Everything cataloged in this piece is emblematic of the now rapidly increasing disintegration of our society. Each of them is an individual, but perhaps even more depressing are the outrages that the stewards of our society continue to visit on us almost daily. This was the second piece I read this morning; the first was a brief blog piece on yesterday's Trump "trial" verdict. It's just "o-dark-thirty" here and we're already off to the races, doom-scrolling away.
You say that "installing Biden as prez was a grand joke." To me it was just an earlier installment of which the Trump trial was the latest.. Every day I see Biden blathering on, the mental image that arises is of a giant TV screen with a hand giving us the finger and saying "Ya don't like it? Whattaya gonna do abouddit?"
Figuring out whether what we are experiencing is a drastic failure of leadership, or the late symptoms of a breakdown in the national character is like trying to figure out which came first, the chicken or the egg. Perhaps we are just getting the government we deserve?
My own reaction to the Trump circus favors the second choice. However corrupt, incompetent, or blindly partisan the judge was, it took 12 jurors to seal the deal, and not even one of them would stand up for sanity. They picked their venue well--whether it is the election of a horrible politician (e.g., Hillary, AOC) or returning outrageous verdicts, finding 12 idiots in New York to do it is easier than finding 12 Mexicans in Tijuana.
A mere heart shaped 'like' doesn't do justice to the emotion I feel while reading your log of America's descent through the nine circles of hell. A thumbnail of Munch's 'The Scream' might do the job.
Hello Mr. Skaggs, I was in Mexico during the height of the Covid hysteria. There was nothing there like the hysteria here. Very few people wore masks (and the few that did were mostly tourists). And the Mexican federal government, as far as I know, never implemented any mandates around Covid. No masks, no vaccines and no social distancing required.
The one business in the city that did have mask and hand sanitizing requirments was, not surprisingly, a United States based corporation, "Smart and Final" Grocery store. I sometimes wonder, does one really want to shop at a food store with the word "final" in it's name? Kind of like the Last Supper of Christ? After I eat this food do I die in the morning? Heh! "Just axing!" as the semi to illiterate locals used to say in Sacramento, my old place of residence.
In my subjective view much of the Covid hysteria imposed on America was due to an attempt by the American establishment to cover up the slow collapse of America. And/Or the looting of the American working class by the financial elites. (How many trillions of dollars were shifted from the working class, at that point in time often laid off and jobless, to the capital ownership class? Not unlike the Financial Crisis of 2009, no? Coincidence? I don't think so. It's called class warfare; but since Americans know nothing about their class position they are unable to understand this.)
I personally don't have enough understanding or information, at least at this point, to know what is fully happening. But I do know what the citizens of America are being told by the capitalist establishment is bullsh#t.
I try not to regret much (I still do sometimes, of course), but I had orders to Ft. Bliss, Tx. immediately prior my premature discharge from the Army for alcohol rehabilitation failure. I've never really been south of Georgia and was really looking forward to seeing El Paso, Jaurez and environs. Semi apocalyptic at this point so maybe I'm safer with Linh's photos and descriptions.
I was in a VA psych ward for undiagnosed babesiosis late January early February 2020 and then bed ridden for the majority of the year before getting things figured out. I was already infantalized from a mystery illness so watching the healthy people around me succumb to mass infantilzation flipped my noggin harder than previous flippings. Somebody, many people were working overtime on Covid. That's what's scary about the orchestrators of our woes, their work ethic.
Thank you for raising my awareness of that (usually) tick borne disease, babesiosis.
At first I thought it was a joke like too many "babes" bothering a man who just wants to be left alone to read books such as Immanual Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason". But that disease is no joke.
I'd heard of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever and Lyme Disease (named for the town in my home state of Connecticut) both with ticks as vectors but I'd never heard of babesiosis. Good to know and be aware.
Thanks Thomas. I'm not evangelical about much in this life beyond beyond letting people who enjoy spending time outdoors know about my firm belief in picaridin based tick repellents. I don't shy away from DEET either on my socks and shoes. I had no idea that a malarial microbe could be so debilitating. Tick borne diseases are on the rise with Lyme becoming epidemic in areas of the Northeast. There is speculation that it has been "weaponized". I love the outdoors, babesiosis has honestly made me more contemplative of the miracle that is biology, nightmarish at moments, but miraculous nonetheless.
Excellent analysis of The States with examples to back up the accusations.
A society in steep decline does not go down lightly. E.g. see (as I'm sure you already have) Edward Gibbons' "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" part 1.
I can assure you America's elites (the capitalist owners of the means of production top 1%) will come out of this unscathed while the lower 90% working-class will be discarded and thrown under the bus.
I read Orlov's "The Five Stages of Collapse," not too bad. I can also recommend "Decline and Fall: The End of Empire and the Future of Democracy in 21st Century America" by John Michael Greer.
Time to write the next chorus to the old favorite "Back in the USSA"...oops, that's "USSR"...
The news, amazingly, is even worse than Linh is telling us. I do not have the heart to search out the stories of Western civilization's death, and I do not believe the US even qualifies as that. But the US and its subsidiaries retain incredible financial power, so their deaths will probably be extremely drawn-out - a fate similar to the destruction of Palestinians but on a much longer timeline.
"Cellulite and pubic hair was everywhere..." That sounds like the breakfast I had in Tijuana. The waitress said it was "Lechon arriba con leche" but I don't know...?
Convincingly presenting or representing oneself as "insane" before a court of law can mitigate a potential death penalty in a capital murder case. I guess it's worth a try?
A 1979 movie called The Warriors showed there was no lack of diversity in New York in times past. Also no lack of violence. But they keep coming to America. You can live and sleep in a car and make $200 a day doing Uber Eats and Door Dashes. People in Section 8 housing can afford to have McDonald's home delivered. What a land of opportunity. Need more money? Enrol in a drug or vaccine trial for Pfizer!
Everything cataloged in this piece is emblematic of the now rapidly increasing disintegration of our society. Each of them is an individual, but perhaps even more depressing are the outrages that the stewards of our society continue to visit on us almost daily. This was the second piece I read this morning; the first was a brief blog piece on yesterday's Trump "trial" verdict. It's just "o-dark-thirty" here and we're already off to the races, doom-scrolling away.
You say that "installing Biden as prez was a grand joke." To me it was just an earlier installment of which the Trump trial was the latest.. Every day I see Biden blathering on, the mental image that arises is of a giant TV screen with a hand giving us the finger and saying "Ya don't like it? Whattaya gonna do abouddit?"
Figuring out whether what we are experiencing is a drastic failure of leadership, or the late symptoms of a breakdown in the national character is like trying to figure out which came first, the chicken or the egg. Perhaps we are just getting the government we deserve?
My own reaction to the Trump circus favors the second choice. However corrupt, incompetent, or blindly partisan the judge was, it took 12 jurors to seal the deal, and not even one of them would stand up for sanity. They picked their venue well--whether it is the election of a horrible politician (e.g., Hillary, AOC) or returning outrageous verdicts, finding 12 idiots in New York to do it is easier than finding 12 Mexicans in Tijuana.
A mere heart shaped 'like' doesn't do justice to the emotion I feel while reading your log of America's descent through the nine circles of hell. A thumbnail of Munch's 'The Scream' might do the job.
I too have sometimes wrestled with what it means to "like" a blog post or a comment.
“Something drastic took place during Covid. I don’t know what happened..." No shit.
At the height of Covid, unnerved to the gills by the masking of everyone, I could only think:
"We're all Jesse James now! WhewwwHoooo!"
Hello Mr. Skaggs, I was in Mexico during the height of the Covid hysteria. There was nothing there like the hysteria here. Very few people wore masks (and the few that did were mostly tourists). And the Mexican federal government, as far as I know, never implemented any mandates around Covid. No masks, no vaccines and no social distancing required.
The one business in the city that did have mask and hand sanitizing requirments was, not surprisingly, a United States based corporation, "Smart and Final" Grocery store. I sometimes wonder, does one really want to shop at a food store with the word "final" in it's name? Kind of like the Last Supper of Christ? After I eat this food do I die in the morning? Heh! "Just axing!" as the semi to illiterate locals used to say in Sacramento, my old place of residence.
In my subjective view much of the Covid hysteria imposed on America was due to an attempt by the American establishment to cover up the slow collapse of America. And/Or the looting of the American working class by the financial elites. (How many trillions of dollars were shifted from the working class, at that point in time often laid off and jobless, to the capital ownership class? Not unlike the Financial Crisis of 2009, no? Coincidence? I don't think so. It's called class warfare; but since Americans know nothing about their class position they are unable to understand this.)
I personally don't have enough understanding or information, at least at this point, to know what is fully happening. But I do know what the citizens of America are being told by the capitalist establishment is bullsh#t.
Hi Thomas,
I try not to regret much (I still do sometimes, of course), but I had orders to Ft. Bliss, Tx. immediately prior my premature discharge from the Army for alcohol rehabilitation failure. I've never really been south of Georgia and was really looking forward to seeing El Paso, Jaurez and environs. Semi apocalyptic at this point so maybe I'm safer with Linh's photos and descriptions.
I was in a VA psych ward for undiagnosed babesiosis late January early February 2020 and then bed ridden for the majority of the year before getting things figured out. I was already infantalized from a mystery illness so watching the healthy people around me succumb to mass infantilzation flipped my noggin harder than previous flippings. Somebody, many people were working overtime on Covid. That's what's scary about the orchestrators of our woes, their work ethic.
Thank you for raising my awareness of that (usually) tick borne disease, babesiosis.
At first I thought it was a joke like too many "babes" bothering a man who just wants to be left alone to read books such as Immanual Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason". But that disease is no joke.
I'd heard of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever and Lyme Disease (named for the town in my home state of Connecticut) both with ticks as vectors but I'd never heard of babesiosis. Good to know and be aware.
Thanks Thomas. I'm not evangelical about much in this life beyond beyond letting people who enjoy spending time outdoors know about my firm belief in picaridin based tick repellents. I don't shy away from DEET either on my socks and shoes. I had no idea that a malarial microbe could be so debilitating. Tick borne diseases are on the rise with Lyme becoming epidemic in areas of the Northeast. There is speculation that it has been "weaponized". I love the outdoors, babesiosis has honestly made me more contemplative of the miracle that is biology, nightmarish at moments, but miraculous nonetheless.
Excellent analysis of The States with examples to back up the accusations.
A society in steep decline does not go down lightly. E.g. see (as I'm sure you already have) Edward Gibbons' "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" part 1.
I can assure you America's elites (the capitalist owners of the means of production top 1%) will come out of this unscathed while the lower 90% working-class will be discarded and thrown under the bus.
Similar to the Soviet Union's collapse of 1991 The U.S. collapse is pending. See e.g. Dimitri Orlov on how empires collapse. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kySDKESt3_M
I read Orlov's "The Five Stages of Collapse," not too bad. I can also recommend "Decline and Fall: The End of Empire and the Future of Democracy in 21st Century America" by John Michael Greer.
Time to write the next chorus to the old favorite "Back in the USSA"...oops, that's "USSR"...
The news, amazingly, is even worse than Linh is telling us. I do not have the heart to search out the stories of Western civilization's death, and I do not believe the US even qualifies as that. But the US and its subsidiaries retain incredible financial power, so their deaths will probably be extremely drawn-out - a fate similar to the destruction of Palestinians but on a much longer timeline.
2024 zeitgeist, America .. you nailed it once again, Linh, fine work.
"Cellulite and pubic hair was everywhere..." That sounds like the breakfast I had in Tijuana. The waitress said it was "Lechon arriba con leche" but I don't know...?
Convincingly presenting or representing oneself as "insane" before a court of law can mitigate a potential death penalty in a capital murder case. I guess it's worth a try?
You know things are bad in the States when the 99¢ store chain is closing down!
https://youtu.be/9RFJ-rFRH2Y?si=EzLoMdTQohQBnPeZ
Are there any white people left in LA??? Asking for a friend.
A 1979 movie called The Warriors showed there was no lack of diversity in New York in times past. Also no lack of violence. But they keep coming to America. You can live and sleep in a car and make $200 a day doing Uber Eats and Door Dashes. People in Section 8 housing can afford to have McDonald's home delivered. What a land of opportunity. Need more money? Enrol in a drug or vaccine trial for Pfizer!