[Vung Tau, 1/5/24] 5:56AM finds me sitting at Café Xí Muội. Over my right shoulder is a pink Christmas tree with silver balls. Knowing Vietnamese, I’d not be surprised if it’s there until April, if not next Christmas. Behind the tree are five stuffed animals. Surrounding a large bear is a smaller one, a dog and a kangaroo with her joey sticking out of her pouch. There’s also something between the Pillsbury Doughboy and Casper the Friendly Ghost.
Linh, I hope you stay on the straight and narrow in dealing with your health. I am 70 and found in early 60s that my margin of error for making bad health decisions started shrinking dramatically. I have always taken health seriously but there was also a sense that I had to take care of myself to safeguard my future.
Welp, the future is now. When I do something my body doesn't like, it seeks immediate revenge. For example, I can't drink at all now.
On the plus side by having to be so cautious in my approach to self care, I feel as good or better than I have ever felt. Also, given that I lost what little respect I had for doctors during the Covid tyranny, I am happy to not have them in my life.
Hello Linh, Thank you again for a wonderful and insightful morning read. I very much appreciate and look forward to receiving your essays.
With regard to Mistah Charley, Ph.D, I wonder if he ever followed up on the research that I'd mentioned with regard to a house painter wearing two masks, the first the N95 mask with a second cloth mask beneath it. This painter completely bereft of a Ph.D proved conclusively that masks don't work, as he blew copious amounts of paint (and other material :) from his nostrils. Further, as I had mentioned in another comment, the CDC's pictograph showed a 10 micron smoke particle, which can easily penetrate the regular or N95 mask and there was a virus particle on the same pictograph which was 0.1 microns or 100 smaller(!) than the smoke particle. Think it can't penetrate the N95 mask? Mistah Charley, Ph.D might, at least, search the CDC pictogram out. It was on the CDC website. Though they may have caught that snafu.
That people are still wearing mask, getting the extremely deadly gene-editing-injections and, perhaps, the deadlier still boosters, and having their children take them, truly boggles the mind and saddens one to no end. Can they not read, tear themselves away from the catastrophic propaganda, or from those who continuously lie to them and who only change the lie when it is completely untenable--two weeks to flatten the curve, 95% effectiveness, 80% effectiveness, 10% effectiveness....not effective? All the while they profit from EVERY vaccine or booster given? In an early scene in the movie "Aliens" Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) asks a question, and I paraphrase, "Have IQs suddenly dropped, since I've been away?" Given the current state of affairs, it is absolutely a fair question to ask in this day and age. I imagine the answer both surprising and rather telling.
The odd thing is that the most educated among my friends--master's degrees, PhDs, etc.--were the most gullible. I'd wondered about that for a while until I was informed that, generally, the most educated have gone through the system for long years and have 'done what they were told to do, drank the cool-aid, or they became more a propagandist than the propagandist (see Instructors) in order to receive their higher degrees. This made sense and has since been proven out countless times. I do, however, still find myself taken aback by people for whom research was required to achieve their higher degrees, NOT doing the research to save their own lives and those of their families, their children, which is absolutely astounding! Future historians, sociologists, psychologists, once they've moved past the shock of our society's malaise and collective suicide, will have a field day trying to discern the breathtaking psychosis and insanity which affected so very many, to their graves.
One imagines Mistah Charley Ph.D in a bit of a quandary himself. Smart enough to know, if only he'd spend the time to do the research that he'd find the answers, free of the propaganda. And afraid enough to know that the research may well turn his life and his family's asunder. It is quite the predicament.
There are far too many lifelong Pharma and biotech executives, doctors, professors, market researchers and analysts, funeral directors (who see and experience the aftermath of the injections) etc. coming forward to tell the truth to their great detriment. Who does that? Tells the truth despite the fact that the truth will cost them EVERYTHING? A few of the names that Mistah Charley Ph.D might want to consider are the following (there are many many more):
And if Mistah Charley PhD doesn't believe them, then all is truly lost. And there is great truth to the saying, that once one accepts the big lie, there is no amount of truth, evidence, or facts that will dissuade them.
Finally, distance or absence can absolutely give one a better perspective on a former country which was home, a former job, or even a former loved one. Though in your case, even before you left, you were already speaking to the maladies of the disintegrating US empire, said disintegration shifting into turbo-overdrive, now in front of our very eyes, and at the hands of the selfsame empire. Imperial suicide? It certainly seems that way. I too search for a home away from the madness of a suicidal empire gone completely insane and in possession of many a nuclear tipped warhead. But given this latter fact, where, indeed, does one escape?
Alastair Crooke, a former UK Diplomat (MI6) gives a rather telling explanation of where we are in reference to the ongoing wars. Not for the lighthearted or the hopelessly deluded.
I wonder if you will hear from mistah charley, ph.d about this. I like it when most of the pictures are at the end I love the picture of the toddler driving and his mother with the very shapely legs! Hope you eat healthy today. Blessings, P
p.s. I turn 77 on Tuesday! I can't believe I've gotten so old. Thankfully, I'm a healthy 77 year old vegan!
Just a few random thoughts, Linh, about Vietnamese people of the "first generation" of "exiles" to America after the war. I worked as a public defender for many years in Orange County, Calif., home to Little Saigon in Garden Grove. We had many Vietnamese clients to deal with. I have to say they were the smartest and savviest of the so-called "criminal clientele." As a public defender, you have to deal with many cases at a time, and most of the white/black/hispanic clients were very cooperative about accepting the plea bargains that greased the system's wheels. -- Not the Vietnamese. They invariably were very "uncooperative." They seemed to have the street sense to hold out for a better deal, and the fact is that they always got one. Somehow that always knew that the "final offer, take it or leave it" was never the final offer. The D.A. might as well have said directly, if you don't take this final sweet offer, I am going to have to make a better offer. Something, I think, about a rawer sense of the way life works. When you talk about the cure for street crime in Vietnam, I can see the logic of people who have seen that, thumbing their nose at the dishonest and lazy bullshit ways of the U.S. legal system. Americans, even back then (i.e. 30 or 40 years ago) were dumb dumb dumb, and now we see dumb begetting even dumber.
This savviness also means many know how to work the system, resulting in frauds and other shenanigans. I'm sure you've encountered these among Vietnamese.
Absolutely, Linh. I didn't go into all of the challenges that I had as a lawyer trying to deal with some of these clients. "Herding cats" is a good analogy. Thanks very much!
Hey, Linh. Many thanks for another excellent post to read. I took some time to watch your interview with Chris Hedges on RT from 2016 - a shame cable dropped the network. Very insightful interview. You've nailed it time and again: we've lost our humanity, decency, and empathy for others.
Chris Hedges used to mention me Twitter, but he had to stop because I became too much of a liability for what's left of his career. He knows much more than what he allows himself to say. I've talked about that a bit here:
He was the one who originally reported in the New York Times that Saddam was training terrorists to attack America. From The CIA as Organized Crime: How Illegal Operations Corrupt America by Douglas Valentine:
'For example, when the Bush regime was preparing the American public for the invasion of Iraq, the CIA recruited high-level defectors from the Iraqi army. Offers of Swiss bank accounts and positions of power in the liberated Iraq of the future were balanced with CIA-prepared scripts the defectors read to the US media. Two such defectors were channeled to New York Times reporter Chris Hedges, who dutifully wrote an article titled “Defectors Cite Iraqi Training for Terrorism” on 8 November 2001. The horrifying though patently untrue idea that Iraq was training terrorists to attack America had the intended effect, and public support for the pending war grew.
Douglas Valentine is great at exposing the CIA, yet he's still contributing to CounterPunch, a limited hangout that mocks questions about 9/11 and now supports the US/NATO war against Russia!
Haven't read it in years, Linh. Still getting emails from them after I bought an uncle over in the states a subscription to their magazine(when they were decent) I know the story with that shower. Read yourself many a time on it back in the day. 18 countries since 2018, some going. Unfortunate he's still writing for them, you'd think he'd have more cop on unless he's of course a limited hangout himself, did get 'unprecedented access'.
Often we can feel put off by people who only criticize the US "safely" from a distance. Speaking for myself, I chiefly find it distasteful only when it is done by someone who refuses to be equally critical in front of a domestic audience after he returns home.
In your own case, however, if this is what mistah charlie intends to imply about your own critiques, I think it is an unfair criticism. In your book "Postcards from the End of America", written here in the US, the portraits of people living here, while certainly interesting in themselves, also allow the perceptive viewer at least a peek at some of what has gone wrong in this country for so many of its inhabitants.
Accordingly, I would say that the your US perspective has not really changed so much. It is rather that you have now backed up your lens and speak of the US more generally, whereas before you looked at the country through the eyes of your individual subjects.
While still in Philly, I was often on Iran's Press TV. I also appeared on Russia Today a few times. Before I wrote about 9/11, the Bin Laden "assassination," black crimes and Jews, I was an anthologized author often invited to talk at universities. I gave readings in Germany, France, UK and Iceland. All that, I gave up without regrets, yet I'm called a coward by Unzian morons who hide behind idiotic pseudonyms. The USA has become a nation without character. That's why it's collapsing. Kevin Barrett, too, gave up his career to chase after the truth.
Last week, I was asked by a UC Berkeley academic to translate some Vietnamese texts for a book publication. I answered:
Hi [...],
I'm too engrossed in writing about geopolitics to translate anything right now. Publishing on SubStack is also how I make money. I'm not sure you're aware I've been canceled by the American literary establishment. That has worked out perfectly, however, for it ensures my departure from that thoroughly corrupt and evil society will be permanent. You should be so lucky.
For some reason, this post reminded me of how Bob Cratchit's salary adjusted for inflation would be $43,000 which is more than many Americans make. The net would be much smaller than what Cratchit took home. The amount was considered so miserly by Dickens' contemporaries Scrooge became synonymous with the uncaring wealthy.
The trouble with Americans is that they seem to be the people most easily swayed by propaganda. Even Europeans are slightly more skeptical, or less amenable. I remember that Jorge Luis Borges in an interview many years ago said something to the effect that he found it strange that so many people would be gullible enough to trust that a product was "good" (or "safe and effective") just because those selling it said so.
But Americans sell everything with massive propaganda, from transgender surgeries to wars. Not content to profit, Americans also want to assure us they are "the most moral" (like the IDF, "the most moral army in the world".) I've read the other day that the U.S. made a killing last year selling LNG to Europe, thanks to the Russian gas boycott that they pushed on that same Europe as some sort of moral issue. Strange that the U.S. always seem to somehow profit from all that weird morality they push all over the world.
Reading this in a Meijer parking lot among Papa Vinos and Chili's chain eateries with a Lowes across the way; C'mon Linh, you mean this isn't the pinnacle of space, time and options?
Still chuckling over the closing sentence. Those etceteras may be endless.
Chili's burgers look pretty good online, but of course, what they'll serve you won't look like the photos. Also, their Cilantro-Lime Carne Asada doesn't come with refried but black beans. I love Tex-Mex, but must go to Saigon to get some.
There's nothing like huevos rancheros at a Texas greasy spoon just after dawn, as javelinas, a road runner and tumble weeds cross the empty highway just outside. The cook looks just like Jett Rink, but with yellow eyes, no teeth and a hundred pounds heavier. His wife and six kids are back in El Virulento. Thinking you might be a migra, he spits in your food.
It really is something that some Americans are touchy about criticism (aka basic observations) of our country. Well, it is the land of denial after all. Don't get too close to my fantasy, bruh.
1/linh asks "Why is mistah charley, ph.d sad at my indictment of a nation he himself sees as sick? Does he resent my being in a better place?"
no, my sadness is that linh has physically escaped the u.s., but mentally he remains imprisoned by it - it seems to be like the "tar baby" of the uncle remus story
2/the complete rap rhyme which linh quotes from goes as follows
it a great life
rat a tat tat
enjoy yourself and
like it like that
groove widda riddum
boppin down da block
move your hands & feet
as you go hip-hop
energy movin
your flesh & bones
this is your life
this is your home
smile at your neighbor
smile at the sky
life is a blessing
why ask why
something good happen
maybe soon
maybe next week
maybe next June
don't use a weapon
let go of strife
enjoy yourself
it a great life
3/i was interested to read this today at wikipedia, about a song "saved by zero" by the english pop group the fixx - i very much enjoyed this song but had no idea of its connection to buddhist philosophy and practice:
"Saved by Zero" features a repetitive, jittery staccato guitar riff and corresponding bass. It features a soothing yet haunting presentation with its ghostly vocals and dark atmosphere. Lyrically, "Saved by Zero" is a reference to the Buddhist mantra Śūnyatā. Fixx lead vocalist Cy Curnin reflected on its meaning in a 2008 interview:
"It was about looking at your own life, not so much about amassing material things but about experiences that lend you to be blissful... The song was written from the point of view of the release you get when you have nothing left to lose. It’s sort of a meditation. It clears your head of all fears and panics and illusions and you get back to the basics, which is a Buddhist mantra, which I practiced back then, and which I still do. The idea of the song is how great it is to get back to zero."
4/the factual assertions linh makes about me seem accurate - the judgments and opinions are his own - for more of my own opinions - at the time i expressed them - in my own words you can see
Of course I still think about the US. Most of my readers are Americans, I listen to American political commentators and I even keep up with my Seattle Seahawks. If I hadn't become so sick, I would be eating burgers, pizzas, french fries and fried chicken.
I think about all the places I've been to. Since the US was where I spent most of my adult years, I keep up with what's going on there. I check on what's happening in Philly.
P.S. I write about the US regularly, so why be sad after this article? You were offended because my take on the US differs considerably from yours. You believe in Jewjabs, masks and other Covid measures. I mock and attack them.
P.P.S. I see the US as a madhouse. You "like it like that" so "groove widda riddum." I'm outraged by three ongoing genocides committed by Jews and Uncle Sam. I've long considered Obama not just a fraud, but a criminal. It sure sounds like you voted for him. It's OK we disagree.
as the 2009 postscript there puts it, "Current evidence suggests that President Obama is in fact in sympathy with the prevailing views of the foreign policy and financier establishments."
4/i too am quite content that there are matters on which we disagree - and if you think mocking and attacking me is worth the time it takes you, by all means continue to do so
I have not mocked or attacked you. When you said I had denigrated your "native land," I had to respond, that's all. I have not misquoted nor misrepresented you. Someone who considers himself "intelligent, kind, modest" and regularly quotes his "rap," even at length, is obviously quite self absorbed. To point that out in passing is not mocking.
Too many Americans are quite cheerful and oblivious while atrocities are committed in their name and with their money. I'm pretty sure you voted for Biden also, and that's fine. Keep voting and rapping. You're not going to change.
good luck to you, linh, and your readership - obviously i cannot convince that i am not "cheerful and oblivious" while the american war machine carries on, and you may have other ideas about me that you wish to express - now is your chance for the last word
Bad news, Mr. Dinh. It seems Substack is going to be the next platform censored by the J... er, the Globalists/Grabbers/Zionists/Etc? It's a bit sad, but it's the way all platforms go. Also, "pro-Nazi", like "anti-semitic" content can be anything these days, really. Let's see how it continues.
Being a Boston guy mistah Charley, ph. d, reminds me - if only tangentially (they both go/went by Mistuh) - of the famous Mr. Butch. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Butch
There is a point with which I respectfully disagree. Kevin Barrett and many other dissidents believe the US and its main branch, the State of Israel, are on the fast track to self-destruction. "The world will not stand for this!" and so on and so forth. But consider the position of Jews in 1940, and think about their position in 1950. In less than a decade they went from being expelled to doing the expelling. Whatever trials they suffered they have visited an hundredfold - a millionfold - upon the world. The US engine of corruption is powerful almost beyond reckoning, it is in the Jews' hands, and no squawks of protest will make a difference.
'At least here, no one will whack you on the head to get even with God, their DNA, their upbringing, the opposite sex, the same sex or all the bad sex they’ve had, etc.' You're not turning to God during these dark times?
Are you fully nomadic again now or planning to settle anywhere?
I was in Vung Tau for seven months straight in 2022 and didn't want to go anywhere. My visa status forced me to leave, but once out, I drifted around for a year. Now that I'm back in Vung Tau, I'll stay, with the stipulation that I must leave every three months. After flying back, I'll get three more months.
Linh, I hope you stay on the straight and narrow in dealing with your health. I am 70 and found in early 60s that my margin of error for making bad health decisions started shrinking dramatically. I have always taken health seriously but there was also a sense that I had to take care of myself to safeguard my future.
Welp, the future is now. When I do something my body doesn't like, it seeks immediate revenge. For example, I can't drink at all now.
On the plus side by having to be so cautious in my approach to self care, I feel as good or better than I have ever felt. Also, given that I lost what little respect I had for doctors during the Covid tyranny, I am happy to not have them in my life.
Hello Linh, Thank you again for a wonderful and insightful morning read. I very much appreciate and look forward to receiving your essays.
With regard to Mistah Charley, Ph.D, I wonder if he ever followed up on the research that I'd mentioned with regard to a house painter wearing two masks, the first the N95 mask with a second cloth mask beneath it. This painter completely bereft of a Ph.D proved conclusively that masks don't work, as he blew copious amounts of paint (and other material :) from his nostrils. Further, as I had mentioned in another comment, the CDC's pictograph showed a 10 micron smoke particle, which can easily penetrate the regular or N95 mask and there was a virus particle on the same pictograph which was 0.1 microns or 100 smaller(!) than the smoke particle. Think it can't penetrate the N95 mask? Mistah Charley, Ph.D might, at least, search the CDC pictogram out. It was on the CDC website. Though they may have caught that snafu.
That people are still wearing mask, getting the extremely deadly gene-editing-injections and, perhaps, the deadlier still boosters, and having their children take them, truly boggles the mind and saddens one to no end. Can they not read, tear themselves away from the catastrophic propaganda, or from those who continuously lie to them and who only change the lie when it is completely untenable--two weeks to flatten the curve, 95% effectiveness, 80% effectiveness, 10% effectiveness....not effective? All the while they profit from EVERY vaccine or booster given? In an early scene in the movie "Aliens" Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) asks a question, and I paraphrase, "Have IQs suddenly dropped, since I've been away?" Given the current state of affairs, it is absolutely a fair question to ask in this day and age. I imagine the answer both surprising and rather telling.
The odd thing is that the most educated among my friends--master's degrees, PhDs, etc.--were the most gullible. I'd wondered about that for a while until I was informed that, generally, the most educated have gone through the system for long years and have 'done what they were told to do, drank the cool-aid, or they became more a propagandist than the propagandist (see Instructors) in order to receive their higher degrees. This made sense and has since been proven out countless times. I do, however, still find myself taken aback by people for whom research was required to achieve their higher degrees, NOT doing the research to save their own lives and those of their families, their children, which is absolutely astounding! Future historians, sociologists, psychologists, once they've moved past the shock of our society's malaise and collective suicide, will have a field day trying to discern the breathtaking psychosis and insanity which affected so very many, to their graves.
One imagines Mistah Charley Ph.D in a bit of a quandary himself. Smart enough to know, if only he'd spend the time to do the research that he'd find the answers, free of the propaganda. And afraid enough to know that the research may well turn his life and his family's asunder. It is quite the predicament.
There are far too many lifelong Pharma and biotech executives, doctors, professors, market researchers and analysts, funeral directors (who see and experience the aftermath of the injections) etc. coming forward to tell the truth to their great detriment. Who does that? Tells the truth despite the fact that the truth will cost them EVERYTHING? A few of the names that Mistah Charley Ph.D might want to consider are the following (there are many many more):
- Dr. Michael Yeadon is a former Pharma executive
(https://rumble.com/v3zywlj-the-saborski-address-english.html)
- Professor. Sucharit Bhakdi is a retired Thai-German microbiologist
- Karen Kingston is a med-legal advisor and biotech analyst with 25 years experience.
- Edward Dowd formerly an investment adviser with Black Rock, has put the pieces together
- Funeral Director John O'Looney
(https://www.bitchute.com/video/h9OHCEgYmTsi/, mouse over the advertisement, it may go away)
And if Mistah Charley PhD doesn't believe them, then all is truly lost. And there is great truth to the saying, that once one accepts the big lie, there is no amount of truth, evidence, or facts that will dissuade them.
Finally, distance or absence can absolutely give one a better perspective on a former country which was home, a former job, or even a former loved one. Though in your case, even before you left, you were already speaking to the maladies of the disintegrating US empire, said disintegration shifting into turbo-overdrive, now in front of our very eyes, and at the hands of the selfsame empire. Imperial suicide? It certainly seems that way. I too search for a home away from the madness of a suicidal empire gone completely insane and in possession of many a nuclear tipped warhead. But given this latter fact, where, indeed, does one escape?
Alastair Crooke, a former UK Diplomat (MI6) gives a rather telling explanation of where we are in reference to the ongoing wars. Not for the lighthearted or the hopelessly deluded.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=od5lipBQhe0)
Sorry for the longwinded response.
I wonder if you will hear from mistah charley, ph.d about this. I like it when most of the pictures are at the end I love the picture of the toddler driving and his mother with the very shapely legs! Hope you eat healthy today. Blessings, P
p.s. I turn 77 on Tuesday! I can't believe I've gotten so old. Thankfully, I'm a healthy 77 year old vegan!
Just a few random thoughts, Linh, about Vietnamese people of the "first generation" of "exiles" to America after the war. I worked as a public defender for many years in Orange County, Calif., home to Little Saigon in Garden Grove. We had many Vietnamese clients to deal with. I have to say they were the smartest and savviest of the so-called "criminal clientele." As a public defender, you have to deal with many cases at a time, and most of the white/black/hispanic clients were very cooperative about accepting the plea bargains that greased the system's wheels. -- Not the Vietnamese. They invariably were very "uncooperative." They seemed to have the street sense to hold out for a better deal, and the fact is that they always got one. Somehow that always knew that the "final offer, take it or leave it" was never the final offer. The D.A. might as well have said directly, if you don't take this final sweet offer, I am going to have to make a better offer. Something, I think, about a rawer sense of the way life works. When you talk about the cure for street crime in Vietnam, I can see the logic of people who have seen that, thumbing their nose at the dishonest and lazy bullshit ways of the U.S. legal system. Americans, even back then (i.e. 30 or 40 years ago) were dumb dumb dumb, and now we see dumb begetting even dumber.
Hi Gina,
This savviness also means many know how to work the system, resulting in frauds and other shenanigans. I'm sure you've encountered these among Vietnamese.
Linh
Absolutely, Linh. I didn't go into all of the challenges that I had as a lawyer trying to deal with some of these clients. "Herding cats" is a good analogy. Thanks very much!
Hey, Linh. Many thanks for another excellent post to read. I took some time to watch your interview with Chris Hedges on RT from 2016 - a shame cable dropped the network. Very insightful interview. You've nailed it time and again: we've lost our humanity, decency, and empathy for others.
Hi Yosemite Sam,
Chris Hedges used to mention me Twitter, but he had to stop because I became too much of a liability for what's left of his career. He knows much more than what he allows himself to say. I've talked about that a bit here:
https://linhdinh.substack.com/p/chris-hedges-victoria-nuland-and
Linh
He was the one who originally reported in the New York Times that Saddam was training terrorists to attack America. From The CIA as Organized Crime: How Illegal Operations Corrupt America by Douglas Valentine:
'For example, when the Bush regime was preparing the American public for the invasion of Iraq, the CIA recruited high-level defectors from the Iraqi army. Offers of Swiss bank accounts and positions of power in the liberated Iraq of the future were balanced with CIA-prepared scripts the defectors read to the US media. Two such defectors were channeled to New York Times reporter Chris Hedges, who dutifully wrote an article titled “Defectors Cite Iraqi Training for Terrorism” on 8 November 2001. The horrifying though patently untrue idea that Iraq was training terrorists to attack America had the intended effect, and public support for the pending war grew.
Hi Coley,
Douglas Valentine is great at exposing the CIA, yet he's still contributing to CounterPunch, a limited hangout that mocks questions about 9/11 and now supports the US/NATO war against Russia!
Linh
Haven't read it in years, Linh. Still getting emails from them after I bought an uncle over in the states a subscription to their magazine(when they were decent) I know the story with that shower. Read yourself many a time on it back in the day. 18 countries since 2018, some going. Unfortunate he's still writing for them, you'd think he'd have more cop on unless he's of course a limited hangout himself, did get 'unprecedented access'.
Often we can feel put off by people who only criticize the US "safely" from a distance. Speaking for myself, I chiefly find it distasteful only when it is done by someone who refuses to be equally critical in front of a domestic audience after he returns home.
In your own case, however, if this is what mistah charlie intends to imply about your own critiques, I think it is an unfair criticism. In your book "Postcards from the End of America", written here in the US, the portraits of people living here, while certainly interesting in themselves, also allow the perceptive viewer at least a peek at some of what has gone wrong in this country for so many of its inhabitants.
Accordingly, I would say that the your US perspective has not really changed so much. It is rather that you have now backed up your lens and speak of the US more generally, whereas before you looked at the country through the eyes of your individual subjects.
Hi JustPlainBill,
While still in Philly, I was often on Iran's Press TV. I also appeared on Russia Today a few times. Before I wrote about 9/11, the Bin Laden "assassination," black crimes and Jews, I was an anthologized author often invited to talk at universities. I gave readings in Germany, France, UK and Iceland. All that, I gave up without regrets, yet I'm called a coward by Unzian morons who hide behind idiotic pseudonyms. The USA has become a nation without character. That's why it's collapsing. Kevin Barrett, too, gave up his career to chase after the truth.
Last week, I was asked by a UC Berkeley academic to translate some Vietnamese texts for a book publication. I answered:
Hi [...],
I'm too engrossed in writing about geopolitics to translate anything right now. Publishing on SubStack is also how I make money. I'm not sure you're aware I've been canceled by the American literary establishment. That has worked out perfectly, however, for it ensures my departure from that thoroughly corrupt and evil society will be permanent. You should be so lucky.
Linh
For some reason, this post reminded me of how Bob Cratchit's salary adjusted for inflation would be $43,000 which is more than many Americans make. The net would be much smaller than what Cratchit took home. The amount was considered so miserly by Dickens' contemporaries Scrooge became synonymous with the uncaring wealthy.
The trouble with Americans is that they seem to be the people most easily swayed by propaganda. Even Europeans are slightly more skeptical, or less amenable. I remember that Jorge Luis Borges in an interview many years ago said something to the effect that he found it strange that so many people would be gullible enough to trust that a product was "good" (or "safe and effective") just because those selling it said so.
But Americans sell everything with massive propaganda, from transgender surgeries to wars. Not content to profit, Americans also want to assure us they are "the most moral" (like the IDF, "the most moral army in the world".) I've read the other day that the U.S. made a killing last year selling LNG to Europe, thanks to the Russian gas boycott that they pushed on that same Europe as some sort of moral issue. Strange that the U.S. always seem to somehow profit from all that weird morality they push all over the world.
Reading this in a Meijer parking lot among Papa Vinos and Chili's chain eateries with a Lowes across the way; C'mon Linh, you mean this isn't the pinnacle of space, time and options?
Still chuckling over the closing sentence. Those etceteras may be endless.
Hi Troy,
Chili's burgers look pretty good online, but of course, what they'll serve you won't look like the photos. Also, their Cilantro-Lime Carne Asada doesn't come with refried but black beans. I love Tex-Mex, but must go to Saigon to get some.
There's nothing like huevos rancheros at a Texas greasy spoon just after dawn, as javelinas, a road runner and tumble weeds cross the empty highway just outside. The cook looks just like Jett Rink, but with yellow eyes, no teeth and a hundred pounds heavier. His wife and six kids are back in El Virulento. Thinking you might be a migra, he spits in your food.
Linh
Hi Linh,
I remember Chili's and Outback having some decent fare years back when I used to drink at those places on occasion.
Yes, a good Mexican breakfast like a plate of huevos con chorizo with corn tortillas is something to appreciate!
It really is something that some Americans are touchy about criticism (aka basic observations) of our country. Well, it is the land of denial after all. Don't get too close to my fantasy, bruh.
1/linh asks "Why is mistah charley, ph.d sad at my indictment of a nation he himself sees as sick? Does he resent my being in a better place?"
no, my sadness is that linh has physically escaped the u.s., but mentally he remains imprisoned by it - it seems to be like the "tar baby" of the uncle remus story
2/the complete rap rhyme which linh quotes from goes as follows
it a great life
rat a tat tat
enjoy yourself and
like it like that
groove widda riddum
boppin down da block
move your hands & feet
as you go hip-hop
energy movin
your flesh & bones
this is your life
this is your home
smile at your neighbor
smile at the sky
life is a blessing
why ask why
something good happen
maybe soon
maybe next week
maybe next June
don't use a weapon
let go of strife
enjoy yourself
it a great life
3/i was interested to read this today at wikipedia, about a song "saved by zero" by the english pop group the fixx - i very much enjoyed this song but had no idea of its connection to buddhist philosophy and practice:
"Saved by Zero" features a repetitive, jittery staccato guitar riff and corresponding bass. It features a soothing yet haunting presentation with its ghostly vocals and dark atmosphere. Lyrically, "Saved by Zero" is a reference to the Buddhist mantra Śūnyatā. Fixx lead vocalist Cy Curnin reflected on its meaning in a 2008 interview:
"It was about looking at your own life, not so much about amassing material things but about experiences that lend you to be blissful... The song was written from the point of view of the release you get when you have nothing left to lose. It’s sort of a meditation. It clears your head of all fears and panics and illusions and you get back to the basics, which is a Buddhist mantra, which I practiced back then, and which I still do. The idea of the song is how great it is to get back to zero."
4/the factual assertions linh makes about me seem accurate - the judgments and opinions are his own - for more of my own opinions - at the time i expressed them - in my own words you can see
mistahcharley.blogspot.com
5/may the creative forces of the universe have mercy on our souls, if any
Hi mistah charley, ph.d,
Of course I still think about the US. Most of my readers are Americans, I listen to American political commentators and I even keep up with my Seattle Seahawks. If I hadn't become so sick, I would be eating burgers, pizzas, french fries and fried chicken.
I think about all the places I've been to. Since the US was where I spent most of my adult years, I keep up with what's going on there. I check on what's happening in Philly.
Linh
P.S. I write about the US regularly, so why be sad after this article? You were offended because my take on the US differs considerably from yours. You believe in Jewjabs, masks and other Covid measures. I mock and attack them.
P.P.S. I see the US as a madhouse. You "like it like that" so "groove widda riddum." I'm outraged by three ongoing genocides committed by Jews and Uncle Sam. I've long considered Obama not just a fraud, but a criminal. It sure sounds like you voted for him. It's OK we disagree.
1/linh, maybe you have heard about the "harvard law of behavior" - cited in footnote 5 of allan combs's paper "daddy, why are people so complex"
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02604020600826071
2/it seems to me that a corollary of that law is that you can always trust people - to do what they are most inclined to do
as lord krishna reportedly said in the bhagavad gita, people have both divine and demonic tendencies
and as gary and pat emery put it in a book of theirs, everybody needs someone or something to love, something to do, and something to look forward to
3/you can read my views about obama at
https://mistahcharley.blogspot.com/2008/10/is-barack-obama-snake-in-grass.html
as the 2009 postscript there puts it, "Current evidence suggests that President Obama is in fact in sympathy with the prevailing views of the foreign policy and financier establishments."
4/i too am quite content that there are matters on which we disagree - and if you think mocking and attacking me is worth the time it takes you, by all means continue to do so
Hi mistah charley, ph.d,
I have not mocked or attacked you. When you said I had denigrated your "native land," I had to respond, that's all. I have not misquoted nor misrepresented you. Someone who considers himself "intelligent, kind, modest" and regularly quotes his "rap," even at length, is obviously quite self absorbed. To point that out in passing is not mocking.
Too many Americans are quite cheerful and oblivious while atrocities are committed in their name and with their money. I'm pretty sure you voted for Biden also, and that's fine. Keep voting and rapping. You're not going to change.
Linh
good luck to you, linh, and your readership - obviously i cannot convince that i am not "cheerful and oblivious" while the american war machine carries on, and you may have other ideas about me that you wish to express - now is your chance for the last word
Bad news, Mr. Dinh. It seems Substack is going to be the next platform censored by the J... er, the Globalists/Grabbers/Zionists/Etc? It's a bit sad, but it's the way all platforms go. Also, "pro-Nazi", like "anti-semitic" content can be anything these days, really. Let's see how it continues.
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/01/09/tech/substack-removes-newsletters-for-pro-nazi-content/index.html
Hi Linh! Great writings as usual. Some Vietnamese must have rubbed off on me all those years ago. My Christmas tree has been up for 5 years!
Happy New Year and take care old friend.
Cheers
Jay
Being a Boston guy mistah Charley, ph. d, reminds me - if only tangentially (they both go/went by Mistuh) - of the famous Mr. Butch. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Butch
There is a point with which I respectfully disagree. Kevin Barrett and many other dissidents believe the US and its main branch, the State of Israel, are on the fast track to self-destruction. "The world will not stand for this!" and so on and so forth. But consider the position of Jews in 1940, and think about their position in 1950. In less than a decade they went from being expelled to doing the expelling. Whatever trials they suffered they have visited an hundredfold - a millionfold - upon the world. The US engine of corruption is powerful almost beyond reckoning, it is in the Jews' hands, and no squawks of protest will make a difference.
'At least here, no one will whack you on the head to get even with God, their DNA, their upbringing, the opposite sex, the same sex or all the bad sex they’ve had, etc.' You're not turning to God during these dark times?
Are you fully nomadic again now or planning to settle anywhere?
Hi Zep,
I was in Vung Tau for seven months straight in 2022 and didn't want to go anywhere. My visa status forced me to leave, but once out, I drifted around for a year. Now that I'm back in Vung Tau, I'll stay, with the stipulation that I must leave every three months. After flying back, I'll get three more months.
Linh