Bullshit Abyss

As pulished at SubStack, 4/25/23:

[Amor Fati in Pakse on 4/24/23]

Of bullshit, I’m not done yet, because as shit talkers by genetics and upbringing, we must shoot the shit nonstop. Again, I’m sitting outside Lankham, where, just now, I was treated to a marvelous instance of bullshit.

A young white guy said to an older white guy, “I’m sorry, but I’m a student. I don’t have much money. I cannot help you.”

After the older guy stalked away, I asked, “Wow, what was that all about?”

“He’s Ukrainian. He said he needed money.”

“Bullshit!”

“Really? I wasn’t sure.”

“He’s not Ukrainian,” I laughed. “Did he look Ukrainian?”

“No.”

“Did he have an accent?”

“Yes, but it’s hard to tell. I did think, if he was really in trouble, he would ask for food or a place to stay.”

“Or he can go to the Red Cross! There’s a Red Cross, right here in Pakse!”

“Really?”

The young man turned out to be French. He had spent nearly a month in Vietnam. Near the end of his visa, he entered Laos. After Pakse, he’ll travel to Don Det, Siem Reap, Phnom Penh and Koh Rong, then back into Vietnam, where he’ll volunteer with a Catholic charity in Saigon.

I told the Frenchman about how I was duped, twice, by a fake Syrian war refugee in Skopje, North Macedonia. There, I also got conned by a phony American. He was a tremendous actor who spoke flawless American English. To pull it off, he also had a great knowledge of the American political scene. To not get tricked ever, you must not interact with anyone.

[fake Syrian refugee in Skopje, North Macedonia on 10/16/20]

Always talking to people, I’ve made some friends during my 12 days in Pakse. A block from my hotel is Liên Hương, a great joint for Vietnamese home cooking, with its water spinach with garlic properly prepared, with leaves intact to soak up the fish sauce. Sadistic dumbshits only give you stalks.

The owners are Liên and Hương, an old couple. Born in Đồng Nai [Deer Meadow], not far from Saigon, Liên came to Pakse in 1989. Crossing into Laos was like entering a jungle, with the roads to his new home alarmingly bad.

Like my father, his is from Nam Định, so we’re from the same province, sort of. We speak with nearly the same accent. Vietnam’s most impressive Catholic churches are in Nam Định. I should try to see them.

In 1970, Liên was drafted into the South Vietnamese Army. Two years later, he lost his right leg. Speaking of which, Liên had to smile when I showed him a photo of Jeff Bauman not bleeding even with two legs just blown off. Not always nefarious, deceptions are inevitable from such a vain, hounded and grabby species.

In Pakse, there was a sawmill operated by undercover Vietnamese soldiers, I’ve been told, with full knowledge of Lao authorities. When recent immigrants from China had become too obnoxious, a group was beaten up by these Viet soldiers. Vietnamese also fought for Laos during its brief border war with Thailand in 1987-88. Not recorded in any book, these facts, if true, will be forgotten.

There are Vietnamese officers in the Cambodian Army. Three years ago, a Lao colonel told me Russian soldiers were training in northern Laos. Chinese fought with North Vietnamese during the Vietnam War. That is well established, as is the fact Americans, Brits and Poles have been warring in Ukraine, and not as volunteers but salaried goons of empire. Official narratives are meant for the braindead.

For some reasons, flies are really bothering me this morning. Again, I’m sitting outside Lankham. Perhaps I stink worse than usual, or maybe I’m dead. In all cultures, there are stories of people who don’t realize they’ve died. If your brain is dead, though, you’re dead. So what if you’re still leaving comments all over?

In Pakse, there are cemeteries for Vietnamese and Chinese. Reduced to bones, people still want to be among their own. That is touching, but only for the living.

Though only 7:42AM, it’s already 84 degrees. Two days ago, the high was 99. Across the street is airconditioned Amor Fati [Love Your Fate]. Inside, there’s a fake fireplace so Laos can pretend they live in a cold country.

The US, though, is the leader of disguises, cosplay, delusions or just plain bullshit, so a violent shithole is the greatest country on earth. A woman may be a man then a woman, depending on his or her whim at any moment. Sold out liars pose as professors, scientists and journalists. An incessant invader, subverter and destroyer of foreign countries is outraged at Russia’s “unprovoked attack” on Ukraine. Much of the world, though, has gotten tired of such relentless bullshit, so they’re decoupling from its source.

When Mike Fish asked me recently about ways to open adolescent eyes to the fake moon landings, I suggested having them read Dave McGowan’s “Wagging the Moon Doggie.” I also added:

I think it's important to remember that when you’re debunking something, you only have to point out the bullshit. You don’t need to come up with alternative theories.

Take the hit on the Pentagon. Although I believe a missile hit it, I don’t make that claim, because it would require me to prove it. All I need to say is a plane could not have hit it.

If you’re a kamikaze pilot trying to strike a low target from the sky, and the five-story Pentagon is no skyscraper, you’d hit it from an angle, for it’s impossible to hit it from the side at full speed. Aerodynamics alone rules this out. Shaving the ground, your plane will bounce and break up even if it avoids hitting the surface, but why try such an insane maneuver?

I figured this out just using common sense. Plus, there’s a Metro station and bus stand at the Pentagon I’ve used, so I've stood outside that structure a bunch of times.

[…]

With the moon landing, I use my experience as a photographer to point out the obvious: those perfect photos are impossible as shot from someone’s chest. Simple as that.

When discussing the wheelchaired celebrity of the Boston false flag, Jeff Bauman, I quoted at length a bullshitty battle scene by Thom Jones. Bauman’s testimony in court about Tamerlan Tsarnaev was no less fanciful. This, I thought was obvious, but, again, I failed to grasp how deep and wide is the bullshit abyss. Looking down just now, I can see at least 300 million people, all waving made-in-China nylon flags while chanting, “We’re number one! We’re number one!”

Here, then, is an extended version of Bauman’s bullshit, from his book Stronger:

I know exactly when my life changed: when I looked into the face of Tamerlan Tsarnaev. It was 2:48 p.m. on April 15, 2013—one minute before the most high-profile terrorist event on United States soil since September 11—and he was standing right beside me.

We were half a block from the finish line of the Boston Marathon, two in a crowd of half a million. The marathon was the signature event of Patriot’s Day, Boston’s special holiday, which celebrates Paul Revere’s ride and the local militiamen who fought the first battle of the American Revolution on April 19, 1775. Patriot’s Day was also the unofficial start of spring, in a city known for brutal winters, so half the city had taken the day off, and everyone wanted to be outside. By tradition, a Red Sox home game had started at 11:00 a.m., coinciding with the last starting group of the marathon. By 2:30, baseball fans were pouring out of Yawkey Way onto Boylston Street, swelling the marathon crowd.

I had arrived half an hour earlier, with my friends Remy and Michele, to cheer for my girlfriend, Erin Hurley. Even then, the sidewalks were clogged ten deep, and the restaurants and bars were filled with people in Red Sox gear and Boston shirts. The best runners, who qualified for the first start time, had finished hours before, but the runners kept coming, and the crowd kept growing. Most of these people, including Erin, were running for charity. They were the average runners, the ones who needed and deserved our support.

Everywhere I looked, people were cheering and clapping, yelling for them to keep going, the finish line was close, they were almost there.

And then I noticed Tsarnaev.

I don’t know how he got beside me. I just remember looking over my right shoulder and seeing him. He was standing close, maybe a foot away, and there was something off about him. He was wearing sunglasses and a white baseball cap pulled low over his face, and he had on a hooded jacket that seemed too heavy, even on a cool day. The thing that really struck me, though, was his demeanor. Everyone was cheering and watching the race.

Everyone was enjoying themselves. Except this guy. He was alone, and he wasn’t having a good time.

He was all business.

He turned toward me. I couldn’t see his eyes, because of his sunglasses, but I know he was staring at me. I know now he was planning to kill me—in less than a minute, he thought I’d be dead—but his face revealed no emotion. No doubt. No remorse. The guy was a rock.

We stared at each other for eight, maybe ten seconds, then my friend Michele said something, and I turned to talk to her. Our friend Remy had moved toward the finish line to try to get a better view. I was about to suggest to Michele that we join her. That was how much this guy bothered me.

But I didn’t. And when I looked back, he was gone.

Thank God, I thought.…

Until I noticed his backpack. It was sitting on the ground, near my feet. I felt a jolt of fear, and that old airport warning started running through my head: Don’t leave bags unattended. Report suspicious packages. I looked around, hoping to find the guy—

And then I heard it. The explosion. Not like a bomb in a movie, not a big bang, but three pops, one after the other.

It doesn’t get hazy after that. It gets very clear. The hospital psychiatrist later told me that my brain “lit up,” that at the moment the bomb went off my brain became hyperalert, so that even though my memories are fragmented into hundreds of pieces, all the pieces are clear.

I remember opening my eyes and seeing smoke, then realizing I was on the ground looking up at the sky.

I remember a woman stepping over me, covered in blood. Then others, scattering in all directions.

There was blood on the ground. Chunks of flesh. And heat. There was a terrible amount of heat. It smelled like a cookout in hell.

There was an accident, I thought. Something went wrong. I sat up. Michele was lying on her back a few feet away, a race barrier collapsed on top of her. I could see her bone through a hole in her lower leg.

That’s not good, I thought.

We made eye contact. She reached toward me, and I started to reach toward her. Then she looked at my legs, and she stopped, and her eyes got wide.

I looked down. There was nothing below my knees. I was sitting in a chunky pool of blood—my blood—and my lower legs were gone. I looked around. Blood was everywhere. Body parts were everywhere, and not just mine. This wasn’t an accident, I thought. He did this to us. That fucker did this to us.

Then I heard the second explosion, somewhere in the distance. It had only been twelve seconds since the first bomb went off.

This is a war, I thought. They’re going to chase him. There’s going to be shooting. They won’t be able to get to me.

I lay down. I’m going to die, I thought, and I realized I was okay with that. I had lived a short life, only twenty-seven years, but a good life. I was okay with letting go.

So Bauman says, “There was blood on the ground. Chunks of flesh. And heat. There was a terrible amount of heat. It smelled like a cookout in hell […] I looked down. There was nothing below my knees. I was sitting in a chunky pool of blood—my blood—and my lower legs were gone. I looked around. Blood was everywhere. Body parts were everywhere, and not just mine.”

Now, look at this photo:

Not a drop! Still, bullshit faithfuls will come up with explanations.

For those with working brains, here is Dave McGowan, again, with another masterful analysis. McGowan lived and died without fanfare, with his insights mostly ignored. How else would a degraded nation without honor treat its best men?

Who benefits from so much bullshit?

Since most recent false flags framed Muslims, you must ask, who hate them so much, yet hate, equally, the nations Muslims are forced into, because Muslim societies have been so systematically destroyed?

These are the same people who hate Christians so much, they have degraded and eviscerated every Christian society possible, with blacks and/or Muslims also used to create division, menace and chaos in said societies.

Away from such madness, I’m in a Buddhist society where there are no muggings or murders to speak of, where everyone is pleasant and civil, where ladyboys are tolerated but not celebrated, where laughter is frequently heard, like right now.

I have just strolled across the street into some air conditioning. Above the fake fireplace is a reproduction of Klimt. On the mantle are black cards with quotations in white. Epictetus, “Humans are troubled not by events, but by the meaning they give those events.” Zeno of Citium, “An anxious feeling is a commotion of the mind which is contrary both to reason and nature.” Seneca, “Rehearse them in your mind: exile, torture, war, shipwreck… All human possibilities should be before our eyes.”

There are more, plus facsimiles of Impressionist paintings on walls. Dreamy jazz plays. Some bassist sleepily plucks. It is cool, just like in Europe, though London, Brussels, Amsterdam and Paris are seething, with the last burning.

Days ago, a French friend was evicted from Vietnam after a 15-year residency. Though happy to see his family again, he was already planning to flee France. Most people there had “tombstones in their eyes,” he said, meaning they must constantly slake their addictions.

“I wouldn’t mind being instantly transported to Marseilles,” I skyped. “I miss Africa.”

“LOL. Did you ever go to Marseilles? I haven’t.”

“Yes, I actually love it. Too many French tourists though. At any moment, there must be a hundred French tourists in Marseilles.”

Actually, I don’t miss anywhere. In quiet, boring Pakse, with many of its buildings rather hideous, people are content to banter and joke with each other, for that’s more than enough.

To be left alone to share tales of survival on this harrowing planet is more than enough.

[Coffee Saigon in Pakse on 4/24/23]

[Coffee Saigon in Pakse on 4/24/23]

[Pakse on 4/24/23]