38 Comments

I notice the words right wing and/or far right are interwoven into almost every story where someone challenges the narrative - irrespective of the topic.

When I see those words I usually stop reading - it’s a clear sign of bias - the very thing the same folks would tell you to abhor.

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Thank you for another great article. It's inspired in me a response that I will now give when someone says climate change/crisis or whatever the new buzz word they've invented for that particular day: "Don't talk to me about the environment until East Palestine is put back to the way it was."

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"They exist in the hard, embodied realm of chemistry, and so do we. The people.

Remember us?"

Just feedback. Like a reality check for you Walter. Think of it as a service.

How good did you think this was? It's extremely good Walter. Even "near perfect" doesn't capture it fully.

In my native vernacular "God damn, Walter" is how I would capture it.

Look at it , turn to you and say "God damn."

You you crystalized the problem of our age there, and the whole piece, brilliantly, cleverly. Inspired.

I'd like you to know, so I say again, I'm doing feedback, not evaluating.

I am aware that your ability with words is to mine like that of a human versus a chimp. Not that bad. Maybe more like a McCaw. Maybe not that bad either but the comparison serves to illustrate my concept.

So please be aware that every word I type to you, every Tweet, I'm well aware that I don't benefit from comparison of the difference in our talent level with words. I do not enjoy that aspect but I bravely do it anyway.

Plus I figure it's like that for you reading almost everybody so you are likely used to it. I guess what I'm saying is I'm not used to it, yet. And I want my fair credit for chiming in anyway! :)

""They exist in the hard, embodied realm of chemistry, and so do we. The people." That's not just words but also the association you made. You are so good at those. (Love Smoke on the Water too). And your reasoning is highly honed. So you have an artistic ability to make associations, a trained, practiced skill at reasoning, and the words to express what you come up with. A synergistic powerful combo you got there Walter.

Ok bye for now and, God damn, Walter!

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Well done. No one else can wordsmith like you do. If anyone can sort this out (without bias) it is you. My heart is broken for Ohio and it's environs and our country. Nothing is working well anymore and our path forward seems terribly uncertain to me. You help make sense (if there is any to be made) of everything around us and for that - I thank you.

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We're entering their end game now, Walter. None of this is happening by accident. This is what I've been trying to warn the American public about for the last several years.

The government is essentially a Ponzi scheme. And all Ponzi schemes eventually collapse. But they don't collapse for financial reasons, as is commonly assumed. They collapse under the weight of their own lies. Lies that were told to cover smaller lies, which were told to cover even smaller lies...and so on, year after, year, after year.

These lies are always enabled by the schemer's lack of transparency and accountability that can only come from traditional records management. Here's a quote from the new CEO of cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme, FTX: “One of the most pervasive failures of the FTX.com business in particular is the absence of lasting records of decision-making.”

The Federal government has been completely devoid of records management since it transitioned from a paper-based work environment to an environment that generated Federal records in an electronic format. The Federal Administrative State recognized this problem during the mid-2000s, but instead of fixing it, they chose to exploit it and quickly began to tell (mostly small) lies with complete impunity. But, over time, those small lies had to be covered with bigger lies. And 15 years later, those lies have become entirely unsustainable. And they are starting to fall apart everywhere. The examples are endless. Russia Gate, impeachments, domestic terrorism, COVID, vaccines, Hunter's laptop, Ukraine, etc., etc., etc.

But the Federal Administrative State knew this day was coming and knew they had only two options: let their lies bury them and steel their virtually unlimited power OR whip the country into such a complete state of chaos, that a large part (maybe even more than half) of the population would actually beg the government to restore order for the "greater good" - even if it means violence is necessary.

And so, here we are, entering the most dangerous period in our country's history.

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Waking up to a nightmare from a sound sleep, aye.

The sleep has been uneasy for far too long, more like 'disempowerment' naps going on decades now.

To wake up all these years and decades later to find unless a fan of Reagan there is not a beloved President to be seen since 1963, and a war on everything we all once valued as Americans. A war on everything that made us a civil society and perhaps Western civilization itself. I grew into military draft age as LBJ reversed JFK's course and took us into that self-manufactured pit that consumed my generation in Vietnam. Now here we are and it all looks so familiar it seems not a day has passed.

Sociopathy has triumphed. The "only fear we fear" itself---that which we are not to fear according to FDR, has me, an old man now frozen in time, ineffably stilled and saddened. We know how this ends now. It doesn't. Humanity's Wheel.

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Excellent piece, Walter! I'm envious of the words you produce that captures the feelings of a country as a whole. The response may be partisan; I doubt the fear and empathy is...

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Fingers crossed this tragedy gets the coverage it deserves and that the root causes get dealt with, this shouldn’t be a “political” issue. On a side note, I live in Yorkshire and just did a search for East Palestine on the BBC website, it only appears on page 2.

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Thank you.

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Thank You.

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Thank you, Walter. Thanks for observing and understanding real events in real time. The "government" is apparently hoping we won't notice. The fact that legacy media, what a term, BTW, aides and abets the government should terrify everyone. Even if the reality is grim or disastrous, knowledge of it helps us to deal with it. I hope.

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That region, bread outsourced since the 80s (they don’t like Reagan, contrary to one’s assumption), mills closed, pills came in, heroine next, crime, you know the story, is now trampled and burned like never before. Kicked just when they were standing up for once, from 2016-2020. Yet, big parma funded corporate news, who peddles their fiction to coastal elites and zombies of that ilk, is hush hush. Strange it’s not blamed outright on something MAGA yet. Don’t worry, the spin is in the works. Inverted world, wonder what the end game is? No I don’t.

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I can't believe the framing of this disaster in the NYT––besides the article you mentioned, another NYT article used the word "demand" and "complain" multiple times, as if the townspeople are whiny, petulant babies who should be kissing the feet of our elected officials. Disgusting. Thank you for putting this down.

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This article's closing reminds me of the wise Nate Hagen's refrain that we are 'bio-physical beings' and must exist in the finite and chemical world, yet our culture (elites) seeks to abstract everything into seemingly infinitely expansice "economic" values which are determined by fleeting commodity trade prices.

But the mothers of tomorrow's children have to breath this air. And their children will be paying off the principle in ways that are never captured in todays economists accounting. They'll be forgotten/covered up just the poor stunted kids in Flint.

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I can't wait to hear you get pissed with taibbi today - you're my current favorite writer, Walter...

Still plugging away at Michael Malice's new book- give it a shot if you can - its good...

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This was a damn good timely article - thanks Walter

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