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Well, amigos, I didn't get 5 people for the Wafer Lunch in Houston on May 17, so clearly, that's not going to happen. Perhaps we'll try for NYC later this year or in the spring of 2025.
posted by Morris Berman at 5:57 PM
45 Comments:
As the U.S.A.!, U.S.A.!, U.S.A.! deteriorates into fascism with Don back at the helm (and probably for life as a de facto dictator) next year, the praising of authority goes hand-in-hand with it. Check out New York’s Finest in action. A kid with scissors? He’s so big a threat, blow him away! Charles Langley and Philip Brailsford ( of Daniel Shaver murder fame) must be giving these cops high fives.
https://www.audacy.com/1010wins/news/local/bodycam-footage-fatal-nypd-shooting-of-queens-19-year-old
And make no mistake. With this wasteland on its way to becoming a Christian theocracy, the most fucked up bully authoritarian conservative religion in the world is making a strong conservative comeback. And of course Don the Con, as part of his newest grift, is extolling that fucking religion at his rallies.
https://apnews.com/article/catholic-church-shift-orthodoxy-tradition-7638fa2013a593f8cb07483ffc8ed487
As the GSWH often has said to young people when addressing them at one of his talks: “ What do you think awaits you? The best thing to do is get out now,”
Joe-
Very little chance they'll follow my advice. 40 yrs from now, they'll be kicking themselves that they didn't. Meanwhile, Wafers need to check this out:
Biden’s Very Trumpian Response to the Peaceful Student Protests | The New Republic
Kind of interesting, to watch the national suicide in progress, eh? It's breathtaking, how stupid the gov't and (most) universities are.
mb
Two Boeing whistleblowers died under mysterious circumstances, there are 10 more that may also become victims.
I don't want to blame Boeing without evidence, but if they have a hand in this, then, I'm glad to see business conducted Al Capone style in the US.
https://nypost.com/2024/05/04/us-news/boeing-faces-10-more-whistleblowers-after-two-die/
Places afflicted w/ extreme homelessness have been turning to the Supreme Court 4 help in dealing w/ encampments. Because they gotta keep those pesky bums from shattering the illusion that everything in Amerikkka is A-okay
https://news.yahoo.com/supreme-court-rule-states-cities-120027124.html
Wanna know why so many Amerikkkans turn to opioids to cope? Their own compatriots see 'em as yesterday's trash
Here's video featuring a video of cops beating up students and professors at Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville and other places:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjLGaeU0Jyk
This is awful to watch and hear.
The US is a police state for sure. Someone is going to killed. I remember the Kent State shootings, and it isn't too hard to see how that could happen again.
ccg-
What a great country America is! What great universities! And what a brave, tolerant country Israel is:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/05/israel-shuts-down-local-al-jazeera-offices-in-dark-day-for-the-media
All have so much to be proud of.
mb
A couple of real jews with real jewish values
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C6QgNL8ISbK/
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C6nskMIv83Q/
You never here their voices in the media or in political rallies, they're bad for business. That get all the coverage however are douchbags, such as Rebecca Wiener, a Columbia professor who aided the crackdown on the students, being an intelligence director of the NYPD
https://thegrayzone.com/2024/05/02/columbia-crackdown-university-nypd/
french-
How does Wiener live w/herself? I'm wondering if I shd do a bk on the origins of sadism. It's a bewildering phenomenon.
mb
Police scumbags:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/commentisfree/article/2024/may/06/ucla-protester-mob-attack
A Washington Post op-ed piece by a columnist named David Ignatius had the following title:
“Is the Sun Slowly Setting on U.S. Power?” (You bet!)
https://politicalwire.com/2024/04/28/is-the-sun-slowly-setting-on-u-s-power/
99% of the population are too stupid to get this; they much prefer 2 go down w/ the ship. But here's a gem from the comment section:
“The tendency of global history has always been toward a multi-power, or even regional powers, world. It’s not so shocking to think that “sole global hegemon” is a near-impossible title to carry indefinitely.”
Ya think?
Possibly I'm making too much of this, i.e., the fate of Mama Cass (aka Cass Elliot) of the Mamas and the Papas, that, as her daughter asserts, trying to kill a persistent myth, her mother died by choking on a ham sandwich. No, it was her congenital over-weightness and the dubious project of pursuing fame in spite of being overweight and the humiliations she had to shoulder just to realize the Dream, and ultimately the strain on her heart of all this striving that, I surmise, killed her at the age of 32. But what really caught my attention was the following paragraph from Cass Elliot's daughter's forthcoming book:
"Even as a little girl, when I was hanging out with my friends at school, they didn't know who my mom was, but I would go home to have playdates with some of these kids and it was kind of frequent that one of their parents would make a comment to me like, 'Hey, did your mom really die choking on a ham sandwich?'
Only in a country of insensitive dolts would such a question be posed "kind of frequent" of a motherless child.
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/mama-cass-didnt-choke-death-014242875.html
Kel-
By now you have realized that the overwhelming majority of Americans are insensitive dolts. They are also violent, clueless buffoons. The few political analysts who understand that the US is going down the drain--and kudos to them--nevertheless leave this factor out of their analyses. To them I say: "Look no further, amigos!" This is why Jack L. and I are planning to set up an Institute of Buffoonology at Evergreen State College, w/Tulsi giving the inaugural address, and Gisele Bundchen assuming the post of Academic Provost.
mb
Re: the Kent State shootings, British MP George Galloway noted yesterday during an interview with Hedges (https://youtu.be/mAEBiMcBvj8) that he was reviewing historical interview footage taken in the wake of the Kent State shootings and all of these local interviewees (including parents of students at the college!) were saying things like, "they (the National Guard) should have shot more of them..."
Most Americans can seemingly always be counted upon to favor the most violent, least idealistic, least moral, and most oppressive and authoritarian course of action in any situation. Hedges blamed the media, though it's Americans being taken in by that media again and again who are really to blame.
Budget-
Blaming the media is terribly naive. The core problem, one several writers (including me) have discussed, is that regardless of allegiance to Christianity, Judaism, Islam, etc., the real religion of America is America. And w/it, of course, the American Dream. So the avg American feels that if we lose the 'City on the Hill', we will lose everything, come apart. This is why serious critiques of America are met w/incoherent rage. It is, in fact, a very intense addiction.
mb
The Elite Are Trash:
https://www.spaywall.com/news/https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-02-23/rebecca-grossman-verdict
Upper-class socialite. Since she killed the 2 lovely boys, instead of coming clean, she has tried to weasel out of being sentenced; wh/cd be 34 yrs. Sentencing will be on June 10. I'm hoping she'll be baked in a casserole dish.
mb
Republican US senators sent threatening letter to ICC. The language (especially in the end of the letter) is thuggish jargon; "Target Israel and we will target you", "you have been warned" and the threat to the family members.
Baffoons, yeah, and also thugs.
https://www.jurist.org/news/2024/05/us-senators-send-threatening-letter-to-icc-prosecutor-saying-target-israel-and-we-will-target-you/
https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fm2ehpjlu7vyc1.jpeg
Oh I wish I were in the land of cotton, where mass shooting victims are soon forgotten…blow away, blow away, blow ‘em away...
https://www.wvtm13.com/article/alabama-mass-shooting-gun-violence/60701751
Shooting. Next stop is Buffalo. Been Thinkin', You Gotta shoot them, then go…..Mass shootings going on and on...
https://abcnews.go.com/US/14-year-old-girl-killed-5-teens-hurt-buffalo-shooting/story?id=109939615
East Side, West side. All around the town. The killings and shootings go round and round….this country’s going down!
https://www.audacy.com/1010wins/news/local/harlem-shootings-man-shot-in-face-2-women-gunned-down
p.s. I can’t think of a song for New Mexico where this ultimate heinous aftermath action following one of this wasteland’s daily mass shootings occurred. So I’ll steal a few lyrics from a Paul Anka song. “ You're robbing my baby. What a lovely way to end a mass shooting.”
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2024/05/05/nm-police-search-for-baby-amid-deadly-shooting/4581714942052/
Only here, Folks. U.S.A.!, U.S.A.!, U.S.A.!
french-
Call me crazy; I love a gd buffoon!
mb
This story got a fair share of Americana in it:
https://www.spaywall.com/news/https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/07/us/missouri-wife-murder.html
Man strangles his wife in a hospital bed, for he couldn't afford the medical bills anymore. The hospital harvested her organs upon her brain death.
Gotta pay ya bills!
Martyn-
Not clear why he didn't beat her w/a tire iron.
mb
Old folks are becoming homeless @ a rate never seen since the Great Depression, so sez this report
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/realestate/unconscionable-baby-boomers-in-america-are-becoming-homeless-at-a-rate-not-seen-since-the-great-depression-here-s-what-s-driving-this-terrible-trend/ar-BB1kJZ88
How can Amerikkka call itself “the world's richest nation” while having thousands of motherfuckers sleeping in tents?? That seems incongruous 2 me
Well, the president of Columbia University has put out a video which is loaded with bullshit. Here's a good take-down of the president, her video, and of Columbia professor John McWhorter:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKYUVS-0Kgc
The guys doing the video have it right by saying for this is all reduced to the issue of manners among the elites. Trashy people with good manners. And I know people who think and act just that president and that professor. I've long had my doubts about McWhorter, especially after I saw that he was writing for the Times. I no longer have doubts.
ccg-
The bottom line is that the elites are trash. In general, they hardly care about anything beyond their own political influence. Starving children are nothing, compared to that. What garbage these people are.
mb
They've just made a documentary about the rape hoax of october 7th (Not a single evidence of rape was ever presented to this day, and the 'journalist' reporting on them proved to be a lawyer).
https://www.screamsbeforesilence.com/
https://thecradle.co/articles-id/24093
https://thegrayzone.com/2024/03/25/israeli-propagandist-hamas-grifter-fraud/
Even without any evidence, and with the obvious object of covering for the Palestinian plight with a rubbish documentary, US politicians still sharing it on social media.
The Electronic Intifada made a video on the subject. The main point is around the 57:40 mark, claims that non 'whites' are sexual savages who rape White women is an age old coloinal tactic to generate support and it's a propaganda effort to distract from the genocide and the student uprisin. I personally don't believe that such an effort is necessary, the general populace of America and maybe the whole West, don't care about following the evidence, if they hate you (or deem you're inferior) they'd rather say that the sun rises from the west than admit to an obvious truth.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=TApiok-KiRc
I honestly don't know what's going on right now in Rafah (by design I suppose, as a lot of it is being hidden in the form of the 140+ murdered journalists who were brave enough to try to cover Gaza after October 7). So in honor of the estimated 600,000 children in Rafah right now, fates currently unknown, Caitlin Johnstone's recent poem:
https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/the-amputated-limbs-of-children
french, Budget-
"In war, the first casualty is truth"--Aeschylus
But much to my amazement, Schmiden has temporarily suspended shipments of armaments to Israel, feeling that they wd be used to kill the people of Rafah (true, dat).
Other than that, I'm having a tough time stomaching the news as of late.
mb
"A 2020 Holocaust Knowledge and Awareness study showed that 63 percent of U.S. millennials and members of Generation Z did not know that 6 million Jewish people were killed in the Holocaust."
Why wd this be?
1.The kids are douchebags
2.They have shit for brains
3.They don't care abt anything, really
4.All of the above.
mb
Doctor,
Yuga Wang performed in Philadelphia a few weeks ago. Needless to say, it was a memorable event. When I told about 7 college educated friends about the concert not one had heard of her. Later, I saw Puccini's Madame Butterfly-same response. None had heard of Puccini or the piece. When I mentioned that the Broadway musical, Miss Saigon is based on Butterfly, they hadn't even heard of that either!
I also recall when Howard Zinn passed away, no one had heard of him either including my brother who attended an elite college. Obviously, its history curriculum was all top-down. Can't let the unwashed have a voice in world events, can you?
I'm sorry your Texas lunch did not materialize. Of course, I'll gladly come to NYC for a Wafer summit anytime. It would be great to see you and the others again.
They simply don't care. Caring about the Holocaust is a Boomer thing. It doesn't resonate with younger generations, and after 80 years, it isn't surprising.
The Holocaust is the Founding Myth of the post WWII order. Not a myth in the sense it never happened, but in the sense that it provides the moral framework of the present order. That myth is dying, what replaces it? No idea.
Christian-
Not caring isn't surprising, I suppose. But not knowing about it: that *is*. However, today's kids learn 0 in school, including the Holocaust, Hiroshima, etc. Plus, they have excrement in their heads.
Dan-
See my reply to Christian. The avg American knows 0 abt 0, nor does it bother them.
mb
ps: What if a series of brain biopsies on thousands of Americans revealed that they had spam in their heads? Schmiden obviously does. As for Kamala (Schmamala), the same except that the spam wd be rancid.
Who would have thought that Schmiden cd do something rt?
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/05/08/politics/joe-biden-interview-cnntv/index.html
Why indeed? Because the powers that be want him to be president (duh!):
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/05/08/politics/donald-trump-trials-delayed-what-matters/index.html
With Macklemore's "Hind's Hall" getting something approaching 100 million views across all social media platforms over the past 48 hours, I'm guessing someone finally bent Biden's ear and explained he can support the genocide or win the election, but not both:
https://youtu.be/fgDQyFeBBIo
If you watch the first live performance of this you'll note the entire crowd of young people cheering loudest at the part about NOT voting for Biden. That would panic any politician:
https://youtu.be/Y7osYinX_DU
Budget-
So I guess this makes him a semi-genocidal douchebag, but a douchebag none the less. All he cares abt is the optics: how what he does, plays w/the voting public. Outside of that, he stands for 0. He's really the lowest form of life.
french-
Sorry, cdn't run it (too long).
mb
I believe I found a solution for an extensive list of links, or for longer comments In the link below you'll find all the links.
NYPD arrested credentialed journalist Olga Fedorova, with her press pass around her neck. Freedom of speech and of press are myths that only americans believe in, after all, the US is ranked 55 in the freedom of press index, one place before Gabon, and 22 places behind Mauritania.
Also, the comments above about Yuja Wang and about the american students not knowing the Holocaust reminded me of a UK tv competition between university students called Univercity Challenge. The topics range from classical music and philosophy to geography and history. Very different from the US!
https://pastebin.com/k3J2A7vr
For your upcoming Wafer summit in the fall, Doctor, here are a few tips when traveling around the Big Apple looking for a venue. First off, if you rent a car, keep the windows closed. You otherwise may get pepper sprayed by one of those notorious angry Manhattan bicyclists.
https://www.audacy.com/1010wins/news/local/cyclist-pepper-sprays-72-year-old-driver-in-east-village
Be on your watchful eye if instead you choose to ride the subway. Keep your MetroCard hidden from view when entering it. And your cellphone as well.
https://www.audacy.com/1010wins/news/local/fare-beating-trio-brutalizes-man-67-in-brooklyn-subway
https://www.audacy.com/1010wins/news/local/man-robs-woman-inside-columbus-circle-subway-station
If you take a cab, make sure no other passengers are inside. Some of them may blow their angry tops off and also literally try to blow both the driver and you away.
https://www.audacy.com/1010wins/news/local/bronx-gunman-jumps-out-of-moving-taxi-nearly-shoots-cabbie
And of course be careful when taking a walk. You may be a victim of one of the many omnipresent sucker punching thugs here in this lawless violent concrete jungle.
https://www.audacy.com/1010wins/news/local/woman-72-sucker-punched-on-bay-ridge-street
Yeah. City life is wonderful here in the U.S.A.!, U.S.A.!, U.S.A.!
Joe-
Gd advice. I was thinking that after the lunch, all of us, armed to the teeth, wd just go around shooting homeless people for the heck of it.
french-
Well, the problem is that American students have warm diarrhea in their heads. This makes it difficult for them to learn anything, or to think clearly.
mb
Wafers-
There are only a few things in this world that are absolutely certain:
1. The US is going down the drain
2. The American population is absurd; an embarrassment compared to the other people of the world
3. Schmiden, a senile doofus, is directly responsible for the deaths of thousands of Palestinian children
4. My new book, "Soul-Changers," is the hottest thing around since canned tuna.
I am waiting for Amazon to list the paperback edition, wh/shd take 2 or 3 days; at wh/pt, I'll formally list it on the blog. In the meantime, for those of you who are Kindlers, you can download it rt now by putting "Soul-Changers" into the Amazon website. Altho it is not an antidote to #s 2 and 3 above, I think it might bring a spot of joy to your lives.
Arriba!
mb
Good people try to dislodge a scumbag:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/09/ucla-faculty-chancellors-resignation-campus-protests
Nailing another piece of trash:
https://www.spaywall.com/news/https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-05-08/usc-faculty-senate-vote-to-censure-president
When I think of the # of people who need to be slapped silly, I get so exhausted I hafta lie down.
As far as Israel and the protests go, here's the straight poop:
https://hotcopper.com.au/threads/middle-east-war-expands.7662971/page-2313?post_id=73756546
That great Hotcopper piece on Empire Managers losing their minds in fear of losing control of the narrative reminded me of something I realized about that Macklemore "Hind's Hall" song. There is an almost impermeable blanket of gaslighting in the USA. If you're a normal human being, seeing pictures of hundreds of mutilated kids half-buried in rubble or screaming about their missing limbs is HIGHLY disturbing. However, to live in the USA is to be told constantly you are an antisemite or a terrorist for even noticing or, God forbid, saying a word about it.
"Hind's Hall" was received so rapturously because it spread around social media and escaped (some of the) frantic attempts to censor it. You think Clear Channel would ever allow a song like that on the radio? People glimpsed for one moment they were not alone and crazy after all, that genocide actually is a bad thing that needs to stop.
https://youtu.be/TrQbN31SASw
Budget-
The Hotcopper piece goes to the core issue, of competing narratives. The problem for Israel and the US is that this really *is* genocide, and no amount of establishment blather can obliterate this fact. No one can deny the images of Gaza online. Worldwide, Israel is generating v. little respect, and even Schmiden says he won't ship more bombs to them, because this materiel will be used to kill the people of Rafah. He even said that arms shipments up to now have killed thousands; that, in effect, there is blood on his hands. So in some way, he is rejecting the dominant narrative.
mb
Just learned about the time Ulysses S. Grant of the Union Army ethnically cleansed a bunch of Jews from part of the US.. He just kind of assumed that the local cotton black market was run by Jews so he ordered a large area to just be ethnically cleansed of its Jews. This happened in Tennessee, Mississippi, and Kentucky!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Order_No._11_(1862)
This book looks great on this
https://www.amazon.com/General-Grant-Expelled-Jewish-Encounters/dp/0805212337?dplnkId=1922135e-a02e-4002-80e6-2dba6fc77687
This country really has always been fucked
Z-
I guess he is part of a great American tradition.
mb
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