popular Delusions, by Charles Mackay, from which he took this observation: "Men, it is said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses more slowly, and one by one."

1:54 PM  
Blogger Ajay Singh said...

In short, Dr. Berman (and the usual greetings from the burning West Coast capital of horrors), the perennial phukers of the world have been phuked. Well, now, let's see ... fucken, fokken, fucked!*

*52 years after the F word was first introduced in The American Heritage Dictionary—causing a Victorian-American uproar—might it be time to coin a word that captures the unique spirit of a people who have fucked the world, including their own, being Truly Fucked Over? Suggestions, dear Wafers?

* https://sandradodd.com/badwords

1:56 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

yeah-

Well, I admire Scott Ritter, and appreciate his calling Americans narcissists. But again, this is far too mild; and I don't think we are really going to get to the root of our problems until outspoken critics start to use a more incisive vocabulary: buffoons, douchebags, horses' asses. I'm waiting.

mb

2:38 PM  
Anonymous Vaccine Truther said...

MB,

Please read the articles below regarding safety and effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccines. The important things to know are that 1) mRNA technology and vaccine development had been studied for years before the current pandemic, 2) the phase 1, 2, and 3 clinical trials were done in rapid succession (and in some cases overlapped); due to the urgency of the situation, various bureaucratic steps were expedited; and 3) the Emergency Use Authorization did not mean that the vaccines were "experimental." Perhaps you could call this a "panic," but I would say it was somewhat justified, given the hundreds of thousands of Americans who have lost their lives from the virus. The number of lives saved by the vaccines is in the millions.

Your doctor is just one of many who, due to their busy schedules, may not be aware of these facts. And regarding adverse reactions, these have been rare, but are also being documented and studied extensively. So far there is no evidence that the vaccines are responsible for any widespread adverse side effects.

The COVID-19 vaccines started appearing in the US in December, 2020, which was almost a year after the first cases started showing up in the US, not after just 3 months!

https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-covid-vaccines/corrected-fact-check-covid-19-vaccines-are-not-experimental-and-they-have-not-skipped-trial-stages-idUSL1N2M70MW

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2021/05/14/safe-fast-vaccine-fear-infertility-dna/

4:50 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Vaccine-

Thanks for the info. I'm hoping, however, that we can (once again) leave the subject of vaccines behind, and stick to the specific topic of this blog.

mb

5:05 PM  
Blogger Arthur V. said...

Good evening Dr. Berman and Wafers,

More proof, as if any were needed, that this country will break apart into who knows what, but that it will break apart is beyond question.

DailyKos.com/stories/2021/9/22/2053761/-Pro-Lifers-Seeks-To-Execute-Women-Who-Have-Abortions

What's interesting is that it's the progs for the most part who think it will never happen. This I don't understand. Who wants to live in a country with people like this. Yet progs believe that somewhere down the road backwoods morons will suddenly see the error of their ways and we'll all hold hands.

When one reads stories like I posted one realizes that a breakup is the only reasonable option. That or really wide spread bloodshed is the future.

Stay safe all.

7:20 PM  
Anonymous Sydney said...

Paul Kingsnorth is right: we’re in a spiritual crisis. The West's consumerism has run amok

https://unherd.com/thepost/paul-kingsnorth-is-right-were-in-a-spiritual-crisis/

7:54 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Alex-

You need a different blog, amigo. Gd luck.

Arthur-

I wd endorse executing women who have abortions, so long as the Texas law also provides for executing women who don't have them. Plus executing all the men in Texas, lawmakers in particular. Why pull punches?

Sydney-

Not exactly a great intellectual breakthru, or some marvelous new revelation, I fear. Let me also pt out the failure to mention deli meats, Jewish Space Lasers, or chicken sandwich suppositories.

mb

8:26 PM  
Anonymous EK said...

What I’m reading for fun now.

Japanese Death Poems: Written by Zen Monks and Haiku Poets on the Verge of Death:

https://www.amazon.com/Japanese-Death-Poems-Written-Monks/dp/4805314435/

-EK

8:49 PM  
Anonymous Glans Butterworth, III said...

No health care system, FATCA, Citizen-based double/triple taxations, very few employment rights, massive student loans, no retirement system, no elder care system, etc.etc...

However, this is what USian "reporters" "news" focused on:

Which US empire chicken sandwich gives you more 'flavor' for ...(of course) your money.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/tried-fried-chicken-sandwiches-kfc-104100098.html

At least, those "news" "reporters" may help you get a better 'value' if one decides to eat this american swill.

8:07 AM  
Blogger Dan Daniel said...

Bear with me, Dr. B, as I start with vaccines as a synechdone of the collapse of medical science in the US. Sontag's Illness as Metaphor, 1978, and AIDS as Metaphor, 1989, are two compelling looks at how illnesses are moralized and weaponized in a culture. Ehrenreich's Bright-Sided, 2009, is another good look at moralizing applied to diseases, along with a critique of 'positive thinking' and such in the culture at large.
https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/210637-illness-as-metaphor-and-aids-and-its-metaphors
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6452749-bright-sided

In the mid-80s, ACT-UP and other gay groups mobilized not just to destigmatize AIDS but also, critical point here, to get medical research fast-tracked as hundreds and thousands died with little attention or care. If you are going to be dead in 6 months, who cares if a possible life-saving medicine has been through 2-10 years of trials?
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/dec/01/world-aids-day-how-aids-activists-changed-medical-research

Combine moralizing and decades of regulatory capture (thanks, free market idealogues!) and a lax test structure, and you get a corrupt medical system that can't even justify its own behavior.
https://www.medpagetoday.com/publichealthpolicy/fdageneral/94596

Habermas, Legitimation Crisis, 1973- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legitimation_crisis

No room but mask and vaccine debates are the silly fart bubbles of a festering swamp.

8:33 AM  
Anonymous down said...

I would imagine that most contributors to this blog would agree with the author and MB that America is a decadent society, on it's way down into an amoral abyss.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/12/19/the-united-states-of-america-is-decadent-and-depraved/

As an example, may I offer the case of Gabby - pretty white blond with blue eyes in her 20s apparently killed by her abusive boyfriend. Is there anyone in America who has not heard and seen the sad story of Gabby. MSM has latched onto poor Gabby like a mad bulldog on the nose of a bull. Broadcasters use her first name only, in an attempt at intimacy. And Americans are eating it up. Before the discovery of her body, Gabby was but one of 90,000 missing persons in the USA. Black, brown, white, yellow - all races. But only one race consistently gets national news coverage. And most of those are of pretty blond young women with blue eyes. Black, brown and yellow women don't count.

1:56 PM  
Blogger Ajay Singh said...

Dear Dr. Berman: I think your riotous, idiotized izes—if and when they're archived for posterity—could do with a version that is alphabetIZED along the one-ize-one-vote principle:

Analized, bastardized, criminalized, dogmatized, euthanized, frontierized, genderized, heathenized, incelized, Jesusized, Karenized, lunatized, mishmashized, narcissized, orotundized, patronized, queerized, robotized, sermonized, tribalized, unrealized, victimized, wallopized, Xmasized, yokelized, zombized.

2:25 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

down-

Gd essay, but let me answer the author's question as to where is our own Robert Musil, today. All modesty aside, he's here: me! A few yrs ago I wrote a bk w/exactly the same title as Musil's: "The Man Without Qualities," making the same pt abt the US as Musil did abt Austria. It sells at a rate of about 2 copies a year. Musil did a lot better, sales-wise, but his bk did as much to stop the collapse of the Habsburg Empire as mine will to stop the collapse of the American one.

The following (true) vignette seems relevant to all this. I just had lunch at an outdoor cafe, not far from my apt. bldg in Mexico City. At the next table was a man of abt 40, holding a newborn baby in his arms. He stroked its face, and rocked it back and forth. His own face was beaming, radiant. I finished eating, paid the check, and as I walked out leaned over to him and said, "Usted es un buen papa." He laughed, and said "Gracias!" As I walked back to my apt. bldg, the following mental image played out in my mind. Same scenario, but in an American city. What would be the differences?
1. The person holding the baby would most likely be female. Her husband wd be off somewhere making money, and trying to be important.
2. She wd hardly pay attn to the poor kid. Instead, she'd be on her cell fone. The child wd be of less importance to her than the grotesquely expensive coffee table she bought the day b4, to impress her chic 'friends'.
3. Whereas the Mexican baby wd probably grow up thinking that love, community, and family were what life was all abt, the American baby wd have a cell fone by age 5 and grow up thinking that money and influence were what life was all abt. S/he would treat other people as annoying obstacles. S/he might even grow up to be a Karen, or a bubba, or a prog, or a woke. If s/he had a child of his/her own, that child wd also get treated like a piece of furniture. In this way, the poison of American ideology gets passed on, in wh/narcissism is a way of life, and everyone else is trash.

Why wd anyone want to live in the US?

mb

2:33 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Ajay-

Now start over with AA: Aardvarkized.

mb

2:36 PM  
Anonymous ananda said...

down - it's best to ignore the daily mass media entirely. Even if you know it's a sham, you will still end up poisoning yourself. I'm not sure the benefit of knowing current events is worth clicking on any of these sites anymore.

There is a massive need for saints and spiritual guides in our time, so each moment spent in thinking or sitting quietly rather than absorbing more poison is good. I somewhat disagree with the NMI idea because I think monastics fixed in place is a latter innovation, that wandering ascetics/prophets is really what we need. The ideas of Athanasius and Gregory squashed the earlier practices in Syria & India, creating the myth of monasticism.

MB - have you written anything on the perennialists, Coomaraswamy in particular? I only came across the idea through his son Rama, who became a traditionalist priest & had high level connections at the Vatican.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_CNg4dpU54

2:54 PM  
Blogger Joe McIlnen said...

Dr. Berman,
I hope I accidentally didn’t miss it. But are there any “ized” neologisms pertaining to the usual daily mass shootings? Like the latest one that happened in Memphis, Tennessee?
There‘s one thing on which we all can agree. There never is a dull moment here in the Dysfunctional States of America.

https://apnews.com/article/media-shootings-tennessee-memphis-961847d59e0befbbf814073116410fb8

5:09 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Joe-

I don't think we came up w/one, but thinking on a larger scale, I have yet to hear back from the Pentagon regarding my suggestion that all Americans be armed, and told to shoot anyone they run across. Once no one is left alive in the US, our problems will be pretty much solved. This might be called auto-genocide; in which case, if ized, it wd be autogenocidized; as in,"Armed to the teeth, the American people autogenocidized themselves." Heck, it's probably better than fascism.

mb

6:32 PM  
Blogger David said...

@joe--my thoughts on our mass shootings du jour

when a person gets sick you call the doctor
when a whole nation gets sick you get out of Dodge....

Can this society be saved? think 400 million guns in private hands just the thought blows your mind (pun intended)

7:13 PM  
Anonymous Nadine Bupkis said...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kp9hNeZYYh0

This is what our congressional representatives are up to these days - spouting idiotic internet memes like brain-addled children. They, like nearly all Americans, have been *infantilized*.

Because they are infantile, Americans respond to their nation's predicament by throwing temper tantrums instead of brainstorming solutions. Bubbas and wokes - the two largest political factions in America - throw collective temper tantrums via insurrections, pussy hat marches, and other buffoonish events. These childish displays exacerbate political tensions and tear America's social fabric to shreds.

9:31 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Nadine-

Never forget the declinist motto: Bad Is Good.

mb

9:39 PM  
Anonymous al-Qa'bong said...

Hello Wafers:

This is about the pandemic, and its context is Canadian (where Big Pharma and the Medical-Financial complex isn't really much of a concern compared to the USA), but it illustrates a huge irony in the anti-vax freedom-fighters' ideology.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/premiers-meeting-healthcare-funding-1.6187311

These rugged individualists who don't think the state has any right to determine what goes into their bodies are swamping the healthcare system, to the extent that a greater amount of taxation must be devoted to save their freedom-loving asses.

10:13 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

al-

They cd probably use some slapping, but por favor, enuf vax shit. It's enuf to make me wanna run out and get a chicken sandwich suppository.

mb

11:37 PM  
Anonymous Jonathan Barker said...

Re Paul Kingsnorth and the presumed spiritual which may or may not be true. Paul's essay on the Abbey of Misrule are well worth a read. www.paulkingsnorth.substack.com

But nothing that Paul writes and advocates has anything to do with what could be called spiritual or even truly religious.
Paul recently converted to Orthodox Christian-ism and now pretends that some form of back-to-the-past Christian-ism is (perhaps) the only answer to our cultural crisis.
But what if the current malaise/crisis is the Inevitable outcome of our Christian inheritance, and that Christian-ism is well and truly past its useful use by date? Paul's conversion to the Orthodox tradition move has made him very popular with the all-American loon Rod Dreher (lots of sound-and-fury but essentially signifying nothing).

Re the Unherd reference pointed to above the writer of the essay is a well meaning but thoroughly naive Christian propaganda who is/was associated with the UK based religious think tank www.theosthinktank.co.uk

Re the Unherd wesite. It pretends to offer an alternative to the alleged hegemony of the left-liberal progressive consensus. But in my opinion most/all of those who scribble for it are just as deluded as most progressives - even more so. Some/many of those who post comments on the site are even worse - culturally illiterate right-wing Karens

5:06 AM  
Blogger Dan Daniel said...

This should brighten your day, Dr. B-

https://vtdigger.org/2021/09/21/state-labor-group-backs-gun-rights-to-counter-rise-in-domestic-extremism/

"A labor group representing thousands of Vermont workers has declared its support for gun rights, saying they need to defend themselves and vulnerable communities from violent extremists and to uphold democracy... The Vermont AFL-CIO publicized its support for gun rights — and opposition to what it described as the rise of fascism that threatens democracy in the U.S. — in a resolution that group leaders passed Sunday.

Vermont AFL-CIO President David Van Deusen cited the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol, the passage of voter suppression laws in some states and the rise of right-wing extremism as factors in the state labor group’s decision to officially back gun rights. “We all know that the dangerous, violent, extreme right is armed to the teeth, and there is no law that can be passed on the state or federal level that would reverse that fact,” Van Deusen said Tuesday.

And if militant groups become a threat in Vermont, he said, union members and their allies will be prepared to “take reasonable measures” to ensure people are kept safe.

9:00 AM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Dan D-

The more guns, the faster the decline.

mb

10:08 AM  
Anonymous Rachelle said...

“What could be so powerful that it could dissolve away centuries of our cultural inheritance; could dissolve forests and oceans, great faiths, nations, traditions - everything that makes a human life real - and replace it with this … Pleasure Dome?” https://paulkingsnorth.substack.com/p/want-is-the-acid

So many good points in this essay by Paul Kingsnorth, quoting Marx, Keynes, Schumacher and more.

10:11 AM  
Anonymous Pete Christen said...

Dr. B and Wafers:
One more -ize to add to Ajay Singh's list of "idiotized izes": Catastrophize.
That is, making mountains out of molehills. The media are expert at this.

10:42 AM  
Blogger Brian said...

Good news on my part, I just got confirmation of my polish citizenship; so now all I gotta do is to get the passport; that said, I don't want to live in Poland since it's trending toward its own variety of Christianized fascism; so I'm looking more at western Europe.
So what do folks think are the better options under the EU to look into? Much thanks.

@Dr. Berman,
I also think the parent would get immediately on edge about you being a potential pedophile. Or, the parent would use their child as "a prop" to self-righteously vent their rage at you. An experience I had: I was commuting on the bus one day and a fellow passenger accidentally, but not strongly, bumped into the wheel of this women's stroller with his foot. The mother immediately shot up (on a crowded bus) and yelled (almost kinda screamed) "Hey, don't bump into my baby!".

11:53 AM  
Anonymous al-Qa'bong said...

Hello Wafers:

Has "weaponise" been mentioned? How about "starspangleise" or "don'tshootuntilyouseethewhitesoftheirise?"

That Kingsnorth essay was OK, but Thomas Carlyle was writing about the Machine Age, the "Cash Nexus" of human relationships and the Gospel of Mammon back in the 1830s. Check out "Signs of the Times," Chartism," and "Past and Present" (his parable of the Typhus Widow should resonate with contemporary readers).

This seems like a good place to let George Carlin say a few words:

Modern Man

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkCR-w3AYOE&ab_channel=Nicksable

12:49 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Brian-

Dobri dyen, and congratulations. I'd go for Italy, myself; problem is that it ain't cheap.

mb

1:16 PM  
Anonymous Bart said...

Jonathan Barker - re: Abbey of Misrule

Lots has been written on various forms of early Christianity, so I wouldn't just dismiss all forms of Christianity. Reading someone like Ehrman or Peter Brown, you get a picture of a vast array of various groups, with the parties of Constantine/Charlemagne winning out, and solidified by Augustine/Ambrose, with heightened power in Innocent III. Who gets to define what Christianity is, The Vatican? The Eastern Orthodox? The Emperors & bishops were able to rewrite history to make it appear cleaner than it actually was.

The bulk of Christians were crushed by around the 4th century & the heresy hunters and emperors destroyed a huge amount of believe and way of life, popularly known as Gnosticism, Marcionism, & Donatism, to name a few. Many of the biggest names were crushed or minimized: Thecla, Priscillian, Meister Eckhart, Origen, Tertullian. What you see today is one form of belief, so with modern scholarship I could see the creation of a new belief system that rejects concepts such as a global hierarchy, "Orthodox", and the canonical Bible.

2:44 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Bart-

Also suggest rdg ch. in Twilight bk on the monastic tradition, plus the ch. on early Christianity in CTOS. I'll let you post like this just this one time, but pls be informed that this is a blog that doesn't run on opinion; it runs on evidence. Wd help if you give us a few links to historical works or whatever. Next time.

mb

4:55 PM  
Anonymous Birney Zouave said...

Dr. B-

Here's an op-ed from today by a former finance minister for Greece-

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2021/09/24/eus-undying-fealty-imperial-us-leads-latest-humiliation

"Their [the European elites] dilemma is clear: Turn the EU into a democratic federation, and thus lose the exorbitant power over Europe's citizens that they enjoy in today's nondemocratic EU, or submit to ritual flagellation by whoever resides in the White House."

$ trumps "ritual flagellation."

Looks like the US will continue to reign as the global hegemon, as long as it controls the payments system...

6:30 PM  
Blogger Miles Deli said...

Greetings MB and Wafers,

The face of America dept.:

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/buster/cuddle/cuddle-scuttle-bust-924750

Why didn't Kiesel Anthony just sever her boyfriend's carotid artery, and be done w/it? I will ruminate on this critical question while listening to a bit of Thelonious Monk this evening.

Miles

7:44 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Jeff-

A face only a mother cd love. The face of America.

mb

8:01 PM  
Anonymous Cory C said...

American Gentry
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/09/trump-american-gentry-wyman-elites/620151/

Excellent essay for the blog.

10:16 PM  
Anonymous Cosmo Como said...

He's down and must take the mandatory eight-count, but this does not
mean he has lost the fight. Do read the insights in this piece on
the question of the TrumpIZED Americans.
http://americanprospect.activehosted.com/index.php?action=social&chash=a9b7ba70783b617e9998dc4dd82eb3c5.1051&s=50cc74c4275567bbf65fcbd26243f6ef

10:37 PM  
Blogger Joe McIlnen said...

Dr. Berman & Wafers,
Let’s again all enjoy some more angry anti-masker parents at school board meetings. This occurred up in the quiet, “refined”, “civilized, “family values” conservative town of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. Listen to what the reporter said at the end of it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fNehdm822U

11:03 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Joe-

I don't want us to switch from vax discussions to mask discussions, but some time ago I read that masks might not really be all that protective. The data said that if you were wearing a cloth mask, and someone 6 ft. away (sans mask) sneezed in yr direction, the sneeze particles wd penetrate yr mask. Is this true? If so, not clear why we are wearing masks. Perhaps it's time for burkas made out of Gortex.

Cory-

It's a gd essay, but I'm not sure it jibes w/what we've found out abt the folks storming the Capitol on Jan. 6. Thus far, the crucial motivation behind Trumpism was/is the fear that whites wd be replaced by people of color; wh/is what is actually happening, demographically. Recall the chants from Charlottesville: "The Jews will not replace us," etc. The real concern is this replacement phenomenon; to the bubbas, Trumpi seems like the only possible president who will keep this phenomenon in check. This cd be congruent w/the constituency (gentry) discussed in your link, but I'm not sure.

mb

3:26 AM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Cosmo-

I've said this b4, but from a declinist pt of view, it hardly matters who will be in the W.H. in Jan of 2025. It's just a question of style. If you want a steady, incremental collapse, the Dems are 4u. It you want something more rapid and precipitous, that's where Trumpaloni comes in. But one thing is for sure: fast or slow, this is the decade of our major disintegration. We will be a very different country by 2030. Is Biden really the healing force so many progs and wokes expected? Most of what he's done (diversity apptments, for example) is window dressing. Meanwhile, the pandemic rages; exit from Afghanistan was a disaster; and now the flap w/France over this Australian nuclear shit--when, in modern times, has France recalled its ambassador? And is it really likely that Biden's multi-trillion-$ packages will make it thru the Senate? There is no stopping our collapse because there is no countervailing force to hold it back. Maybe Tulsi Gabbard, who knows (see my 5-vol. work on the Philosophy of Tulsism). But it's fer sure that the Dems will take a beating in the 2022 election, only abt a yr away; and in the 2024 campaign, Trumpalumpi will have much to pt to, in terms of the Biden failure. I have said repeatedly that in the US, even the smart people are stupid. Does this not apply to Joe and Kamala?

mb

3:46 AM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Wafers-

Like yourselves, sometimes I just sit on my couch, stare into space, and think abt how stupid the American people are.

Imagine that like Jay Leno, you are in the street, interviewing your fellow citizens. You interview 1000 of them. You ask them the following questions:

1. What was Los Alamos?
2. Who was John Foster Dulles?

Is it likely, that out of 1000 people, more than 5 would know the answers to these questions?

And what is the American version of political organizing?
1. Initial emotional outburst; rage, self-righteous indignation;
2. Getting pacified via symbols, then fading out.

After all, where are BLM, #MeToo, and pussy hats, today? What are they up to? Amanda Gorman is on the front cover of Vogue, and a co-founder of BLM owns millions in real estate. As in the 60s, rebellion quickly turns into hustling, or quietism. Not exactly cutting-edge social chg.

Of course cowardice plays a role; we are not France, after all, and this is hardly the Home of the Brave. But the overriding factor is stupidity. Not only do Americans not know anything; they also have an idea of political organizing that amounts to little more than theater. Today, on every level, it's all shadow boxing, really.

But then, if yr a declinist, you can invoke that popular slogan: "It's all good."

mb

11:33 AM  
Anonymous James Allen said...

On the theory that there can never be too much George, an item complementary to MB’s penultimate comment (to Cosmo):

From Back in Town, HBO, 1996.

https://youtu.be/07w9K2XR3f0

An article based upon that bit expressed general agreement with the sentiments George felt, but the writer thought it was wrong to not vote. The author pointed out that Carlin had apparently voted in 1972, for George McGovern. Me too, not since.

11:43 AM  
Blogger ccg said...

Well, Tulsi is back and sounding...well, like someone pretty OK with drone bombing in Afghanistan and more. So in case you've been missing here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLdY_WBFa60&t=370s

2:59 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

ccg-

Interesting, that she thinks anyone might care what she thinks. Perhaps a targeted nuclear attack on her herself might clear up a few things. Will hafta write the Pentagon abt feasibility.

mb

3:27 PM  
Blogger Jack Lattemann said...

Greetings Wafers everywhere, here’s your news update from Cascadia:

Evergreen College enrollment is now projected to plummet another 12% to 2,000 students for Fall 2021, compared to 2020 enrollment. The college has half the enrollment it had five years ago. College trustee Ed Zuckerman wants to make sure the college’s offerings are aligned “with the kind of curriculum students of color want.” Would Tulsi workout videos qualify?

www.theolympian.com/news/local/education/article254515932.html?

And in a Biden Our Time ™ update, workers ill from toxic exposure at the Hanford nuclear reservation in eastern WA are now facing waits of up to 13 months as the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health pauses its processing of benefit applications for “computer system upgrades” and also due to the Biden administration’s continuation of a Trump-initiated legal challenge to a state law making access to benefits easier for sick workers. The message to these workers appears to be: Eat shit and die.

www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/times-watchdog/hanford-workers-sickened-by-toxic -exposure-will-wait-a-year-more-for-benefits

7:19 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Jack-

If it wd be advisable to drop a nuclear warhead on Tulsi, surely the same thing wd extend to Evergreen, no? I suggest having her do a commencement address, and then knocking out 2 birds w/one stone. I'm also wondering if Ed Z's plans for the college might have anything to do w/the steady drop in enrollment.

mb

7:49 PM  
Blogger David said...

MB
you know the nation is in trouble when paltry is spelled poultry. Us declinists don't think foul play is involved.....

12:33 AM  
Blogger Joe McIlnen said...

And let’s finish off the week with some more funny Karens. They keep rolling along! Ya gotta love it! LOL!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_r6CFmnAE8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mq3GYt7e8TY

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7bOP3MRqX8

12:42 AM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

David-

Where was this? Can you give us a link, a citation?

mb

4:36 AM  
Blogger Dan Daniel said...

DR. B, do you have a reference for the data on masks? 'Masks' is a broad category. N95 masks provide decent reduction to exposure to the wearer while most other mask types are primarily to reduce droplet spread, not so much aerosol spread, to others, with highly variable effectiveness.

The problem with Covid discussions is that there are no simple answers. No on/off, binary solutions, no magic wand. It's all about reduction, mitigation, not elimination. Multiple behaviors, and group compliance. Here's a good article on risk reduction in classrooms (probably good info for any indoor gathering space), and you'll see how complex the discussion becomes over just opening a window-
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/schools-will-need-more-than-fresh-air-to-stop-covid-19-mit-study

Vermont is a good place to watch because it is small. More than half the deaths in the last two months have been among fully vaccinated (but read the article, damn it, it's not simple), and fully vaccinated are catching Covid at close to the same rate as unvaccinated. And yet the Gov and Health Dept. keep repeating the mantra that the solution is to be vaccinated. Stupidity everywhere. Some interesting nuggets in this dive into two week trends-
https://vtdigger.org/2021/09/24/covid-case-counts-set-vermont-records-and-state-data-shows-concerning-trends-on-fatalities/

More than anything, the lack of realistic discussion and the attachment of so many extrinsic emotions (freedom!!!) reminds me of 9-11: like Bin-Laden getting an absolutely crazy reaction beyond his wildest dreams, Covid will survive because of the hysterical stupidity of Americans, not because it is such a dangerous virus.

7:08 AM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Dan D-

I read that article around the time that covid first hit, i.e. a while ago, and didn't save the reference. Sorry. But it cd be wrong, for all I know. Anyway, once again, let's get beyond vax discussions, return to US in toilet.

mb

9:33 AM  
Blogger David said...

MB
unfortunately it's been years and I did not copy the quote and cannot provide link. But I am not making this up, it was a comment I read online.

11:10 AM  
Anonymous Nadine Bupkis said...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyiXrr-crH8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6T5o2WH4TS8

More Karen videos for your enjoyment.

1:29 PM  
Blogger Mark Fuller Dillon said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

3:01 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Mark-

Social fabric? I didn't realize we *had* a social fabric! As for Reed's predictions: once again, what does a declinist say? Bad Is Good!

Nadine-

Are there no bubba videos?

mb

3:57 PM  
Anonymous Glans Butterworth, III said...

Mark Fuller Dillon--What "social fabric" ?

US empire hustling, huckstering, chicken sandwich obsessions, calling 911 abt a missing duck sauce order in Chinese food, daily massacres, endless "enemies"/endless wars, FATCA, which "celebrity" has the best tushy, etc..? What a "social fabric" to behold!

Also, what "country?" The US empire was a business enterprise masquerading as a 'country' (Wafer Noura or Nadine).

Although this "social fabric" in the "country" is certainly very helpful as the US empire reveals its' true 'face' to the world.

4:09 PM  
Anonymous Frankistan said...

Washington Post wont let us read this article. See if you can locate it somewhere:

Our constitutional crisis is already here
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/09/23/robert-kagan-constitutional-crisis/

See here:

https://www.alternet.org/2021/09/trump-2024-2655090534/

https://politizoom.com/must-read-our-constitutional-crisis-is-already-here-do-not-underestimate-the-cult-of-trump/

6:02 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Frank-

Try this:

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/9/25/2054144/-A-terrifying-essay-on-Trump-and-this-country-s-future-by-Robert-Kagan-for-the-Washington-Post

mb

7:24 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

ps: To quote the late great Kurt Vonnegut: "There's a shitstorm coming."

7:25 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

This shd get a few people excited:

https://www.amazon.com/Against-White-Feminism-Notes-Disruption/dp/1324006617/ref=sr_1_2?crid=X8YX3ZS14E09&dchild=1&keywords=rafia+zakaria&qid=1632699232&s=books&sprefix=rafia+z%2Cstripbooks%2C209&sr=1-2

7:38 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

ps2: Regarding that essay by Robt Kagan: that we will go down the drain this decade: I take it as a given. I've been saying that for many yrs now. This is also known as karma. However, it doesn't necessarily hafta take the form of a Trump victory in 2024 and the ensuing electoral boogaloo that he envisions. As I've said b4, GOP or Dems, the nation is finished. Kagan's scenario is fast finish, but a slower finish under the Dems is also possible. Just look at where we are now, after nearly a yr of Biden. One foreign policy misstep after another; the old playbook, of needing an enemy (in this case China; if we didn't have China, we might make war on the penguins in the Antarctica, prepare nuclear weapons etc.); a domestic agenda of trillions, unlikely to make it thru the Senate; and so on. Schmiden may mean well, but he's a duffer, let's face it.

Now what do I mean by karma? Whether the scenario is fast or slow, it's a self-destructive one, brought on by the American people. Karma means they are getting punished for what they have done--cheered on imperialistic wars, made consumerism the focus of their absurd lives, supported an extremely individualistic, narcissistic way of life, and so on. So of course, they need to be punished. However, this is where I hesitate, because punishment is only real if the people being punished understand what they have done--and Americans don't. So while the punishment is necessary and just, to the avg American it seems cruel and capricious. Fact: they are stupid beyond belief. Leno-style, just stop any American on the street and ask them some questions:

Q: "How do you feel abt what we did to Chile?"
A: "I don't get it...I make myself a bowl of chili once or twice a month, and I like it."

Q: "Do you realize we murdered 3 million peasants in Vietnam?
A: "What is Vietnam?"

Q: "How about our destruction of Iraq?"
A: "But they attacked the World Trade Center. They had it coming. Fuckin' Ay-rabs."

You see, it doesn't matter what color skin these people have, or religion, or gender, or class. As folks like Will Herberg and Robt Bellah have shown, the crucial pt is that they are all Americans, and it is the American Way of Life that they worship. So an American Jew is a Jewish hustler, and an American Christian is a Christian hustler, and a black female American is a black female hustler--etc. They are just doing what they believe life is all about. And if you were to try this one on them:

Q: "Did you ever consider another way of life besides hustling?"
A: [blank stare]

What gd, then, wd punishment do, when yr dealing w/morons? In any case, one thing I believe is likely: karma will have its (self-destructive) way, and probably w/in the next 9 yrs--with nearly the entire American population wondering WTF happened.

mb

8:55 PM  
Anonymous Noura said...

Glans,

Regarding the business enterprise masquerading as a country, I recently watched the healthcare documentaries below. It’s absolutely disgusting how inhuman America has become. Its healthcare system is becoming notorious around the world. Portugal is currently on my top list of countries to potentially move to. Unlike America, it’s a real country and it’s still human. Mexico also seems like a good choice but I don’t like the fact that it’s so close to the US.

Why Medical Bills In The US Are So Expensive By CNBC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NvnOUcG-ZI

Health care: America vs. the World by PBS NewsHour
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BytzrjEfyfA

What Does U.S. Health Care Look Like Abroad? | NYT Opinion
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBklyksgbco

12:53 AM  
Anonymous Dr. Shithouse said...

This WAS and IS America.

https://allthatsinteresting.com/my-lai-massacre-photos

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%E1%BB%B9_Lai_massacre

https://www.history.com/news/my-lai-massacre-1968-army-cover-up

The ring leader-'scape goat' was prosecuted lightly (they're "war heros") and took up a "new" job selling/hu$tling jewelrly. usa, usa!

https://www.deseret.com/1993/3/17/19037435/lt-calley-runs-store-keeps-a-low-profile


USian-What's the My Lai, massacre? Huh? What? Huh?

Wafer: How's that new spicy chicken sandwich?

USian: It's amazing, we get em 2 for 2 bucks, you get em before they run out, I pick em up before my 8-6P job- I wolf em down during by 30 min unpaid lunch break. God bless America!

8:42 AM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Dr. Shit-

https://www.amazon.com/Kill-Anything-That-Moves-American/dp/1250045061/ref=sr_1_1?crid=GJOSQSHMH1F8&dchild=1&keywords=kill+anything+that+moves&qid=1632749772&s=books&sprefix=kill+anyth%2Cstripbooks%2C207&sr=1-1

mb

9:37 AM  
Blogger David said...

Noura

Re health care costs
A few years ago my niece, who was a tourist, got sick in Italy and was admitted to a local hospital for one night. The following day my sister asked how much they owed for the stay and was told something like 30 Euros. Here in California even an emergency visit at the local hospital will probably run you about $800.00! When health care, a basic human right, is treated like a money making business the patient always loses.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBwVy3-g4KM

11:53 AM  
Anonymous Rowan said...

Thanks for the referral of "Against White Feminism" MB!

Where do you come across new books? You've got quite the eye. I just ordered "Reign of Terror: How the 9/11 Era Destabilized America and Produced Trump" after you pointed it out.

Thanks for all your hard work!

12:40 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Rowan-

After you read these, pls give us a summary. Thanks.

mb

12:49 PM  
Anonymous down we go said...

Amanda – good points on America’s obsession with screens. I can watch maybe 10-15 minutes of what TV networks offer as “news” before turning it off. Sensationalism interspersed with ads. Insubstantial, surface coverage; no deep dives or follow-ups. Addiction to TV and other screens is an American way of life. Think about what would happen if all screens – TVs in gyms, homes, bars, cars; movie screens; personal phone screens, etc - were suddenly removed. Americans would go more nuts than they already are. Psychological meltdown. Detox insanity.

Bart – check out Richard Fox’s “Jesus in America” . https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-06-062873-4. Fox argues that through the centuries Americans have conceived of Jesus as whatever Person/God was needed at the time to justify certain political/economic/ cultural isms. Jesus as pro-slavery; Jesus as anti-slavery; Jesus as Corporate Man; Jesus as Social Reformer.

IMO, the best way to understand what Jesus may have been about is to return him to his original context – a Jewish wise man/prophet in an occupied colony of the Roman Empire. For that project, I’ve found the writings of Dominic Crossan and Amy-Jill Levine especially helpful.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dominic_Crossan - especially God and Empire
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy-Jill_Levine - especially The Misunderstood Jew

1:35 PM  
Anonymous Vanessa C. said...

Kate Crawford

Atlas of AI: Power, Politics, and the Planetary Costs of Artificial Intelligence

The hidden costs of artificial intelligence—from natural resources and labor to privacy, equality, and freedom

https://www.amazon.com/Atlas-AI-Kate-Crawford/dp/0300209576/ref=gp_aw_ybh_a_1?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=3SG0W94DP1GVERA3F5NS

2:57 PM  
Blogger Joe McIlnen said...

Dr. Berman & Wafers,
Here’s something else at which we all can get a good laugh. Check out these Trumpsters contesting his election loss in Arizona as the state did its recount/audit. Check out the many idiotic signs. Check out what’s said on their shirts. And even check out the illuminated billboard truck that these Trumpsters brought in.
Perhaps the craziest, most laughable one: “Vaccines are made with aborted fetal cells”. LOL! Speaking of that: Where do they get these far right crazies? But maybe I shouldn’t be asking this question. This dysfunctional country is downright full of crazies! LOL!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1PpZhsJ1MI

4:16 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Joe-

Wish I coulda been there. I woulda worn a T-shirt saying "Vaccines are made from rancid pastrami." Meanwhile, here's what Samuel Johnson had to say: "I think a man is doing his reporting well only when people start to hate him." Of course thousands hate me. I just feel bad that it isn't millions.

I also think we need some Hebrew plural endings for the Trumpites. Masculine plural: bubbim. Feminine plural: bubbot. Go, bubbim and bubbot! (I have a feeling they are our future.)

mb

4:48 PM  
Anonymous James Allen said...

America, a criminal enterprise masquerading as country, South Dakota family


Days after her daughter’s application to become a certified real estate appraiser was rejected by a state agency, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem brought the state employee in charge of the agency, as well as the woman’s supervisor and the state labor secretary, to her office. Noem’s daughter was also present at the meeting, AP reported on Monday. Her application was approved four months later.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/south-dakota-gov-kristi-noem-summoned-agency-head-sherry-bren-after-daughters-real-estate-license-rejection?via=newsletter&source=DDAfternoon

8:24 PM  
Anonymous Monte said...

The Kremlin’s Strange Victory
How Putin Exploits American Dysfunction and Fuels American Decline

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2021-09-27/kremlins-strange-victory

9:37 PM  
Blogger Mohamed said...

I live in South Dakota. I was just reading about it in the local paper. This scandal will not hurt noem. She supports guns, trump and is pro life. That’s what voters around here care about

11:01 PM  
Anonymous Ziggy Zag said...

Gunfire in hundreds of Walmarts?
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/650651/2021-toilet-paper-shortage

11:10 PM  
Anonymous Kevin said...

Basketball is the driver: https://www.pressreader.com/usa/the-morning-call-sunday/20210926/281865826621909

Truly a leader who reflects the American character….

10:42 AM  
Anonymous Noura said...

David,

I agree with your statement “When health care, a basic human right, is treated like a money making business the patient always loses.” It seems to me that basic human rights in America are becoming privileges that only a minority of rich people can afford. The following two books by Barbara Ehrenreich are currently on my reading list. I haven’t read them yet because my priority right now is to downsize so I can be ready to flee as soon as I can. The disintegration of America is a scary sight! I’ve been sharing some of the articles posted here with a friend of mine living in another country. He said he would pray for us, lol.

Nickel and Dimed - On (Not) Getting by in America
https://www.barbaraehrenreich.com/external/title/9780312626686/

Bright-Sided - How Positive Thinking Is Undermining America
https://www.barbaraehrenreich.com/external/title/9780312658854/

12:06 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Noura-

Both very gd bks. And they made no difference at all.

mb

12:54 PM  
Blogger Dan Daniel said...

Noura-

Ehrenreich founded the Economic Hardship Reporting Project. Not perfect by any means (Soledad O'Brien? what a dinkwad) but it has given funding to many journalists. Worth following them to hear about issues CNN and Fox News won't touch.

https://economichardship.org/

Dr. B- I know many people who found Nickel and Dimed important in understanding what was happening in their daily lives, and stop beating themselves up for failing to thrive economically in a corrupt and inhumane system. Bright-sided also opened the door to attacks on the 'happiness' industry and such, and again got people looking at systemic issues, not personal failings, as the root cause of some daily serious problems in their lives. You seem to imply that only if something leads to a full and complete revolution, an overthrow of US culture and replacement with a humane alternative, will it have made a difference? Is there no room for small local differences and improvements in personal lives? We know where the US is going in toto but the lives people have in this process surely still count?

1:19 PM  
Anonymous Mike R. said...

Regarding Wafer Noura's book Barbara Ehrenreich book references, particularly:

Bright-Sided - How Positive Thinking Is Undermining America
https://www.barbaraehrenreich.com/external/title/9780312658854/

A few reputable sources stated to me that Dr. Ehrenreich was basically persona non-grata with USian groups/book 'club's, associations, etc. bc she did not toe the empire's propaganda of happy, happy bright-side mental illness. The cognitive dissonance was likely too much for the average USian "brain."

Europeans were more receptive to her perspective and evidence-based arguments esp as she relayed her experiences with having cancer in the US empire.

2:15 PM  
Anonymous Birney Zouave said...

Dr. B-

Here's one of your "Ize-Words" in a headline today-

"Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Pals Aimed To ‘Monetize’ Veterans Medical Records, House Probe Finds"

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-veterans-medical-records-investigation-perlmutter-moscowitz-sherman_n_61527e0fe4b03dd7280eee5f

2:19 PM  
Anonymous Lavra said...

Noura - What type of health care is a basic human right? Organ transplants? MRI machines? All industrial medicine requires a globalized system of equipment and manufacturing, none of which should exist. You're arguing for more people to have access to a rotten pie, whereas I assumed Wafers would be advocating for alternatives, such as herbal medicine, preventative medicine, and holistic healing of body and soul as a replacement for the system we have today.

I don't believe that industrial globalized medicine should exist in any form, because it requires you to buy into a system that has no end. Much of what we have only exists because of endless economic growth and burning oil. It's a fantasy to think we can somehow live in harmony with nature while having industrial medicine for all.

The book "Bright-Sided" is largely anecdotes and opinions, and I found it to be totally unhelpful. As much as this blog wants "assertions-evidence" I'm surprised you'd promote such a poorly written book.

6:14 PM  
Anonymous Cosmo Como said...

Truly the American way. Take away the money from the schools and
give it to the police as a way of stopping CV-19.
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/iowa-parents-threatening-defund-schools-171100152.html

7:52 PM  
Anonymous McGinn said...

The last decade has seen a major push in hypersonic war tech. We've held our cards close. This is a game changer. A terrifying destructive game changer. https://raytheon.mediaroom.com/2021-09-27-Raytheon-Missiles-Defense,-Northrop-Grumman-successfully-test-fire-hypersonic-weapon

9:29 PM  
Blogger comrade simba said...

I'll add covidized, but does it count if it isn't a purely american malady? Covidiocy on either front seems to be a global phenomena. Personally I like the anti's and CTs better
just because it's more fun.
https://consentfactory.org/

9:50 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Lavra-

I think Barbara captured the essence of the American New Age Oprah approach to life, and thought her own life experience was very enlightening. Plus, I thought it was very well-written. You cd probably learn something from Dan and Mike. BTW, where is *your* evidence? All you provided in yr post was opinion. We tend not to be very impressed by opinion. Walk yr talk, maybe? Finally, condescension, finger-wagging, and other sorts of put-downs are a no-no here, and if you are going to engage in them, you won't be on this blog for very long. Up to you.

Dan D-

Yes, I agree w/u. But I'd like to see some evidence of this: "Bright-sided also opened the door to attacks on the 'happiness' industry and such, and again got people looking at systemic issues, not personal failings, as the root cause of some daily serious problems in their lives." This I tend to doubt; or at least, wonder how many people you are referring to. I can't imagine very many, but some data wd be helpful.

10:24 PM  
Anonymous Nadine Bupkis said...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltnietzel/2020/09/09/low-literacy-levels-among-us-adults-could-be-costing-the-economy-22-trillion-a-year/?sh=4ce8aecf4c90

A group of researchers has concluded that illiteracy is killing America's economy and responsible for much of the economic inequality plaguing America. Say it ain't so?

8:12 AM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Nadine-

As Bill Clinton liked to say, "It's the economy, stupid." Let's always judge everything by economic impact. What illiteracy is doing to the American 'soul', who gives a shit. Certainly not Americans, who are busy staring into their cell fones. What a nation of putzes.

Here's another one: hypnotized!

mb

10:44 AM  
Blogger Mohamed said...

More disgusting American elites. Were the Roman elite this immoral during their decline or is it just Americans?
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/09/29/corey-lewandowski-sexual-advances-allegations-514650?fbclid=IwAR3UkE3amwglrT5sCCkLEv4TJ7Pzt5gePY1hskG4ISUhG039d5XU1R1Pb7A

3:05 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Mo-

The elite are trash. Never forget it.

Note to Franklin-

Sorry, I don't host other blogs on this one.

mb

3:16 PM  
Anonymous Kallee said...

https://lithub.com/on-loving-losing-and-returning-to-poetry/

She memorized 300 English words a day? That is amazing. This is a sweet read.

3:27 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Kallee-

Thank you for this. I love Rumi. But let us not forget the Passion of al-Hallaj!

mb

3:50 PM  
Anonymous ReasonableView said...


Oh the hits continue. I watched most of this (there's a four hour homage) trying to toughen myself up to trying to live at sea or something - diversity is strength!:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Vd-TfbpEI8

5:42 PM  
Anonymous Cel-Ray Tonic said...

Bio on Pres. Carter, watch soon before it goes behind a paywall. Sorry Dr. B and others, not sure if it will work in MX and other countries.

https://www.tpt.org/in-their-own-words/video/jimmy-carter-zq3dvt/

And a bit of fun befitting my tag:

https://www.seriouseats.com/dr-browns-cel-ray-celery-soda-history

6:16 PM  
Anonymous Ziggy Zag said...

I heard a short chat with them today on their view of Trump in 2024.
They agreed that he'll run solely because he wants revenge against
those who denied him his second term. There won't be much else in his
platform than this one issue.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqkpoHV2DWQ

10:53 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Zig-

It's not likely that the bubbim and bubbot know what a platform is, or wd care if they did. All they know is that Trumpi *must* win in 2024, because he is Trumpi. Anyway, it's not clear who the Dems will put up at that pt; I'm guessing Schmiden will bow out. But as I've said b4, as far as declinists go, there are only 2 scenarios:

Trumpi: fast collapse
Dem candidate: slower collapse

"No collapse" is not an option. Therefore, whom you want to see in the W.H. next time around depends on your preferred style. One reason to favor Trumpaloni is that w/him, the collapse will be more entertaining (and violent, of course). The Dems, the progs, and the wokes: let's face it: they're as boring as week-old chopped liver. Then there's always the possibility that in the lead-up to the election, the Boogaloo will arrive. (Also known as DBKDB, or Douche Bags Killing Douche Bags)

mb

2:35 AM  
Anonymous Pago said...

In ‘Rationality,’ Steven Pinker Sticks Up (Again) for Reason’s Role in Human Progress

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/29/books/review-rationality-steven-pinker.html

Most certainly a review worth a read--of Pinker's new book.

7:55 AM  
Anonymous Birney Zouave said...

Dr. B-

Here's Greta Thunberg's Full Keynote Speech (7-1/2 minutes) at the Youth4Climate Pre-COP26 | Doha Debates-

https://youtu.be/n2TJMpiG5XQ

The TV news has mostly been playing sound-bites of her mocking things like "Build Back Better," but she also touches on inequality and how certain classes of people exploit others. In the end, world leaders and the big-oil boys probably won't be quaking in their boots...



12:48 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Birn-

The chances of this making an impact among people whose heads are firmly embedded in their rumps is probably quite small. This describes the majority of Americans, for starters.

mb

1:03 PM  
Blogger Jack Lattemann said...

A post today on Wolf Richter’s website tracks the long-term decline of dollar hegemony as a world reserve currency. The US dollar’s share of global reserve currencies as a percent of allocated reserves has declined from 85 percent in 1977 to 59 percent in second quarter 2021. At the present rate of decline, the dollar’s share of global reserve currencies would fall below 50 percent by around 2030. So, dollar decline is another potential marker of the year 2030 that this blog has talked about as a significant time of change for U-S-A! U-S-A!

https://wolfstreet.com/2021/09/30/us-dollar-as-global-reserve-currency-in-a-world-of-reckless-qe-government-deficits/

5:16 PM  
Blogger Joe McIlnen said...

Dr. Berman & Wafers,
Three cheers for the prison-industrial complex! Check out how the coronavirus relief package money is going to be spent. Yeah. More prisons are what we need here in our U.S.A.!, U.S.A.!, U.S.A.!

https://apnews.com/article/immigration-coronavirus-pandemic-joe-biden-business-mexico-29667c751c761cf712b6af00d8832885


p.s. Here is a song that perhaps is apropos to our Dysfunctional States of America. Just change some of the words around—like “world” to “this country”, “more taxes” to “more prisons”, and a few others—and it is right on target describing this pathetic wasteland.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gb8JZ5wQGKI

5:30 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Jack, Joe-

Thank you; impt information. But it seems that the MSM wants me to focus on 3 major issues, instead of evidence that the US is going down the drain:

1. Britney's father
2. Shakira's handbag
3. Chicken sandwiches

mb

7:08 PM  
Anonymous Rollo Dice said...

Cut taxes and be forced to borrow money to keep the Pentagon and
the creditors happy. This means less funds available for social
services, which gives the corporations and the wealthy a lower tax
rate since they do not lobby for a healthy and well paid workforce.
It is as if the US government has an endless line of plastic credit
on a card allowing for skimpy minimum payments each month, and this
with borrowed money.
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/live-updates-congress-slated-vote-123000265.html

7:56 PM  
Blogger Krakhed said...

Have to say I appreciate this guy's perspective: https://exileinhappyvalley.blogspot.com/2021/09/joe-and-donalds-united-states-of-chaos.html

Agrees with a lot of the thought on this blog.

What's left out is the dimension of a complicit American public. Joe Biden's foreign policy is incoherent because he channels the inner voice of the average American mind, which is also incoherent. Joe is exactly who we are.

I think that Trump's foreign policy was the better than the previous five presidents

Did someone say Trumpalonized? We're cheering you on Trumpi!

8:41 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Krak-

What *was* Trumpi's foreign policy?

Note to propaganda-

I guess you don't understand how this blog works. It doesn't run on pure opinion, such as you posted. Anyone can have an opinion, after all; big deal. The real challenge is evidence, and you provided abs. none. I looked in vain for links, reliable references. If yr going to say that Greta is a tool of the elites, well then, prove it! Anyway, I look forward to yr next post (in 24 hrs), chock full of hard core substantiation. Otherwise, there are millions of blogs out there that encourage people to blow smoke, and you might wanna look into those.

mb

11:05 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

I don' care what anyone says, Americans are wonderful people:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/30/school-officer-shooting-california-manuela-rodriguez

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/30/police-killings-not-reported-mislabelled-study

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/30/revealed-council-national-policy-republicans-extremists

11:15 PM  
Anonymous Dr. Shithouse said...

https://eand.co/do-americans-know-what-a-massive-ripoff-american-life-really-is-8804aa6b65fa

Usa, usa!

11:57 PM  
Blogger Systems Crash Go said...

Hello to all Wafers and Dr Berman,

I have not been reading much generally and existing in a vacuum, but while browsing Ian Welsh's site I came across this link and I thought many people would enjoy this.

https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/us-rising-murder-rate-2020-2021-causes-20210923.html

The line underneath the headline reads "From baby showers to Pat's Steaks, Americans are killing each other over dumb stuff as traditional crime drops. It's time to rethink the problem."

Time to rethink things, all right. If a baby shower serves to produce handguns, something is off.

2:27 AM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Systems-

What's 'off' is the whole country. I think it's likely that the rate of these absurd killings will continue to rise. Probably, in a few yrs, Americans will leave the house not just w/a face mask on, but wearing a sign that says PLEASE DON'T SHOOT ME.

mb

4:50 AM  
Anonymous down we go said...

Further evidence of MSM's obsession with young, white, blond women in difficult circumstances to the exclusion of brown, black and Indigenous women. Gabby and Brittany receive daily wall-to-wall coverage while violence against non-white women is ignored. Yes, Virginia, America is and always has been a racist country. And if you will allow a prediction, as the nation collapses into anarchy, anger will be misplaced onto nonwhites and immigrants and become progressively more violent

https://www.democracynow.org/

7:22 AM  
Blogger Cj said...

Hi Professor, link to an interview with Dave Eggers about his new novel that is a sequel of sorts to 'The Circle'.

https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2021/10/to-buy-dave-eggerss-newest-novel-youll-probably-have-to-leave-your-house


Hope all is going well,

Chuck

3:58 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Chuck-

Yeah, thanks. I was aware of its existence, but have yet to order it. Too much to read, dammit.

mb

5:11 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Wafers-

One thing I like to do is sit on my couch, stare into space, and contemplate the stupidity of Americans. Today, I thought to myself, well, we all know that virtually all Americans are degraded; this is not rocket science. But how many, I wonder, are *debased*?

What's the difference? you'll ask me. Good question! As I see it, recovery from degradation is sometimes possible. But once a person is debased, there is no hope of reversing the situation. Think of debased coinage: nothing can be done for it. Its value is permanently lost. I would put the antisemitic trollfoons in this category, because nothing, abs. nothing, can get them to see themselves for what they are, and try to do something abt it (altho on very rare occasions, this does occur). Or think of the Karens (bubbot), screaming at Wal-Mart clerks for asking them to put on a mask. (In some cases, the clerks have actually lost their lives, as a result.) Lost cause, you'd say, and you'd be right. If you were to sit down with Elon Musk, or Kanye West, or the Jewish Space Laser woman, and make it clear to them why they are douchebags, do you think they'd see the light? No, because they are not only degraded; they're debased.

Anyway, I'd like to hear from y'all on this very important distinction.

mb

5:45 PM  
Anonymous Art Baker said...

Give them Idaho, Utah, and Nevada. This will make the former red
states much less crowded.
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/majority-trump-voters-believe-time-160443147.html

7:40 PM  
Blogger Krakhed said...

Regarding Trumps foreign policy: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2019-12-03/trump-didnt-shrink-us-military-commitments-abroad-he-expanded-them

I made the mistake of listening to Trump's language promising to disentangle from foreign engagements but it appears he did not really do this and so I think his foreign policy is probably more in line with his predecessors than you would think hearing him talk.

What America needs is more foreign wars to hasten the collapse. Let's invade another country with everyone that left Afghanistan!

Regarding "debased", I have to imagine that 85% of Americans or more are debased. Some people seem to be able to absorb new information/perspectives without doubling down on their erroneous ways but they are few and far between.

8:00 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Krak-

The pt is that he didn't have a foreign policy, because he was reputed to take the advice of whoever was the last person he consulted with.

Art-

Anytime anyone talks secession, I'm all ears. :-)

mb

9:04 PM  
Anonymous Glans Butterworth, III said...

Wafer Dr. Shithouse-regarding American "life" being one giant ripoff (https://eand.co/do-americans-know-what-a-massive-ripoff-american-life-really-is-8804aa6b65fa)

"Americans still believe, more or less, whole-heartedly in the very systems and institutions which rip them off and laugh all the way to the bank — the average American still won’t support public systems and institutions like healthcare or media or education, and will choose the weird, idiotic system of private monopolies and billionaires over it, the very one which keeps them poor..."

The author refreshingly appears to assert that there is a certain level of 'buy-in' and active/voluntary participation in the American way of "life." The USians WANT what the empire is offering and 'enjoy' getting ripped off.

His view point from the usual drivel of Dr. Chomsky, Mr. Hedges and Co of USians being "duped" or if they could "wake up" or be "educated" etc. is interesting. This reinforces the wool not being pulled over their eyes; in reality the wool IS their eyes (Berman).

9:34 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Glans-

Well, that would suggest debasement.

mb

9:57 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Wafers-

NYT just ran an article on young people being into the Sopranos because they see in it a parable of a country in terminal decline. Question: How come the NYT hasn't figured this out? (Hint: Brooks and other bozos are debased?)

mb

10:14 PM  
Blogger Michael Burgess said...

Hi Dr. Berman and Wafers:

Secession in America?! Here is a report from Reuters via RT that over half of Trump voters and 41% (!) of Biden supporters want (I assume, their states) to secede from the United States. Trump voters want the red states (who vote majority republican) to secede. Sizable majorities of both Trump and Biden voters agree with the following, “if our society so wants, it is the duty of every true citizen to help eliminate the evil that poisons our country from within.” For them to truly do so would require self examination - something most Americans are disinclined to do because as Pogo said, the enemy is Us!! I don't think Americans can even begin to face what they are really like. It would seem more likely that separation (secession) from what is deemed 'evil' is more likely.

https://www.rt.com/usa/536397-poll-americans-secede-divide-fascism/

10:46 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Michael-

The thing I like abt secession is that if the US breaks up, and becomes decentralized, it won't be able to act like a unified empire, destroying other nations (see Stephen Kinzer, also me) and committing genocide round the globe. It wd also be the end of 800 US Army bases. Lots of bennies, in short. So if Texas, or Vermont, or Alta California/Oregon, want me to pitch in and help, I'm hoping they will contact me toot sweet, and we can get down to business. Hey, it's either that or the Boogaloo.

mb

11:15 PM  
Blogger Brian said...

Hello Wafers,
I did a check-in on James Kunstler’s blog. My oh my has he crossed the event horizon. The principle holds true: In America even the smart people are stupid. Is the intellectual resistance of Wafers futile? Yo go you go Americans! Degrade yourselves even more! Is there a bottom to the abyss!?
https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/in-a-dark-wood/

“And, by the way, how do we know that “JB” is getting an actual mRNA booster?  Or is it just 3 CCs of saline solution? Is not the syringe, after all, just another prop in the show? The video of this event was broadcast on cable TV channels and corporate media websites everywhere. None of them commented on the strange artificiality of the staging. And so, the mystery abides….”

"Everything else under “Joe Biden’s” watch looks like a pyromaniac seeking to burn down the country. Over 10,000 Haitian interlopers have been surreptitiously dispersed from Del Rio, Texas, to nether regions of the USA. The government made no effort to vaccinate them — what does that tell you? Over 100,000 more invading opportunists from all over the world are reportedly heading to the southern border. A month after the fall of Afghanistan, and after this week’s hearings in both the House and the Senate, still nobody knows who gave the insane order to surrender Bagram Air Force Base outside Kabul".

10:53 AM  
Anonymous Devgiri said...

‘Diderot’ Review: Wherever His Mind Led Him : ‘Diderot’s hostility to religious obscurantism did not on the whole lead him into the sophomoric logic-chopping typical of debaters on religion, pro and con. He simply couldn’t accept God’s existence’

https://www.wsj.com/articles/diderot-review-wherever-his-mind-led-him-11550241924

2:40 PM  
Anonymous Nadine Bupkis said...

Brian,

That seems to be one of the dangers of living in America: at any moment, one might "cross the event horizon", as you put it, and become a fascist. I made several posts about how other formerly sane luminaries like Glenn Greenwald and Bret Weinstein have also become far-right fascists. Dr. Berman and other Wafers chimed in with their own wonderful analyses of this phenomenon. You'd have to dig through older posts to read these discussions, but it might be worth your while.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYz55IYf9h0

Biden recently gave a speech at the UN. He confidently proclaimed that America is no longer engaging in war and nation-building, and has a very bright future. Absent from his speech is any admission that a future administration might reverse his stance on war and nation building, or any awareness that America is rotting from within. It's clear that even though Biden is well-intentioned, neither he nor his advisors have any understanding of America's predicament. They think they can save America by implementing good policies.

3:53 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Nadine-

It's also weird that he says we are no longer pursuing war, when he is saber-rattling with China via nuclear weapons to Australia. The truth is that America must have an enemy, in order to survive psychologically. So Schmiden can announce a no-war policy, and then go and pursue one.

mb

4:20 PM  
Anonymous Stockmal said...

Grimes seen reading Karl Marx following split with world's richest man Elon Musk https://nypost.com/2021/10/02/grimes-reads-karl-marx-after-split-with-worlds-richest-man-elon-musk/

Lol.

6:24 PM  
Anonymous Noura said...

MB,

Key distinctions between degraded and debased: degraded people see the issues but they don’t understand well enough to come up with meaningful solutions. Debased people, not only don’t see the issues, but they see upside down. They believe that good is bad and bad is good. There are so many of them now that they have taken control of the country and are driving it to the ground.

Here is a video with some of the most recent news about the continued debasement of America.

Massive Healthcare Worker Layoffs | The US Is Broke
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01A9kh7V25I
“Healthcare workers who don't get at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine are being laid off. Lawmakers in Congress have been bickering over how much debt the US can have as they faced an impending deadline to fund the government or see it go broke over the weekend. And the number of murders in the US are rising fast. Watch this episode of America Uncovered for more on that and this week's news headlines.”

6:46 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Stock-

Jesus, she looks as stupid as Kanye West. A kinda horror show of a douche baguette. Marx my ass.

Wafers-

As this is the last decade of the US in its present form, I think it might be useful for us to consider a few possible scenarios for the end game. Here's one, w/an optional alternative ending:

1. As debasement continues and dysfunction accelerates, America suffers a massive crackup on all levels: social, economic, cultural, and political. Institutions are broken, or shut down completely.
2. The Boogaloo finally shows up. Guns in hand, Americans shoot each other down like dogs in the street. Population goes from 332 million to 500,000.
3. Major blocs of the country secede (if that's even necessary at this pt). They form independent polities, each of which issues its own currency, passports, and what not. (For a hilarious take on this, pls see the old Ealing Studios film, "Passport to Pimlico.")
4. The problem is that the 500,000 remaining are still Americans, and that means that they are douchebags, and not very bright. They lack the imagination to do anything but continue the American Way of Life. So in time, they fail as well.
5. Canada moves south, and Mexico moves north. End of story.

Now for the alternative I have in mind. In #2, almost everyone is killed off, except for 180 Wafers and the Native American population. Together, they form the Sitting Bull Protectorate. Following the Native American Way of Life, which enshrines the values of Sitting Bull, the constitution provides for
(a) cooperation rather than competition; sharing of resources; democratic socialism.
(b) stewardship of the natural environment, now regarded as sacred
(c) political 'rule' by consensus
(d) elimination of all douchebag behavior, including greediness, aggression, narcissistic strutting around like a peacock, and basically acting like a jerk
(e) loving attention paid to babies and children
(f) a collective goal of happiness, not ownership of objects
(g) an annual "pee-in," in which fotos of all US presidents from Truman to Biden, w/exception of Jimmy Carter, are placed on the ground, and everyone comes and pees on them. (This might include a foto of Kim K's rear end.)

Anyway, these are only 1-2 possible scenarios. I look forward to hearing your own suggestions, or perhaps modifications of the above. And never forget that Elon Musk is a bozo.

mb

7:45 PM  
Anonymous Mister Buttinski said...

American Foreign Policy - then, now and forever - in a very tuneful and bitterly acerbic nutshell from the once radically hippy-ish Randy Newman.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QbUSjnhv6M

8:48 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Butt-

Actually, I seem to remember this from days gone by. The Smothers Brothers were pretty gd as well; LBJ tried to get them banned from the air (he may have succeeded, I can't remember).

mb

10:02 PM  
Anonymous James Allen said...

“The president of the United States was furious at being lampooned in yet another TV comedy skit. So he phoned the head of the [CBS] TV network [William Paley] at 3 a.m. to complain.
The perturbed POTUS wasn’t Donald Trump, who tweeted Sunday that federal regulators should look into the “not funny” attacks on him on “Saturday Night Live.” The phone-calling president was Lyndon B. Johnson, who in 1967, long before Twitter, dialed up the head of CBS to gripe about “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.”

19 March 2019 Washington Post article by Ronald G. Shafer
https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/03/18/president-was-furious-over-comedy-skit-it-wasnt-trump-fuming-about-snl/

11:12 PM  
Anonymous Dean Reynolds said...

In response to Stockmal's post of Grimes "reading" Karl Marx. The pictures are just to much of a posed , to much manufactured, to much of a managed event. Images to increase ones profile. And who reads books like this, if only to indicate the book they are "reading". 'The Communist Manifesto'? Weak, sad, pandering. Why not Capital Vol. 1, 2 or The Gundrisse? No one reads, so no one can understand what those books are. Grimes, sassy girl you. Show those millenials you are challenging the system.

11:53 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Dean-

That wd be a nice take, Grimes rdg the Grundrisse in the original German. I tell ya, this girl will have us all on the barricades b4 2 long. Go, Grimes! Stick it to The Man!

Jas-

Thanks for the ref. I wonder if he managed to get them off the air.

mb

2:04 AM  
Anonymous FerQ said...

MB-

Both of the scenarios you described are excellent!!!! If the world is going to get off the path of degeneracy and decadance and if it is going to get any better, it can only happen without the presence of the US. Seccession and the breakup of the US is great but the best outcome would be that the Americans and their sick culture disappear completely.
After the death of the Americans, capitalism and consumerism should also die.

Another scenario is that with the land that remains of the former US, the Native American population and the Wafers form a new country that is like the one you mentioned. The rest of the land will be divided up and annexed by Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Venezuela and other Latin American nations and that would be justice and payback for all the bullying, exploitaion and harm that the US and its disgusting people have caused us.

Also, imagine a scenario in which the US is invaded and occupied by another country like China or Russia or any other. Does anyone think it is possible or will be possible in the future?

2:11 AM  
Anonymous al-Qa'bong said...

Hello Wafers:

David Steinberg (Canadian!) did a bit about religion on the Smothers Brothers that caused the show to be cancelled. Ol' Dave was right; pork makes you stupid.

Where are the Pat Paulsens of yesteryear? He and Eugene Debs were the only presidential candidates that I'd ever have voted for.

2:35 AM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Fer-

C'mon, don't hold back; tell us how you *really* feel!

mb

3:23 AM  
Blogger Himanshu said...

Dear Dr. Berman,

Majority of Trump voters and 41% of Biden fans want to SECEDE from union, see ‘other’ party as totalitarian – poll

https://www.rt.com/usa/536397-poll-americans-secede-divide-fascism/

Himanshu

7:30 AM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Himan-

I think someone may have posted this already, but gd to be reminded of it. Let's hope they all get their way! Long overdue to move to post-empire status.

mb

9:14 AM  
Blogger Joe McIlnen said...

And let’s celebrate the week’s end, as we usually do, with the fabulous ladies of our great U.S.A.!, U.S.A.!, U.S.A.!
Check out Video #1. These here drunken, immature, and downright dangerous drivers of the XX chromosome part in our USAin dysfunctional society definitely are a funny sight to behold.
The same thing goes for the short snippets in the other four videos. Our Karens are everywhere! LOL! McDonald’s. Clothing stores. School buses. You name it.
The Karens. We love them! They get crazier and wilder by the day! LOL!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tkrEH8sfgE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6DW00_ogNA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVXAayvfryk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMCmIvYiAVg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rybs3KG4CHQ


p.s. Dr. Berman, regarding your possible 2030 scenario here in this wasteland: If only douchebags remain, I possibly can envision the annual “Miss ‘America’ Contest” being replaced and renamed as “The Miss ‘Karen’ contest”.

10:09 AM  
Anonymous Henis said...

Wouldn’t call myself a “data guy” but this seems horrible :-(

More Than Half of Police Killings Are Mislabeled, New Study Says
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/30/us/police-killings-undercounted-study.html

10:12 AM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Henis-

Oh, surely not!

Joe-

Never forget that these Karens are the people who made this country what it is. Go, bubbot! (aka douche baguettes) That 1st clip is a scream.

mb

11:04 AM  
Blogger David said...

@FerQ

About your speculation whether China or Russia could in the future invade.
First of all no country in their right mind would try to invade a nation bristling with nukes and about 400 million guns in private hands at last count.
A bit of history: in 1806 Nikolai Rezanov of the Russian American Company docked his ship in Monterey Ca. (at the time Spanish Alta California) wishing to trade. Instead he fell in love with the Spanish governor's daughter and before he could marry her and realize his dream of a Russian America he died. The 1867 sale of Alaska put an end to any thoughts of Russian colonization of the Americas.

The Chinese came to California searching for gold in the 1840s (the old Chinese name for San Francisco -- Jiu jinshan (old gold mountain) still is used by Chinese today.
After the gold was gone and the railways built they were told to "go back to China" (sound familiar?) and subjected to violent pogroms in the 1870's. China does not have a tradition of maintaining ultramarine colonies but its people have a habit of "volkerwanderung".

11:50 AM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

David-

Well, if most of the population were wiped out, including the staff at the Pentagon, invasion might not be problematic for the Chinese or really, anybody. However, on a more realistic note, what China is doing is building up its military and expanding economically, overtaking us. They'll be in a far superior position to us by 2030.

mb

ps: I have a T-shirt that says, MAKE AMERICA MEXICO AGAIN. Long term, this is not all that fanciful. And of course, I have my Jewish Space Lasers T-shirt.

12:01 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

ps: Joe: I esp. liked the last part of that 1st link, where this Karen walks thru the store, dumping the merchandise onto the floor. Americans are so strung out these days that anything can become a target for their rage. It doesn't even hafta require a triggering event. I think it was 2-3 wks ago, some young moron attacked an elderly lady in Bklyn w/a hammer, for no reason at all. But as the declinists say, The more the rage, the faster the decline. (This type of behavior is metastasizing across the country at a tremendous clip.)

mb

12:14 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

ps2: Joe: If a tidal wave is called a tsunami, a similar wave of buffoons shd be called a buffoonami. I submit that we are now living in the midst of a buffoonami.

12:17 PM  
Anonymous al-Qa'bong said...

Hello Wafers:

I have to admit that I had to Google "Grimes," as I have no idea who that is. Hmm, another damn Canadian.

Anyway, "The Communist Manifesto" is OK, but everyone knows that the really cool kids pose with "The 18th Brumaire of Louis Napoleon."

4:50 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

al-

Honestly, in yr life, have you ever seen such a turkette?
"Bimbo City" doesn't even begin to cover it.

mb

5:18 PM  
Blogger Rosegarden said...

Nadine - When I began teaching in 1967, we were aware that 19% of the parents were not able to read the letters from the school district and the little notes from the teacher. I do not remember how or where we got this information. When the steel mills closed in Pittsburgh during the 1980s, the situation seemed to get worse as we lost the middle class. Free and reduced lunches increased dramatically. No matter how I wrote or rewrote my tests, there were mostly A’s or F’s. What should have been the majority (bell shaped curve) of C grades became the minority. The bell shaped curve turned into a U. Within a decade we became a poster child of haves and have-nots.

That 54% of the US population is now illiterate does not surprise me. If you are struggling to keep a roof over your head and food on the table, there is no time or money for books, music lessons, board games or visits to the museum. And we are now into the second generation of this phenomenon.

7:21 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Rose-

I read this abt 25 yrs ago, when I was writing the Twilight bk, and I have lost the reference. But there was an article in the newspaper that a certain significant (20%?) fraction of American adults were not able to read or understand the instructions on a coke machine. I shd also add that hostility toward education or intellectual activity is a very old tradition in the US, as has been documented by Richard Hofstadter and many others. Most Americans couldn't give a crap about books, music lessons, or exhibits at museums. Economic pressure or not, they just don't care abt that stuff. An expt: randomly stop any person on the street, regardless of age, gender, religion, color, etc., and ask them what they think of Robert Frost, or Picasso.

mb

7:49 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Wafers-

Check out Guardian for Oct. 4 regarding Pandora papers. When I say the elite are trash, I mean trash.

And what a surprise this is:
Facebook whistleblower to claim company contributed to Capitol attack | US Capitol attack | The Guardian

Or this:
Apple and Disney among companies backing groups against US climate bill | US political lobbying | The Guardian

Or the fact that the Biden agenda is stalled in Congress. Oh, surely not! (I’m guessing odds are 100:1 it’ll never get passed.)

mb

8:02 PM  
Anonymous The Flabster said...

More beating off-I hear these threats that Americans will quit jobs over the vaccine, but like everything else it’s bullshit.

https://www.npr.org/2021/09/29/1041500566/vaccine-mandate-quit-research

And my favorite of the last week:



Who isn’t a douche bag at work in Congress right now? Trumpists, progs, moderates?

https://www.vice.com/en/article/7kvgxe/were-going-to-make-the-rich-pay-joe-manchin-tells-protesters-from-his-yacht

8:10 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Flab-

What's fascinating is that Manchin doesn't see any contradiction in what he's saying, from his yacht. By now, it's difficult to find a person in the US who isn't a jackass. The whole country is beating off, and full of hot prunes. As a declinist, I salute them.

mb

9:02 PM  
Anonymous BH said...

Dr. Berman, I read a book called Dont Think Of An Elephant by cognitive science George Lakoff. He argued in his book that neurons in our brain process all the information that comes to it and sorts what is important and what is not. Anyway, the neurons are different and pick up different things. If the brain keeps receiving the same information (the environment one is in does not change) then the unused neurons die off. If some new situation arises and you needed these now dead neurons to accurately deal with the new reality being faced the person would fail because all he or she had left were the neurons that could not process the information. I know I am not doing justice here to Lakoffs work. I was just wondering if this is what Americans and especially its leaders problem is. They have all been fed so many lies and for a while things worked and now that things have changed the neurons they need to change with the times have died off in their brains and they just can mentally change their outlook. Sorry for long post.

9:12 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Trash Unlimited Dept.:

https://goodwordnews.com/after-this-communist-manifesto-photoshoot-grimes-embraces-being-cringe/

11:03 PM  
Anonymous Yvy said...

Steven Pinker, Rational ThinkerHis new book is a stinker.

BY TED MCCORMICK

https://slate.com/culture/2021/09/steven-pinker-rationality-book-review.html

Steven Stinker!

11:24 AM  
Anonymous Victor said...

Scrolling

Gavin Francis

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2021/09/23/scrolling/

Throw all the phones in a pit!

11:42 AM  
Blogger Joe McIlnen said...

Happy Monday, Dr. Berman & Wafers. Check out just a few of the latest usual mass shootings that occurred over a typical weekend here in our “exceptional” U.S.A.!, U.S.A.!, U.S.A.! Check out also the related clips on the headlines right side of the respective cities where these shootings took place. There’s the usual male sexual predators on the loose. And the main stories of interest in Colorado are the Denver Broncos and the University of Colorado football team.
Also, a big news headline for the start of a new week is Facebook being down. As our good Doctor has said, “What’s on the average American’s mind is downright laughable.”

https://www.wistv.com/2021/10/03/one-killed-mulitple-hit-by-gunfire-lee-co-waffle-house-shooting/

https://www.kcrg.com/2021/10/02/police-still-seeking-any-information-suspect-who-shot-six-cedar-rapids-hotel/

https://www.denverpost.com/2021/10/02/aurora-hotel-party-fatal-shooting/

1:14 PM  
Anonymous Noura said...

Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp go down
https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/04/tech/facebook-instagram-whatsapp-outage/index.html

"Facebook's week just went from bad to worse ... The outage came the morning after '60 Minutes' aired a segment in which Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen claimed the company is aware of how its platforms are used to spread hate, violence and misinformation, and that Facebook has tried to hide that evidence. Facebook has pushed back on those claims.

The interview followed weeks of reporting about and criticism of Facebook after Haugen released thousands of pages of internal documents to regulators and the Wall Street Journal. Haugen is set to testify before a Senate subcommittee on Tuesday.

Shares of Facebook were down more than 5% in midday trading Monday, putting it on pace for its worst trading day in nearly a year."

7:09 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Yvy-

Pinker is a colossal asshole, proselytizing dangerous nonsense. The problem is, that he's influential. Millions think this is 'wisdom'.

Catherine-

I didn't really understand what you were saying, or what your question was. But I'm sad to see that you don't understand where I've come since Reenchantment, or what I stand for today. In any case, condescending put-downs are not allowed on this blog, so you might consider going elsewhere. This is the wrong venue for you. Gd luck.

mb

7:27 PM  
Anonymous Dr. Shithouse said...

https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/Shots-fired-on-Amtrak-train-in-Arizona-1-in-16508360.php

usa, usa!

7:31 PM  
Anonymous The Flabster said...

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-09-30/secret-usc-payout-involved-images-ex-dean-using-drugs

The people in charge are pieces of shit....

9:14 PM  
Blogger C. J. Timmins said...

Apologies if it's already been discussed, but if you haven't already, check out Bo Burnham's song "That Funny Feeling". The song is a Wafer anthem, and has become a minor hit, especially with a recent & excellent cover by Phoebe Bridgers. The song is composed of multiple poetic juxtapositions calling out America's shallow and absurd doom. Perhaps the song's popularity indicates that many people realize how horrible their lives are, but they feel existentially trapped, aka "that funny feeling".

One line in particular reminds me of Why America Failed: "A gift shop at the gun range/a mass shooting at the mall..."

9:55 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Flab-

Trash, yes. Plus, the whole of the US, nearly every institution, is a kleptocracy.

mb

10:41 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Wafers-

I've been thinking recently abt where the US is today, and where it is going; and what comes to mind is that it is outside of anyone's conscious control. Marx talked abt this in "18th Brumaire": that the 'anthropology' of a situation is larger than any of its components, and that no faction is going to get exactly what it wants. The result will be a combo of factors, in short.

Right now, the US is split down the middle between two factions that sincerely believe they are fighting for their lives, and for the future of the country; that their opponent is truly evil--Satan, if you will. Personally, I feel that control of the nation by either wd be a horror show. The bubbas would have us be a white, Christian, rt-wing nation, led by Trump or some version of the man; the progs wd drive us into forced political correctness and diversity, controlling our speech and who is allowed to speak on campuses, etc. One scenario is fascist, the other communist, as far as I can see. Even with secession, with (e.g.) Texas going one way and Vermont the other, Wafers wd want to know: Where wd us Wafers, and Native Americans live? Where is *their* state, the state of individuals who still think, who still have a lick o' sense, and are not nuts?

Even if we grant that Schmiden's intentions are good (w/wh many might disagree), as Marx said, he can't control what's coming down. He has no say over the anthropology of the situation, or its outcome. Thus we may have the Boogaloo, in wh/the 2 factions do their best to destroy the other side...Schmiden can't control that, unless he tries to be a resurrection of Lincoln (wh/I don't think will work). We may have successful secessionist movements, wh/he (or any future president) wd also be powerless to control. And no president can stop the country from going down the drain, wh/is happening now on a daily basis and will accelerate over the next 9 yrs. Was it Confucius who said 'may you live in interesting times'? As Wafers, we also say 'a plague on both yr houses', but we also observe the death throes of America w/perspective, at a distance, and remember Marx's wise remarks. No one has a crystal ball, beyond knowing that for the US, crackup and disaster is likely to be in our future.

The best outcome, to my mind, is the one depicted in the 2nd story of "The Heart of the Matter," wh/has the same title as the bk. This wd be the most intelligent, and the least bloody, outcome. The problem, of course, is that Americans, whether prog or bubba, are not very intelligent; and they certainly lack the slightest touch of grace. But hey, a man can dream.

mb

5:37 AM  
Anonymous Birney Zouave said...

Dr. B and Dr. S:

Here is a 38-second clip from "Virtual Railfan," which captured part of the shootout yesterday in Tucson-

https://youtu.be/MPOc3rFT16s

One DEA agent killed, one DEA agent wounded, and a Tucson police officer wounded; I listened to the whole 10-1/2 minute press conference. The police chief had no idea where the train came from or where it was going-

https://youtu.be/PxEBqKBtMok

The shooter is dead, too; either by suicide, or perhaps the authorities shot him.

I wonder if the featured guy in this article was one of the DEA guys that was shot-

https://theintercept.com/2019/08/31/dea-amtrak-passenger-search-albuquerque/

By "interdicting" trains and looking for "whatever," the authorities are also endangering Amtrak passengers. Why? So we can "win" the "war on drugs?" (Note also in the article that "The Amtrak secretary had amassed $854,460 from the DEA for his work snitching on riders.")

5:47 AM  
Anonymous down we go said...

"No President" - or scientist of politician or moral leader can stop the US from collapsing into itself. I've been reading "Immoderate Greatness" by William Ophuls. With you, MB, Ophuls argues from history that all civilizations eventually collapse.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17567194-immoderate-greatness

As he writes, "Civilizations are hard-wired for self-destruction". And there is nothing that anyone can do to stop the process. His essential reason is in the title - hubris. Trying to be greater and bigger and richer inevitably comes up against natural and human limitations. Eventually civilizations destroy themselves from within in an orgy of overreach. As civilizations grow and seek ever greatness, they become more complex. Eventually the level of complexity becomes so extreme that the system can no longer be managed and collapses.

I think we are seeing evidence of that in 3 areas:
1. collapse of the supply chains that feed consumer demand; https://www.businessinsider.com/workers-warn-global-supply-chain-systems-collapse-possible-need-solutions-2021-9
2. empty grocery store shelves (from personal shopping experience)
3. Washington dysfunction. Inability of President and Congress to reach agreement on important legislation.
https://www.logisticsmgmt.com/article/political_dysfunction_remains_a_step_ahead_of_making_progress_on_an_infrast

7:11 AM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

down-

Similar arg. to Jos Tainter, "The Collapse of Complex Civilizations." Also, Arnold Toynbee maintained that the usual path to decline was self-destruction: the organism committed suicide, in effect.

Ophuls is a sharp observer. He was assistant to several ambassadors to Japan, and wrote me after I published NB, which quotes him at one pt. He pretty much agreed w/my analysis of Americans, that they don't have the ability to work together.

Which of course is contributing to our downfall, but I hafta say that NO analyst of collapse--myself included--anticipated that in the case of the US, it wd actually be funny. Americans are frivolous, and as I've said b4, are little more than jokes. Just look at all those Karen clips, and tell me the Karens aren't hilarious. Where in the world does a store clerk get killed for requiring customers wear a face mask, except in the US? Of course it's tragic, but it's also absurd. There has been no previous civilizational collapse in wh/absurdity factored in as an agent of the collapse. A silly people, w/shit for brains, thinking that hustling was what life was abt.

mb

10:54 AM  
Blogger Catherine Illian said...

Rebuke received. I'm sorry for my condescension. I've got your more recent books on order and will comment once I have something more intelligent to say.

11:17 AM  
Anonymous Glans Butterworth, III said...

"NO analyst of collapse--myself included--anticipated that in the case of the US, it wd actually be funny. Americans are frivolous, and as I've said b4, are little more than jokes... (Berman)."

Given that the US empire (business enterprise) was based on myths, illusions, delusions, and propaganda:

Have Wafers decided on the appropriate USian national anthem?

Benny Hill, Barnum & Bailey circus music, Enter Sandman, Mister Sandman, Mr. Rodgers theme music, etc.?

12:01 PM  
Blogger Miles Deli said...

Greetings MB and Wafers,

This nation is a total disaster dept.:

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-10-05/covid-vaccine-mask-fury-shakes-up-california-schools

Would it be presumptuous of me to suggest that Biden declare a nuclear strike on all schools in this nation, followed by a mass public masturbation exercise administered by Marjorie Taylor Greene. Who's w/me on this, Wafers?

Miles

3:01 PM  
Blogger Morris Berman said...

Note to Catherine-

If you want to know where I stand today, check out 2nd story in "The Heart of the Matter."

Jeff-

A gd idea, I'm thinking. Note that LA Times has a paywall, unfortunately.

Glans-

"Turkey in the Straw" wd be gd. Also, maybe someone cd compose "Onward Christian Buffoons," or "Amazing Disgrace."

mb

4:52 PM  
Anonymous The Twelfth of Never said...

Morris Berman said:

Was it Confucius who said 'may you live in interesting times'?


Apparently, this "Chinese" curse was really British in origin.

https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/may-you-live-in-interesting-times.html

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

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/12/18/live/

12:03 AM  

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