A tentative thread on the Biden speech

Adam Curtis once leaned heavily on the book 'Everything was forever, until it was no more' by Alexei Yurchak - a slightly odd book about the way that language in the Soviet Union slowly degraded.

Instead of confronting reality, the job of propagandists, indeed of all official discourse, was to stitch together a series of recognisable banalities.
Ideas that once were essential parts of the concrete social project of the Soviet Union - building a worker's state - were now invoked in whatever context needed.
Thus, you could praise the 'trenchant labour of the workers' when discussing the publication of a new edition of technical guidelines for building tractors.
The incredible brittleness of this cut-and-paste discourse meant that no-one in the Soviet Union was able to process, let alone alter, the decay of the Union and its increasingly unstable economic system.
So when the end came, it came as if in a dream. It suddenly made just as much sense for the Soviet Union not to exist as it made for it to have existed for decades.
Today, Joe Biden - who has not without justice been compared to Brezhnev - stands reading a speech that is in essence the same as those made by Soviet functionaries.
No sentence bears any resemblance to the previous one, as it does in an argument, but only makes sense as a series of moderately recognisable cliches.
The point of the speech is not to refer to the world, but to refer to the system of symbols that historically legitimated the American political order.
These symbols - the american dream, opportunity, prosperity, liberty, justice, community, unity, hope - have little reality today. But that doesn't matter.
They are mere symbols, signifiers without signified. They refer to nothing but themselves. This is discourse as a hall of mirrors.
Likewise, Joe Biden is not a politician, he is a mirror: a mirror which reflects the platitudes America tells itself in order to sleep at night.
But, as Jean Beaudrillard warned us, in order to see what we want to see in the mirror, we have to hide our second-self behind it. To see 'unity' we have to hide division. To see 'prosperity' we have to hide poverty.
Hiding these things is not just a function of Joe Biden's rhetoric, but of the social project which he *does* reflect: the overwhelming need to put the populist project - which however imperfectly does reflect real division and poverty - in its box.
How long, we should ask, can America hide what it needs to hide in order to see unity? How long until those second souls, currently trapped behind the mirror, have their revenge?

More from Biden

Did you miss the Inauguration of the 46th President of the United States,Joe Biden?This Thread is the perfect synopsis for everything you need to know!

Donald Trump left the White House Wednesday morning. For the first time in 150 years the sitting president didn’t attend the swearing-in of his successor.


Kamala Harris, the first woman and person of color to hold the office of vice president was sworn in by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the first Latina member of the Supreme Court.


Chief Justice John Roberts later administered the presidential oath to Biden as Jill Biden held the bible and as his children, Hunter Biden and Ashley Biden, stood by.


President Joe Biden gave his Inaugural address. Check out the full transcript below.
U.S. president-elect Joe Biden has indicated plans to cancel the Keystone XL pipeline permit via executive action on his first day in office, sources tell CBC News.

This weekend stakeholders have seen a longer list of Biden’s planned executive actions than what was publicly reported in a memo from incoming chief of staff Ron Klain.

That purported list includes a reference to cancelling Keystone XL on Day 1 — Wednesday.

Here is what the Biden transition team has publicly reported so far. From a memo by his Chief of Staff Ron Klain — that dozens of executive orders are planned in the first few days.
https://t.co/gEi3qHJnD1

The Biden team has publicly /

/ publicly announced its intention to sign climate orders on Day 1 including rejoining the Paris accord

What hasn’t been publicly reported, and it’s apparently something the transition team has indicated in stakeholder briefings, is that an order to kill KXL is coming on Day 1

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney raises the prospect of legal action if Biden cancels KXL.

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IMPORTANCE, ADVANTAGES AND CHARACTERISTICS OF BHAGWAT PURAN

It was Ved Vyas who edited the eighteen thousand shlokas of Bhagwat. This book destroys all your sins. It has twelve parts which are like kalpvraksh.

In the first skandh, the importance of Vedvyas


and characters of Pandavas are described by the dialogues between Suutji and Shaunakji. Then there is the story of Parikshit.
Next there is a Brahm Narad dialogue describing the avtaar of Bhagwan. Then the characteristics of Puraan are mentioned.

It also discusses the evolution of universe.(
https://t.co/2aK1AZSC79 )

Next is the portrayal of Vidur and his dialogue with Maitreyji. Then there is a mention of Creation of universe by Brahma and the preachings of Sankhya by Kapil Muni.


In the next section we find the portrayal of Sati, Dhruv, Pruthu, and the story of ancient King, Bahirshi.
In the next section we find the character of King Priyavrat and his sons, different types of loks in this universe, and description of Narak. ( https://t.co/gmDTkLktKS )


In the sixth part we find the portrayal of Ajaamil ( https://t.co/LdVSSNspa2 ), Daksh and the birth of Marudgans( https://t.co/tecNidVckj )

In the seventh section we find the story of Prahlad and the description of Varnashram dharma. This section is based on karma vaasna.