I just watched Kamala's concession speech. She was smiling, beaming from ear to ear; as tho *she* had won the election. She said some stuff about the greatness of America, its future, etc. E.g.: "the light of America's promise will always burn bright." Wha? You hafta be brain damaged to believe something like that; or at the very least, a clueless moron. Here's what an intelligent Kamala might have said: "My friends, America is finished, and it's just as well. Historically speaking, the country has been little more than a giant scam. And it is appropriate that our new president is symbolic of that, being the greatest scam artist America has ever produced. And all of us, or most of you, have lived your life as hustlers, to one degree or another--something you know deep down, am I right? In any case, for those of you who have half a brain, and aspire to things like truth, beauty, and a meaningful existence, do yourselves a favor and get out while you can. (And I mean *now*)
Wafers: in the wake of the election, this blog has been deluged by a flood of new subscriptions. I want to express my gratitude; yr all v. kind, really. Like Kamala, I want to continue the fight: but not for remaking America etc., wh/is a fool's errand. No; the fight of this blog, wh/has been operating since April 2006, is but one thing: Reality. My commitment to you guys is and has always been the same: to the best of our ability, to deliver Reality. Personally, I'm not interested in anything else. Here is my Reality Message for today: Kamala Harris is a deluded turkey! (You guys might wanna put this on your latest post-it for the fridge.)
The Dems are an excellent example of what I have called hi-IQ morons. They are completely incapable of reading the American public, and so are out of sync w/it. Schmamala kept talking abt "turning the page," but what page? She was nothing more than the 4th term of Obama, who did 0 for 8 yrs. Then came term #3 of Obama, Schmiden: a genocidal war criminal playing the same old tune. (Plus, a senile doofus and a colossal asshole) So imo, this call to turn the pg rang hollow. Most of the country understood that it was same old same old, and she even affirmed this in an interview when she said that as for diffs w/Schmiden, "nothing comes to mind." Smart! And then Schmiden, unconsciously but deliberately, did a Hillary, and called the Trumpites "garbage." But that "garbage" understood that Schmamala represented the chic people, the groovy celebs, the wealthy, the Power Elite--the people who looked down on them, who really did regard them as garbage--and therefore that 0 wd really chg. Plus, she was never able to answer a direct question (constantly pivoting), and cumulatively speaking, this didn't look v. gd. In any case, there is no waking these people up. No amt of slapping, no amt of urine, will do it. The ultimate diff between the 2 candidates is that while Trumpalumpi offers a relatively fast death for America, Schmamala was offering the same, just a bit more slowly. As for the American public, they remain clueless, as usual. To quote Gore Vidal, "Stupidity excites me."
Look, folks: I am not so dumb as to think that the hegemons that will replace us in the tectonic shift now underway will necessarily be kind or enlightened or better than the West (altho the settler colonialism of the West has been pretty horrific; "mission civilisatrice" my ass). That wd be nice, but if you consider India, Russia, China, and the Islamic nations from the pt of view of human rights, it's not exactly a pretty picture. As Hegel told us 200 yrs ago, History is impartial; he called it a "slaughter bench." It couldn't care less what you or I think, or want. One just has to suffer it, even if it's a Holocaust. And then, somehow, you go on.
This tectonic shift is akin to a human experience that could have been co-written by Kafka and Rod Sterling, with a little bit of Mr. Toad's Wild Ride thrown in.
Actor John Cusack, who has long been politically outspoken online, wrote: “The fact that the country would choose to destroy itself by voting in a convicted felon rapist and Nazi is a sign of deep nihilism. To put it mildly.”
With the way that the Biden Administration gleefully participates in the Nazi like extermination of the Palestinian people it appears that one will be electing a Nazi no matter who they go with. The only difference will be the letter R or D after the Nazi’s name.
And Netanyahu himself, aside from his extermination of the Palestinians, is somewhere between a Hitler and a Josef Mengele with his admission of using his own people to experiment how the Pfizer vaccine reacts in the bodies of people who already suffer from commorbidities:
History works in such funny ways. Let's assume just for a moment that I and Michael Hudson and a few other offbeat (also scorned and/or ignored) historians/economists/whatever are right, that the over-arching drama of our time is the tectonic shift from West to East. I think we can also agree that all the folks who voted for Trump, including Trump (and in fact most Americans), haven't a clue that this is happening. Now shift the scenario to Jay Leno on the streets of Burbank, doing his "Jaywalking" thing. He stops various pedestrians at random, and asks them questions abt American history (all of this is true, BTW). E.g., What happened in 1776? None of them know. Or he says, When America declared its independence, from which country were we separating? Most don't know; others say things like China. Anecdotes like this cd be multiplied ad infinitum. And then the stats: half the country thinks we won the war in Vietnam; 50% believe that our enemy in WW2 was Russia, and that Germany was our ally. And so on.
A large % of these folks, for a variety of reasons, voted for Donald Trump, who--like them--is the unwitting agent of the tectonic shift. Because in the name of saving America, he will actually dismantle it, thus hugely contributing to the further rise of Russia, China (in particular), India, and maybe Iran and other Islamic states. These clueless Americans, who know fuck-all abt History, make this colossal historical shift possible, or at least accelerate it in a major way. Cool, eh?
Wd it be fair to say that History has a wry sense of humor? These Americans are able to act as powerful agents of historical chg precisely *because* they have shit for brains, not in spite of it. Mama Mia!
America will be finished by 2030. When Arnold Toynbee studied the collapse of various civilizations, he didn't find a single one that collapsed because the population consisted of douchebags, morons, and buffoons. If only he were alive today. As for "Civil War," no, never saw it. But check out ch. 4 of WAF; maybe some resonance there, I dunno. Was it Lincoln who said, "A nation consisting of horses' asses cannot stand"?
It's been eight years since I read WHY AMERICA FAILED. I read it right before Trump was elected the first time around. If I recall correctly you wrote about the real American Civil War of the 1860's. The movie CIVIL WAR, which was out earlier this year, is about what would happen if there was a civil war in the United States today. It was written and directed by the British filmmaker Alex Garland and it starred Kirsten Dunst as a photojournalist covering the war. It's a disturbing but thought provoking film.
Let's pull back for a minute, and look at the larger picture. We had a saying on my Blogger blog, "Bad Is Good." If one is a true declinist, one hasta confront the fact that the election of Trump, and his apptment of unqualified morons to positions of significant power, can only hasten the implosion/collapse of the US. I mean, collapse/disintegration was also in the cards w/Schmamala, but it wd have been slower. We were/are on a downward trajectory, and in the guise of doing something different, she was actually proposing 0 different. Voters saw thru her b.s.; they weren't fooled. They knew that what she was offering was more beating off. For the tectonic shift to take place; for Russia, China, BRICs, India, Iran and so on to triumph over us--again, this is in the cards, but it won't take place magically, so to speak--historical actors hafta be involved, hafta do things that are destructive, and folks like Gaetz and Tulsi are eminently qualified to dismantle the country and take us into the abyss. This is not beating off; rather, it is self-castration. I have repeatedly said that when an empire goes under, it isn't pretty, and that's exactly what we are seeing. Trumpi may, indeed, have the military start shooting people who oppose him; what cd be more horrible? And I wd never condone the slaughter of innocents, whether in Gaza or on the streets of Portland. But this is what happens. As I said earlier, Hegel was spot-on when he said that History was a "slaughter bench." We will see the slaughter of truth, dignity, true values, and so on, but also the slaughter of people, as the genocide in Gaza, made possible by the Schmiden administration, has shown. But there is at least this, in some form of compensation: History, i.e., looking back on the past, will not be kind to Israel, or the US; it will make it clear that these were barbaric regimes. And it will judge them accordingly, as evil, as they surely are.
You're absolutely correct. And in a sea of intellectual vomit, there are a handful of people who understand the TRUE consequences of our historical moment.
Elie Mystal (who comes off as WAFerish occasionally) starts this conversation by saying:
"My concern is whether I'll be shot at the behest of the state or by some crazed MAGA loon, because Trump has vindicated the very idea of violence."
𝗘𝗫𝗔𝗖𝗧𝗟𝗬!
We've crossed the threshold. Stories about consumer confidence or S&P performance no longer matter.
Now, it's about who lives and who dies while the empire implodes.
Glad to hear yr doing well. Yes, you are one of the smart ones. Most Americans will stay put, and will thus forfeit the possibility of a much better life. Certainly, the greatest casualty of the hustling way of life is spiritual death, and neither political party can save them from that. But I want to add that Trump is actually what Hegel called a "world historical individual"--much like Napoleon, say. I.e., he has captured the zeitgeist, the spirit of the age, and will thus reinforce it. And today's spirit is the tectonic shift from West to East. Trump believes he is saving America, but in reality he is dissolving it. NATO will go under, for example; Western Europe will not be able to hold the fort. He will actually promote Russian power and influence, and all of this unconsciously. Meanwhile BRICs, esp. China, the new hegemon, will continue to rise. This is how History works, at least some of the time. All of this is the larger 'umbrella' under which Kamala was laboring, and from this larger perspective, it was simply not her time to win. After all, she had no vision; all she was offering, really, was more of the same. and the zeitgeist is not abt more of the same. She kept talking about "turning the page," w/o understanding what that page was. She is now in the dustbin of History, and it will be Trumpalumpaloni who--again, unconsciously--will be turning the page, i.e., reinforcing the tectonic shift. I need to add, once again, that massive change only means things will be different; it doesn't necessarily mean things will be better. Time will tell.
Gd lecture! You shd have ended it by suggesting that the assembled company needed to get slapped, and then have their shoes peed on. I mean, what the heck, really? As for innate American goodness: this exists, but only for a v. small % of the population. The rest have made America what it is today, and which is why it is dying. Some relevance: E.M. Forster's essay, "What I Believe," discussed in the Forster chapter of my bk "Eminent Post-Victorians."
Laurence-
Part of my Twilight bk is a comparison between the factors that brought Rome down, and that were now bringing America down. This in 2000. The NYT named it a "Notable Bk," but abs. no institution followed my suggestions for reversing the downward trajectory. (Gee, what a surprise.)
MS-
Actually, it's gonna get much worse. Just wait and see. Note that you sent 3 short messages into the blog, but for some reason they never registered. You might try again, amigo.
It's not clear to me why Trumpi hasn't drawn on the powerful cadre of women available for high-level cabinet and other apptments, even beyond Tulsi. I'm thinking of Gisele Bundchen, MT Greene, Lauren "Two-Hands" Boebert, et al. He cd even dust off Sarah Palin, it seems to me. And then there's Nikki Haley, one of the greatest sleaze-bags of all time, and a truly awful human being. Oh well.
But I've also been thinking abt American 'exceptionalism'. I believe in it, but not in the usual sense of we're so special and all of that deluded crap. You know, I've been studying the dynamics of civilization for a long time now. All empires rise and fall; that's the historical record, and America is in no way exceptional in the sense that it might beat the odds. No. Without a doubt, it will implode. So here's the American exception: no other empire in the history of the world has collapsed because of buffoonery. It stands out like a sore thumb. The singular factor in the American collapse is buffoonage, wh/makes us truly exceptional. I tell ya, I get a rush just thinking abt it.
Bad Is Good Dept.: Here we have 2 discussions of Trump dismantling the gov't:
Trump's Cabinet Announcements Have Broken the Government - The Atlantic
Tulsi Gabbard’s Nomination Is a National-Security Risk - The Atlantic
I am, however, struck dumb by the conclusion of this 2nd article, in wh/the author doesn't even know that the Senate's job is to "advise and consent." He writes "advice and consent." What an ignoramus. The phrase was made popular by Allen Drury in his (1960) Pulitzer-prize winning novel of 1959 (it's a marvelous bk, quite relevant to today's politics). Where is The Atlantic quartered? I might hafta fly up there and beat him w/a stick, while yelling ADVISE, YOU MORON. God, that wd feel gd.
Gd article in The Guardian today (Nov. 9). 1st the author writes that "the US has never been quite the shining beacon of its own imagination." This falls into the category of Duh!, or No shit, Sherlock. Then he quotes from a famous poem by Langston Hughes, "Let America Be America Again":
“the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.”
Finally, the conclusion, wh/is a semi-tour de force:
"In January 2021, at Joe Biden’s inauguration, the young poet Amanda Gorman invoked the spirit of the civil rights era in describing “a nation that isn’t broken but simply unfinished”. It now appears that her faith was misplaced. The US we thought we knew is broken indeed, and may well be finished."
May? *May*? Don't pull my leg, amigo. Everything in America is hustling, including Amanda Gorman,
who subsequently went the way of all American flesh, in the wake of Biden's inauguration. She signed a modeling contract with a high-powered agency (IMG Models, the same agency as Gigi and Bella Hadid). She is currently worth $5m. The Guardian (article of 27 Jan 2021) tells us that she
quickly became a fashion sensation. "The red satin Prada headband she wore during the inauguration ceremony led to the item selling out, while her yellow coat (also Prada) caused searches for “yellow coats” to increase 1,328% in the wake of her appearance." Yeah, civll rights. Claro.
Anyway, don't give me "may". America is effectively finished; of this there can be no doubt. And while I appreciated the essay, as far as it went, I searched in vain for expressions such as "buffoons," "shit for brains," "a nation totally full of crap," and so on. (We might also add: "The Devil Wears Prada.") If we're going to tell it like it is, let's not pull any punches, eh?
Jus' wanna thank all of you who suddenly subscribed to this blog. These subscriptions have been flooding in, and I just want to say how grateful I am for yr interest and support. As I said earlier, the goal here is Reality, and most Americans haven't a clue as to what that is. As we usta say in the 50s, they don't know shit from Shinola.
Make no mistake, Doctor. Word gets around. As that old adage says, “Word of mouth is the best form of advertising”. The media want to silence and ostracize you—obviously because of your prescience regarding this shit country’s demise, as well as your perspicacity regarding the pathetic USAin general public. But it isn’t working. More and more people are becoming enlightened because of you.
Keep up the good work. The Wafer population may explode because of this new format here. :)
It resonates w/stuff I've been saying for a while now, in particular, the "Yahoo" revulsion of the elites, who regard the Trumpites as "garbage" or "deplorables." This wounded pride is a primal force, and because Trump tapped into it, his base was willing to overlook literally anything he said or did so as to see him successfully retaliate against the hip and the chic and the wealthy. Kamala didn't get it, that trotting out the Obamas (to take just one example) to stump for her wd backfire. This went way beyond the fact that he did fuck-all while in office. The guy is a smooth talker, classy dresser, and lives in the trendy Kalorama Triangle in DC, in a house valued at $8m. As a result, all her talk abt saving democracy fell on deaf ears, or came off as hypocritical. The "Yahoos" understood that what she was really saving was her rather large bank account.
This video really gets back to something I've been thinking about.
The only real work left is documentation of the empire's collapse so future societies can learn from it. Obviously, you've been engaged in this work for a long time, Dr. Berman. I think it's the only productive act an individual can engage in.
Note to David-
Pls start posting to most recent post, thank you.
I just watched Kamala's concession speech. She was smiling, beaming from ear to ear; as tho *she* had won the election. She said some stuff about the greatness of America, its future, etc. E.g.: "the light of America's promise will always burn bright." Wha? You hafta be brain damaged to believe something like that; or at the very least, a clueless moron. Here's what an intelligent Kamala might have said: "My friends, America is finished, and it's just as well. Historically speaking, the country has been little more than a giant scam. And it is appropriate that our new president is symbolic of that, being the greatest scam artist America has ever produced. And all of us, or most of you, have lived your life as hustlers, to one degree or another--something you know deep down, am I right? In any case, for those of you who have half a brain, and aspire to things like truth, beauty, and a meaningful existence, do yourselves a favor and get out while you can. (And I mean *now*)
Wafers: in the wake of the election, this blog has been deluged by a flood of new subscriptions. I want to express my gratitude; yr all v. kind, really. Like Kamala, I want to continue the fight: but not for remaking America etc., wh/is a fool's errand. No; the fight of this blog, wh/has been operating since April 2006, is but one thing: Reality. My commitment to you guys is and has always been the same: to the best of our ability, to deliver Reality. Personally, I'm not interested in anything else. Here is my Reality Message for today: Kamala Harris is a deluded turkey! (You guys might wanna put this on your latest post-it for the fridge.)
-mb
Jack-
The Dems are an excellent example of what I have called hi-IQ morons. They are completely incapable of reading the American public, and so are out of sync w/it. Schmamala kept talking abt "turning the page," but what page? She was nothing more than the 4th term of Obama, who did 0 for 8 yrs. Then came term #3 of Obama, Schmiden: a genocidal war criminal playing the same old tune. (Plus, a senile doofus and a colossal asshole) So imo, this call to turn the pg rang hollow. Most of the country understood that it was same old same old, and she even affirmed this in an interview when she said that as for diffs w/Schmiden, "nothing comes to mind." Smart! And then Schmiden, unconsciously but deliberately, did a Hillary, and called the Trumpites "garbage." But that "garbage" understood that Schmamala represented the chic people, the groovy celebs, the wealthy, the Power Elite--the people who looked down on them, who really did regard them as garbage--and therefore that 0 wd really chg. Plus, she was never able to answer a direct question (constantly pivoting), and cumulatively speaking, this didn't look v. gd. In any case, there is no waking these people up. No amt of slapping, no amt of urine, will do it. The ultimate diff between the 2 candidates is that while Trumpalumpi offers a relatively fast death for America, Schmamala was offering the same, just a bit more slowly. As for the American public, they remain clueless, as usual. To quote Gore Vidal, "Stupidity excites me."
Look, folks: I am not so dumb as to think that the hegemons that will replace us in the tectonic shift now underway will necessarily be kind or enlightened or better than the West (altho the settler colonialism of the West has been pretty horrific; "mission civilisatrice" my ass). That wd be nice, but if you consider India, Russia, China, and the Islamic nations from the pt of view of human rights, it's not exactly a pretty picture. As Hegel told us 200 yrs ago, History is impartial; he called it a "slaughter bench." It couldn't care less what you or I think, or want. One just has to suffer it, even if it's a Holocaust. And then, somehow, you go on.
-mb
This tectonic shift is akin to a human experience that could have been co-written by Kafka and Rod Sterling, with a little bit of Mr. Toad's Wild Ride thrown in.
ps: This just printed in The Guardian online:
Actor John Cusack, who has long been politically outspoken online, wrote: “The fact that the country would choose to destroy itself by voting in a convicted felon rapist and Nazi is a sign of deep nihilism. To put it mildly.”
With the way that the Biden Administration gleefully participates in the Nazi like extermination of the Palestinian people it appears that one will be electing a Nazi no matter who they go with. The only difference will be the letter R or D after the Nazi’s name.
And Netanyahu himself, aside from his extermination of the Palestinians, is somewhere between a Hitler and a Josef Mengele with his admission of using his own people to experiment how the Pfizer vaccine reacts in the bodies of people who already suffer from commorbidities:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cyesvs2MgiV/?igsh=eHVyNWp2NG43ZDU=
Wafers-
History works in such funny ways. Let's assume just for a moment that I and Michael Hudson and a few other offbeat (also scorned and/or ignored) historians/economists/whatever are right, that the over-arching drama of our time is the tectonic shift from West to East. I think we can also agree that all the folks who voted for Trump, including Trump (and in fact most Americans), haven't a clue that this is happening. Now shift the scenario to Jay Leno on the streets of Burbank, doing his "Jaywalking" thing. He stops various pedestrians at random, and asks them questions abt American history (all of this is true, BTW). E.g., What happened in 1776? None of them know. Or he says, When America declared its independence, from which country were we separating? Most don't know; others say things like China. Anecdotes like this cd be multiplied ad infinitum. And then the stats: half the country thinks we won the war in Vietnam; 50% believe that our enemy in WW2 was Russia, and that Germany was our ally. And so on.
A large % of these folks, for a variety of reasons, voted for Donald Trump, who--like them--is the unwitting agent of the tectonic shift. Because in the name of saving America, he will actually dismantle it, thus hugely contributing to the further rise of Russia, China (in particular), India, and maybe Iran and other Islamic states. These clueless Americans, who know fuck-all abt History, make this colossal historical shift possible, or at least accelerate it in a major way. Cool, eh?
Wd it be fair to say that History has a wry sense of humor? These Americans are able to act as powerful agents of historical chg precisely *because* they have shit for brains, not in spite of it. Mama Mia!
-mb
James-
America will be finished by 2030. When Arnold Toynbee studied the collapse of various civilizations, he didn't find a single one that collapsed because the population consisted of douchebags, morons, and buffoons. If only he were alive today. As for "Civil War," no, never saw it. But check out ch. 4 of WAF; maybe some resonance there, I dunno. Was it Lincoln who said, "A nation consisting of horses' asses cannot stand"?
-mb
It's been eight years since I read WHY AMERICA FAILED. I read it right before Trump was elected the first time around. If I recall correctly you wrote about the real American Civil War of the 1860's. The movie CIVIL WAR, which was out earlier this year, is about what would happen if there was a civil war in the United States today. It was written and directed by the British filmmaker Alex Garland and it starred Kirsten Dunst as a photojournalist covering the war. It's a disturbing but thought provoking film.
Wafers-
Let's pull back for a minute, and look at the larger picture. We had a saying on my Blogger blog, "Bad Is Good." If one is a true declinist, one hasta confront the fact that the election of Trump, and his apptment of unqualified morons to positions of significant power, can only hasten the implosion/collapse of the US. I mean, collapse/disintegration was also in the cards w/Schmamala, but it wd have been slower. We were/are on a downward trajectory, and in the guise of doing something different, she was actually proposing 0 different. Voters saw thru her b.s.; they weren't fooled. They knew that what she was offering was more beating off. For the tectonic shift to take place; for Russia, China, BRICs, India, Iran and so on to triumph over us--again, this is in the cards, but it won't take place magically, so to speak--historical actors hafta be involved, hafta do things that are destructive, and folks like Gaetz and Tulsi are eminently qualified to dismantle the country and take us into the abyss. This is not beating off; rather, it is self-castration. I have repeatedly said that when an empire goes under, it isn't pretty, and that's exactly what we are seeing. Trumpi may, indeed, have the military start shooting people who oppose him; what cd be more horrible? And I wd never condone the slaughter of innocents, whether in Gaza or on the streets of Portland. But this is what happens. As I said earlier, Hegel was spot-on when he said that History was a "slaughter bench." We will see the slaughter of truth, dignity, true values, and so on, but also the slaughter of people, as the genocide in Gaza, made possible by the Schmiden administration, has shown. But there is at least this, in some form of compensation: History, i.e., looking back on the past, will not be kind to Israel, or the US; it will make it clear that these were barbaric regimes. And it will judge them accordingly, as evil, as they surely are.
Meanwhile, the shit show goes on. Yuck.
-mb
You're absolutely correct. And in a sea of intellectual vomit, there are a handful of people who understand the TRUE consequences of our historical moment.
Elie Mystal (who comes off as WAFerish occasionally) starts this conversation by saying:
"My concern is whether I'll be shot at the behest of the state or by some crazed MAGA loon, because Trump has vindicated the very idea of violence."
𝗘𝗫𝗔𝗖𝗧𝗟𝗬!
We've crossed the threshold. Stories about consumer confidence or S&P performance no longer matter.
Now, it's about who lives and who dies while the empire implodes.
https://youtu.be/dn7D6Xf04g4?si=sMuJeqXPqbDwOUyN&t=267
Liv-
Glad to hear yr doing well. Yes, you are one of the smart ones. Most Americans will stay put, and will thus forfeit the possibility of a much better life. Certainly, the greatest casualty of the hustling way of life is spiritual death, and neither political party can save them from that. But I want to add that Trump is actually what Hegel called a "world historical individual"--much like Napoleon, say. I.e., he has captured the zeitgeist, the spirit of the age, and will thus reinforce it. And today's spirit is the tectonic shift from West to East. Trump believes he is saving America, but in reality he is dissolving it. NATO will go under, for example; Western Europe will not be able to hold the fort. He will actually promote Russian power and influence, and all of this unconsciously. Meanwhile BRICs, esp. China, the new hegemon, will continue to rise. This is how History works, at least some of the time. All of this is the larger 'umbrella' under which Kamala was laboring, and from this larger perspective, it was simply not her time to win. After all, she had no vision; all she was offering, really, was more of the same. and the zeitgeist is not abt more of the same. She kept talking about "turning the page," w/o understanding what that page was. She is now in the dustbin of History, and it will be Trumpalumpaloni who--again, unconsciously--will be turning the page, i.e., reinforcing the tectonic shift. I need to add, once again, that massive change only means things will be different; it doesn't necessarily mean things will be better. Time will tell.
-mb
Cortney-
Gd lecture! You shd have ended it by suggesting that the assembled company needed to get slapped, and then have their shoes peed on. I mean, what the heck, really? As for innate American goodness: this exists, but only for a v. small % of the population. The rest have made America what it is today, and which is why it is dying. Some relevance: E.M. Forster's essay, "What I Believe," discussed in the Forster chapter of my bk "Eminent Post-Victorians."
Laurence-
Part of my Twilight bk is a comparison between the factors that brought Rome down, and that were now bringing America down. This in 2000. The NYT named it a "Notable Bk," but abs. no institution followed my suggestions for reversing the downward trajectory. (Gee, what a surprise.)
MS-
Actually, it's gonna get much worse. Just wait and see. Note that you sent 3 short messages into the blog, but for some reason they never registered. You might try again, amigo.
-mb
Some late nite thoughts...
It's not clear to me why Trumpi hasn't drawn on the powerful cadre of women available for high-level cabinet and other apptments, even beyond Tulsi. I'm thinking of Gisele Bundchen, MT Greene, Lauren "Two-Hands" Boebert, et al. He cd even dust off Sarah Palin, it seems to me. And then there's Nikki Haley, one of the greatest sleaze-bags of all time, and a truly awful human being. Oh well.
But I've also been thinking abt American 'exceptionalism'. I believe in it, but not in the usual sense of we're so special and all of that deluded crap. You know, I've been studying the dynamics of civilization for a long time now. All empires rise and fall; that's the historical record, and America is in no way exceptional in the sense that it might beat the odds. No. Without a doubt, it will implode. So here's the American exception: no other empire in the history of the world has collapsed because of buffoonery. It stands out like a sore thumb. The singular factor in the American collapse is buffoonage, wh/makes us truly exceptional. I tell ya, I get a rush just thinking abt it.
-mb
Bad Is Good Dept.: Here we have 2 discussions of Trump dismantling the gov't:
Trump's Cabinet Announcements Have Broken the Government - The Atlantic
Tulsi Gabbard’s Nomination Is a National-Security Risk - The Atlantic
I am, however, struck dumb by the conclusion of this 2nd article, in wh/the author doesn't even know that the Senate's job is to "advise and consent." He writes "advice and consent." What an ignoramus. The phrase was made popular by Allen Drury in his (1960) Pulitzer-prize winning novel of 1959 (it's a marvelous bk, quite relevant to today's politics). Where is The Atlantic quartered? I might hafta fly up there and beat him w/a stick, while yelling ADVISE, YOU MORON. God, that wd feel gd.
Anyway, here's Drury:
https://www.amazon.com/Advise-Consent-Novel-Washington-Politics/dp/B002JG4WFM/ref=sr_1_2?crid=2QW9AW55VAZOO&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.38xVWKvqwun8igE8EZaomR7DxIyz8O39jlfn3A0-JnhpnwVjgk8dGWsswN8z7M0btjSywZU1W7vQqWwQftucQnfZIUCWKS6LFi5q-H1g3gxdO1y6q8aIISV99AyNLXKPfLA9RzG_8RX_W0h6FE_RhNmpLMD5MX800u5TldrujoOnWqjsT7lO4KkXEuybe2FN9k9uAKNTnH0HL5hhDlnqyYBZKNxTYhXXZHq8Vec2ysg.Xhy9Yqra6LJTwnQEehninVpLZnHQkwzEPYAxfh6aL4U&dib_tag=se&keywords=advise+and+consent&qid=1731636202&s=books&sprefix=advise+and+consent%2Cstripbooks%2C1306&sr=1-2
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I liked the movie.
Wafers-
Gd article in The Guardian today (Nov. 9). 1st the author writes that "the US has never been quite the shining beacon of its own imagination." This falls into the category of Duh!, or No shit, Sherlock. Then he quotes from a famous poem by Langston Hughes, "Let America Be America Again":
“the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.”
Finally, the conclusion, wh/is a semi-tour de force:
"In January 2021, at Joe Biden’s inauguration, the young poet Amanda Gorman invoked the spirit of the civil rights era in describing “a nation that isn’t broken but simply unfinished”. It now appears that her faith was misplaced. The US we thought we knew is broken indeed, and may well be finished."
May? *May*? Don't pull my leg, amigo. Everything in America is hustling, including Amanda Gorman,
who subsequently went the way of all American flesh, in the wake of Biden's inauguration. She signed a modeling contract with a high-powered agency (IMG Models, the same agency as Gigi and Bella Hadid). She is currently worth $5m. The Guardian (article of 27 Jan 2021) tells us that she
quickly became a fashion sensation. "The red satin Prada headband she wore during the inauguration ceremony led to the item selling out, while her yellow coat (also Prada) caused searches for “yellow coats” to increase 1,328% in the wake of her appearance." Yeah, civll rights. Claro.
Anyway, don't give me "may". America is effectively finished; of this there can be no doubt. And while I appreciated the essay, as far as it went, I searched in vain for expressions such as "buffoons," "shit for brains," "a nation totally full of crap," and so on. (We might also add: "The Devil Wears Prada.") If we're going to tell it like it is, let's not pull any punches, eh?
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Jus' wanna thank all of you who suddenly subscribed to this blog. These subscriptions have been flooding in, and I just want to say how grateful I am for yr interest and support. As I said earlier, the goal here is Reality, and most Americans haven't a clue as to what that is. As we usta say in the 50s, they don't know shit from Shinola.
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Make no mistake, Doctor. Word gets around. As that old adage says, “Word of mouth is the best form of advertising”. The media want to silence and ostracize you—obviously because of your prescience regarding this shit country’s demise, as well as your perspicacity regarding the pathetic USAin general public. But it isn’t working. More and more people are becoming enlightened because of you.
Keep up the good work. The Wafer population may explode because of this new format here. :)
This is a helpful article:
https://www.spaywall.com/news/https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/06/us/politics/trump-america-election-victory.html
It resonates w/stuff I've been saying for a while now, in particular, the "Yahoo" revulsion of the elites, who regard the Trumpites as "garbage" or "deplorables." This wounded pride is a primal force, and because Trump tapped into it, his base was willing to overlook literally anything he said or did so as to see him successfully retaliate against the hip and the chic and the wealthy. Kamala didn't get it, that trotting out the Obamas (to take just one example) to stump for her wd backfire. This went way beyond the fact that he did fuck-all while in office. The guy is a smooth talker, classy dresser, and lives in the trendy Kalorama Triangle in DC, in a house valued at $8m. As a result, all her talk abt saving democracy fell on deaf ears, or came off as hypocritical. The "Yahoos" understood that what she was really saving was her rather large bank account.
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ps: This is also relevant:
https://www.spaywall.com/news/https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/06/us/politics/harris-voters-democracy.html
Touting the support of Dick and Liz Cheney as a positive was another example of the stupidity of the Harris elite handlers.
Genocidal American Scumbags Dept.:
US vetoes UN security council push to call for ceasefire in Gaza | United Nations | The Guardian
US Senate rejects Bernie Sanders effort to block arms sales to Israel | US Senate | The Guardian
What a fabulous country we are! Real humanitarians.
Americans are the only people who believe that this sort of hubris will "keep them safe".
ps: don't miss this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giBACcJyuBY
This video really gets back to something I've been thinking about.
The only real work left is documentation of the empire's collapse so future societies can learn from it. Obviously, you've been engaged in this work for a long time, Dr. Berman. I think it's the only productive act an individual can engage in.
Black-
I'm a tad disappted that they didn't add, "In addition, the country largely consists of destructive buffoons."
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