Comments on: Memphis: A War Zone That Even Iraqi Vets Are Afraid To Come Home To

By: Terrance

Terrance — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 22:22:04 +0000

This is one hell of a serious wake up call for
America. This is something the corporate folks
Scared to publish or read

By: xinwei

xinwei — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 11:47:25 +0000

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By: ashley

ashley — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 16:56:30 +0000

this is offensive and you are a complete asshole

By: afghan vet

afghan vet — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 14:23:05 +0000

well i just got out of the army serving 5 years active and am originally from memphis and have recently moved back. Bottom line is. Id much rather be in memphis than afghanistan. So is mr. iraqi vet was more scard here than overseas. then he obviously didnt do shit. very true that memphis is messed up, but we have good quality as well. haha not many, but i will say that we have a very unique culture. especially when it comes to music and food. also as an added note. blacks n whites get along very well here. Better than youd think we would anyways. Yeah theres certain places you dont go. But duh!!! thats everywhere. You dont see black people in a white church do you? basically whether youre a crackhead or a betty home maker. You know you’re limits and where you should and not should be.. Bottom line is this.. i found your article interesting but i dont believe half the dumb shit you say.. first off Gds dont overun the cops and patrol the streets with barbed baseball bats!! nor do they all own ak47s! I think you’ve been watching too much of a movie called “warriors”. and second off, if you so-called lived in the ghetto. how the hell did you even get so rich to move to russia, and you dont even speak ghetto or use actual memphis terms! And if you did ever live ” north north” one is…why didnt the GDs whoop your ass for being so “smart” and whiny… and second….what kinda brotha from ghetto decides to move to russia? I mean… i mean seriously… anyone that’s actually from memphis can spot you off as a fake. I think you’ve been listening to too much 36 mafia.. and probably just got your girlfriend a.k.a ” summer smith” taken by a memphis pimp! however i cant wait to read your next article…. “russia doesnt love me either”

By: rofl

rofl — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 07:36:46 +0000

you are a communist little 8th grader piece of shit.

I stumbled across your shitty blog on google and I promise you I will not return. Memphis really isn’t that bad, you fucking pussy cry baby. you made half of this shit up anyways.

dipshit.

you are awful.

By: Kim M

Kim M — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 05:04:28 +0000

I hope the new mayor can do somthing..But the people have got to quit electing officials that fight and throw chairs at city council meetings..What needs to be done is truly pray and change..I will start doing that more often..That city needs help..does not anyone know how to recoup and restore a city..It will take years, but good Lord, I am hoping for a change. Take the city back, is what I say…

By: Kim M

Kim M — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 04:52:01 +0000

omg. YOUR ARTICLE IS PRETTY HARSH..Are you not being a little unfair, though I grew up there I can tell you it was never that bad when I was growing up. That city needs help, it has been abondoned by the people who use to live there…I lived in the Hickory Hill area 20 years ago. It was a new neighbor hood at the time..Up and coming, now it is gone..Abondoned malls, stores, crime on every block..Mayor Herrington ran that town in the ground. How it got this bad, is because of all the racism, Herrington played upon. I so wish it would be about fairness for people…regardless of their color..White, Black, it should not matter..Whites are now the minority in Memphis, yet all papers, tv reports in Memphis still label black as the minorities. Oh crap,maybe. the writer is right, it is a bad town now..but there has got to be hope for it…Truth be known, I moved out, too..I would love to see something good though happen..It is my hometown..Not everybody in Memphis are crack heads and whores..Blacks and whites are going to have to live together..There are also many other cultures moving into the mid south area, so it is not a black white issue anymore…There is no time to play the race card anymore..It is about the freedom to live in a town a be safe. It has to be a decision made by the people..for the people.

By: nampa1

nampa1 — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 17:27:43 +0000

To Expat in BY:

I’m very keen for any info on finding expat jobs. My time abroad was limited to English teaching, but now I have marketable skills in health care, particularly pharma, that I would love to use to life the life again. Anyone, please respond to this post and I will give my contact info.

Thx

By: Joseph Culp

Joseph Culp — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 10:29:21 +0000

Coming from a long time exile reader. Tal, you rock! Keep it coming!

By: Memphis

Memphis — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 07:52:17 +0000

Viktor, all I can say is, right on man, right on man, preach it brotha.

I’ve been all over, lived in a few third world shitholes. Funny, when they ask what it’s like where I’m from, and my response is,”Like here…” the are typically amazed. Memphis does certainly suck, but it is exceptionally hard to get away from as well. It is devoid of any sort of opportunity, and there are no transitional jobs. Heck, I’m an IT guy and there is nothing. Of course, it doesn’t help that thousands, and yes I mean thousands have been laid off in my field over the last two years. I run into the same guys at interviews trying for the same 2 jobs in the paper. Like something out of “Fun with Dick and Jane”. The jobs that are there don’t pay enough to cover the rent. I went from doing systems engineering to freakin’ bouncing in bars. But I digress.

Tal you really did live here huh? GD? Yup, I know some of those cats. Mostly good folk (Nation) in a criminal sort of way. And to the guy asing about the AK’s, yes $80 is conservative, but fairly accurate. And yes, they mostly work, tend to be well used though, and who knows how many bodies the weapon carries – don’t get caught with it.

So Tal, if you left, maybe you haven’t seen our new PSA’s? Chill Don’t Kill? Yes it has come to that…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hIBp-qSyRc

This is a nice one too, notice the billbord, right out in front of one of the many liquor stores…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trY8tdvOFY8

I hate this place. Funny story though. If you know me, you’ve heard this, and I apologize in advance… I was walking down Venice Beach, and this cat starts screaming at me, “Hey, don’t come all lookin bad ass up in here, this is LA motherfucker! We will kill you. We’re badder than Chicago, New York, anywhere you ever been.” I just sort of looked at him and said, “I’m from Memphis motherfucker.” He stopped screaming and ran over to me, “ORANGE MOUND IN THA HOUSE! My people are from there, you wanna hotwing?” and promptly tried to make friends. Indeed this is a scary place.

By: Viktor

Viktor — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 02:32:33 +0000

Well, since we seem to be trying to sway the opinion of our opponents through personal anecdotes, let me put in my two cents. This is chiefly in response to Abracadabra, as well as the neocon crowd. I am a Russian, I grew up in St. Petersburg, and lived the first half of my life in that city. I remember the 90′s pretty well- I grew up in a poor single-parent household, and while my family did its best to shield me from the realities of Russian life at the time, I remember the smell of smoke and urine in the elevators, the drunks lying on the streets. I remember being scared for my life every time I walked back home from school. I remember the storming of Ostankino and Chechnya.
The second half of my life I spend in one of the richest and most developed suburban regions in the United States. My first impressions were positive,as only a child’s could be, but with every year the mind-numbing idiocy of my surroundings began to penetrate deeper into my consciousness. I did not think, until I began reading the “Exile”, and Mark Ames in particular, that an American could really, viscerally, understand the emptiness of middle-class American existence, because I was surrounded by people who were utterly blind to it. I visited Russia since then; coming back to the US the last time, I began to cry in despair- not when I was boarding the plane, not even upon touchdown in Dulles, but when driving in the car back to my house I saw the familiar wall of suburban developments.
Recently, after 12 years of living here, I was offered American citizenship. I refused it. I am leaving this country in a few months, and I will never look back. I have been here for 13 years. I don’t think anyone on this forum could accuse me of being ignorant of the reality- I am intimately familiar with both realities.
To immigrants and defectors I have this to say: Even if you find the existence in the upper strata of American social pyramid to your liking, you must realize that the privilege in which some (but far fewer than you think) Americans live, and to which you aspire, has been bought and continues to be maintained with the blood of innocents and the toil of millions across the neo-colonized world. How does your conscience allow you to praise a nation that has killed more people across the globe (in military conflicts alone, even in exclusion of deadly neo-colonial policies, genocide-by-proxy, and economic sanctions) than any other since Nazi Germany?
I also sincerely apologize for my opinions to any Americans here that truly love their country, love it in a way that only someone horrified by the crimes of the U.S. government, by the relationship of the upper-middle class to those below them- one that oscillates between indifference and predation-, by the blandness and idiocy of the American mainstream, can love it, in the same way I love my own fucked-up country.

By: RK

RK — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 20:29:16 +0000

Hey glad to see the reporting from Memphis. If you ever need any photos out of Memphis pls feel free to contact. I used to live in Moscow from 96-2002 and loved the parties and the Exile.

By: Iban

Iban — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 03:56:37 +0000

Messed up. The bad stuff ain’t begun yet. Wait until the Chinese pull the plug and petrol is traded in Euros and Yuan.

By: captain america

captain america — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 13:24:55 +0000

i’m shocked and flabbergasted that abracadabra up there made it past the exiled censor, but dammit, i’m glad he did. couldn’t have said it better…almost brought a tear to my eye reading that, actually. would to god that we could get all the pseudo-marxist america-hating hipsters of the type who threaten to move to canada to ACTUALLY LEAVE and replace them with good immigrants like you, sir.

By: Abracadabra

Abracadabra — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 06:54:41 +0000

C’mon guys, the only reason you enjoy your stay over there in RU/BY/UA is because you are foreigners. You are privileged by definition. Being local there is quite a different story.

I lived in Russia until almost 30, when I finally got a chance to get the fuck out of that hopeless, human flesh eating shithole, run by British whores. Yeah, I bet you had no idea that Russia is a british crypto-colony, since 1917 ?

America is a dream, an idea, a glow that warmed hearts and minds of many people now and then, and around the world. It’s that glow of american dream that gave me strength to get out, to learn the language, and to finally become happy here on this blessed soil. Blessed because it is free of all that century-old crap that made peoples of europe to blissfully slaughter themselves in the name of their nations. You have no fucking idea what it is REALLY LIKE outside.

Yes, that idea slowly retreats, and now mostly stays in the minds and hearts of the people who still beleive in it. So more SHAME ON YOU, so called Americans ! If you can only give up, flee and fail your heroic forefathers, well, fuck you then. People like me are stepping in to take the lead to keep this dream alive.

Never give up, never surrender – the only way to keep this great country alive !

By: SK

SK — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 03:11:32 +0000

Life would be so much simpler if ethnic cleansing weren’t so frowned upon.

By: captain america

captain america — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 02:03:17 +0000

carlos seems to be saying stuff to me, but that could be because i’m a neocon…um…whatever it was comrade aleke/mark ames called me a few posts ago.

as far as BD, i can only imagine that he’s come up with some argument so profound, so poignant, that the whole idealogical house of cards that is the exiled would come tumbling down were it allowed to be expressed.

so, yay exile censor!

By: tommy chadwick

tommy chadwick — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 04:14:13 +0000

cordon it off and firebomb or nuke (preferably) it. rinse and repeat where needed

By: playin' risk

playin' risk — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 20:15:12 +0000

go on carlos, tell the world how much of a schmuck you are.

you do realize you’re writing out all sorts of stuff, but really saying nothing?

By: Carlos

Carlos — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 19:14:37 +0000

“i’m assuming carlos has never actually ventured into the ghetto. he doesn’t realize society isn’t a meritocracy, and many of the ghetto dwellers aren’t deserving of their fate.”

Why the fuck would I go there? I have met and talked to plenty of people who have left the ghetto through hard work. You can choose to disbelieve me, but it’s the truth. And you can also choose to disbelieve that people in the ghetto don’t have choices. You choose to go to school or not go to school. You choose to smoke rock or not smoke rock. You choose to be a prostitute or not be a prostitute. I’m not saying that you’ll end up as some bullshit Horatio Alger success, but you’ll be better off than you started if you make good choices. Do you dispute that? (And what about you, playin’ risk? You down, son? You keepin’ it realz? Or do you just subscribe to Source?)

You also ascribe opinions to me that I never espoused. It’s laughable that corporate titans make 8 figure incomes. No one is that important. It’s also just tough shit that people’s jobs got outsourced, but unless you want to me a modern day luddite, you have to accept the fact that as technology changes, jobs change, industries change, and economies change. What’s next, are you going to shed tears for all the out-of-work transistor tube makers?

“millions of stupid voters have fallen for it.” I love the “I-figured-it-all-out-everyone-else-is-an-idiot” sentiment behind so many of the posts here. If you figured it all out, then why the fuck are you still here? And where else are you going to go where the same bullshit you hate so much is different? You talk about those “inferior” countries, (by the way to you mean Cuba, the Scandanavian nations, or New Zealand?) but if you think life is hunky-dory there and there’s an absence of elites, you’re a complete idiot. I’ve been to Cuba. One ruling class was substituted for another. I’ve been to Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. Those countries are pretty awesome, but your fooling yourself if you think they are that much different than the U.S. They used to be homogenous, but with the influx of Turkish and other Islamic immigrants in the past 15 years, they aren’t as idyllic as they used to be. In fact there is just as strong of an anti-immigrant feeling there as here. And many native Scandies are dumbstruck that the Turks are more than willing to get on the dole and not work. It’s inconceivable to them.

Anyway, if those countries weren’t the ones you were thinking of, please let me know which ones you were thinking of. You rattled off a list of great things in those inferior countries, but no country is as large and diverse as the U.S. Sure, you can toss out China, but if you hate elites, than you’ll detests China. India is big too, but it’s still a shithole despite it’s recent economic advacement. But please counter with specifice examples.