[Podgorica, Montenegro on 7/15/21]
Though “Dele-dele” from 1946 is omitted from Borges’ Obras Completas, we can thank Enrico Mario Santí for translating it into English. Here, Borges observes that “dictatorships foster oppression, dictatorships foster servitude, dictatorships foster cruelty; more abominable is the fact that they foster idiocy.”
As a Cuban, Santí also knows plenty about the idiocy that comes with dictatorships. Most Americans, though, can no longer recognize idiocy, since their entire world has been idiotic for a while. It’s their air and water. If you’re born into idiocy, it’s not just kosher, but basic knowledge or even wisdom.
Remember the DC Madame? Though she provided pricey whores for up to 15,000 swamp creatures, only two were named, Randall L. Tobias and Harlan K. Ullman, of the State and Defense Departments. No one else was newsworthy, claimed ABC. Before Deborah Jeane Palfrey could testify in court, she conveniently hung herself in jail, it’s reported. No one from the New York Times to the Sacramento Bee cared to look further.
There’s nothing fishy about it, you say? But what about Jeffrey Epstein’s “suicide”? Can’t American jailers keep any threatening suspect alive? Imagine Epstein cross examined, and half of DC subpoenaed. If not shot at the scene, they’re hung, shot or disappeared, with no more questions asked from your criminal press.
Still, most Americans refuse to believe they’re ruled and manipulated by the worst criminals. Among so many others, Trump and Bill Clinton flew to Epstein’s island to rape little girls and, once videotaped by the Mossad, they’ll do whatever Jews tell them. There are other pedophiliac pits to entrap slimeballs with patriotic lapel pins.
In Manhattan and DC, they rape, for as creepy old men with plenty of power and money, they don’t just need but demand the most outrageous thrills. Who cares about morality, for they’ve committed so many sins already, including cold blooded genocides. They didn’t reach the top of a vicious and super corrupt system by being proper.
You think burger clown Bill went no further than Monica’s lips and casino conman Donald was sated with just porn stars? Wikipedia, “Monica Samille Lewinsky is an American activist and writer […] In October 2017, Lewinsky tweeted the #MeToo hashtag to indicate that she was a victim of sexual harassment and/or sexual assault, but did not provide details.” Her book, Monica Speak!, has this tagline, “Genuine Pearls of Wisdom from America’s Most Famous White House Intern.” Pearls, as in pearl necklaces?
This shit is so basic, man. I have a close friend who was a rising star in the media world. In Manhattan, Jacob attended parties where little girls were proffered. All was kosher until the bossman found out Jacob knew about his frequent visits to Epstein’s island. With millions as severance pay, Jacob was let go.
Hanging out with Jacob in Bangkok, I asked, “Did he tell you directly?”
“No.”
“How close were you to your boss?”
Jacob cracked up, “We fucked in the same room!”
Despite his name, Jacob is not Jewish, but he acted Jewish enough to even score a free trip to Israel as a teenager. “They did everything to get us to fuck. Jews must breed!”
All bullshit, the official versions of Pearl Harbor, Holocaust, moon landings, assassinations of JFK, RFK and Martin Luther King, 9/11, War Against Terror, murders of Gary Webb and Pat Tillman, assassination of Bin Laden, Jewjabs and proxy war against Russia, with the last two still in progress to destroy not just the USA, but much of the world.
Nobody has ever been prosecuted for any of these deadly lies, and no one in power has spoken up against them, except for Cynthia McKinney. Exiled to Bangladesh, she’s never mentioned by any former colleague. Wikipedia, “Cynthia Ann McKinney (born March 17, 1955) is an American politician, academic, and conspiracy theorist.” A freak, in short, unlike lovely Monica Lewinsky, the author and activist.
It’s a lesson well seared into everyone’s consciousness. About the only man left in the USA is a Vietnamese homosexual, Andy Ngo, though Chelsea Manning also has real balls. To earn their paychecks, they all collude, and the littlest guys, too, have gone along, from fear or idiocy.
Common sense, though, is usually all it takes to see through the bullshit.
Alfred Nassim, “I saw the moon lander replica in the museum in Washington. I could not figure out where they stored the pressurized fuels needed to take off to get back into orbit around the moon. All pretty obvious in retrospect.”
Rudy List, “The British could decode the Enigma machine, so they knew what the Germans were doing. There’s no mention of gas chambers. The Red Cross inspected the concentration camps, and there’s no mention of it. If there’s anything to the official narrative, there must be some documentation about gas chambers in the German archives, but nobody has found anything about it, and there’s nothing in the Russian archives.”
Such observations, though, can trigger the most unhinged responses from those whose worldviews are nothing but the dumbest lies barely taped together.
This morning, I got a mass email from my former publisher, Seven Stories Press, announcing a new book, “Voices of a People’s History of the United States in the 21st Century brings together more than 100 activist texts on social and economic justice that have shaped the last 25 years. The editors, Arnove and Pessin, offer a curated collection of voices of hope and resistance from Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, the struggle for Indigenous liberation, activist groups for immigrant rights, environmentalist movements, disability justice organizing, and frontline workers during the global pandemic who spoke out against the life-threatening conditions of their labor.”
It’s hard to balk at “hope and resistance,” but the framing of issues is insidious, for you can’t talk about cops against blacks without a discussion of black crime, which threatens people of every color. It’s also destroying all American cities, thanks to the defund the police nonsense. As for “immigrant rights,” you can’t conflate legal with illegal immigrants, and the rights of working-class American citizens must also be considered. Cheap labor for the rich, then, is reframed as “immigrant rights.” As for “life-threatening conditions” for “frontline workers during the global pandemic,” nurses and doctors were primarily threatened with losing their jobs, if they refused Jewjabs. Worse, they were coerced into colluding with the worst genocide in history, still ongoing.
How could I be associated with Seven Stories? I was introduced to Dan Simon at a Brooklyn bar when I was just 31, and the first four books of mine he published were fiction. Plus, only with more maturity and life experiences did my politics come into focus.
Though it’s 98 degrees in Pakse, I’m sitting outside, as usual, to write. Hearing cars, motorbikes and birds doesn’t just keep me anchored, but integrated, into a random reality outside my control and neuroses. Looking up from my words, I’m always surprised.
I’ll close with a sketch of Coredo, the Italian owner of Dok Mai Lao Trattoria Italiana. With his strong opinions on bullshit, stereotypes and national characters, Coredo fits right into this article.
On my way to Coffee Saigon around 5:45AM, I saw him at a Vietnamese joint eating noodles with pork and drinking Beerlao. Here’s an edited version of our conversation:
“Beerlao, man! It’s not even six.”
Coredo just grinned and shrugged.
“This street is mostly Vietnamese.”
“I know. Half of my friends here are Vietnamese.” Then, “I like Vietnamese. They are, ah, face to face.”
“You mean direct?”
“Yes.”
“And aggressive?”
“They tell you, “Fuck you! You sit down!” he laughed. “Vaffanculo!”
“Laos don’t do that?”
“No, never. Laos and Thais…”
“So how’s everything at the restaurant?”
“OK. Yesterday, a Russian came in. We talked. He understands, you know, what’s going on.”
“Other people don’t?”
“No! They watch Fox News, CNN.”
“They believe the propaganda.”
“Yes, yes. I talked to a Swiss guy. He said, ‘Do you want to live with Putin or America?’ What a stupid question!”
“It is.”
Pulling up a photo of me in Friendly Lounge with two Italian friends, I said Dominic Ditullio’s father was a Mafia hitman. This set Coredo off, “If my father was Mafia, I would kill him!”
“No, you wouldn’t.”
“Yes, I would. If my father was Mafia or Fascist, I would kill him!”
“No, you wouldn’t.”
“People don’t know. They think Italians love their families, but Italians hate their families!”
“My friend Felix Giordano hates just about everyone in his family.”
So Vietnamese are more aggressive than Laos, and Italians can get a bit overexcited, let’s say. I’ve seen Felix just as worked up as Coredo, though Dominic is always composed. Stereotypes are far from absolute.
Three months ago, Coredo returned to Italy to see relatives, so he doesn’t really hate them. Instead of flying to Florence then taking a train to Lucca, Coredo flew to Rome.
“Oh Roma, it’s magical!’
“Firenze, too, and Siena.”
“No, nothing like Roma.”
“Venezia? Napoli?”
“Yes, all beautiful, but Roma is the best. There, I have Stendhal, Stendhal…”
“Stendhal Syndrome.”
“Yes, Stendhal Syndrome. Only two places give me that, Roma and the Nile River, from Cairo to Aswan.” Coredo swooned at the memory.
“I went from Cairo to Aswan, but on a train,” I laughed.
With love, reverence or just innocence, you can create or receive beauty just about everywhere. You certainly don’t need to go to Rome or the Nile. There’s only ugliness and sickness, however, if you’re drowning in bullshit.
It’s telling Borges considers idiocy more abominable than oppression, servitude or even cruelty. If your brain is continually raped, and there’s no light in your soul or mind, you are, by definition, an in tune American!
[Aswan, 1/28/21]
[New York, 10/7/11]
[Nha Trang, 12/25/19]
[crostini at Dok Mai Lao Trattoria Italiana in Pakse on 4/24/23]
7 years ago I spent three months working through levels of the mental "health" machine in the US. My journey started with an inpatient stint and then through two layers of outpatient treatment. I look back with appreciation on that time frequently as it continues to pay dividends in my present existence.
No, not because of any drugs they tried to push on me, or stupid methods of "cognitive behavioral therapy", but because inside the hospital it was well-known that all the patients were fucked up in some way. There was no where to hide. No way to hide it. In fact, the more "crazy" people were, the more they seemed to embrace it. This was oddly refreshing.
I had been noticing all the "phonies" in the world for years leading up to this. Projecting their own issues while being lobotomized by the propaganda coming from all directions. In the hospital I darkly laughed to myself saying, "finally! Some genuine people!"
Seeing people in their most vulnerable state opened my heart to the plight of most humans.
Trying to be "sane" in an insane world.
Thank you for your continued commentary.
the 'Idiocy' is painful to witness and to live in the midst of it is a nightmare
almost every single person i know has succumbed to the stupid and the mental shackles are getting tighter - these were educated, generous and kind people but their heads have turned to concrete