Jason Miller, Author at Progress Pond

Hope, Change, and Pissing in the Wind

“Of Obama, Democrats, and the Power Elite”

By Patrice Greanville and Jason Miller

CHARISMATIC, ARTICULATE, SMOOTH, AND INTELLIGENT, Barrack Obama is the living embodiment of his vague, ethereal, and tantalizing messages of “hope” and “change.” To the millions upon millions of US Americans desperate to purge the naked imperialism and blatant criminality of the Bush administration from the White House, Obama IS hope and change. Yet like many establishment liberals before him, Obama is no cure for the malignant creep toward fascism plaguing our nation. If elected, at best he will merely serve to postpone the inevitable a bit.

To understand why Obama and the ilk he took with him to DC would be little or no better than the human excrement currently occupying the tangible, visible positions of power in the US, let’s examine various facets of Obama(1) and of our rotten-to-the-core sociopolitical and socioeconomic systems.

Issue one is that Obama or no Obama, we are still stuck with a bourgeois democracy. Which means that despite all the rhetoric and mythologies about equality, freedom, meritocracy, opportunity, and a host of other lies that placate the masses and maintain the social order, the United States is a nation of the rich, by the rich and for the rich.

Even if we suspend our critique of Obama for a moment and pretend he is a man of saintly virtue, trusting an Obama or a JFK or whomever to do the right thing by the nation, the environment, the people, etc. rests on the assumption that the American president is indeed an all-powerful figure capable of enacting or precipitating policies of tremendous consequence for the country. This illusion holds when the person in the executive office is moving within the traditional confines, values and methods of the capitalist system, which even such a “radical” as FDR observed. In such a case, the media would not align and uniformly attack him and there would not be a capital strike (as savage capitalism has waged against true left reformers like Allende); we’d just see a sectoral division within the ruling class, and factions would develop–but the policy dialogue would remain within the historically acceptable parameters of capitalists elites. Their principal interest would be to maintain and preserve as many of their privileges and as much of their way of life as possible. That was fine for FDR’s time.

However, let’s look at the larger picture we traverse today.

In the current circumstances we face, we see a rapidly degenerating empire, in which the logical evisceration of FORMAL aspects of democracy proceeds accordingly. The prospect is for endless wars, more super-exploitation of the planet, and so on. If any “remedial” policies are implemented against judicial abuse, planetary death, or human/non-human animal exploitation in various contexts, these cannot take hold and neutralize the overarching slide toward worse because “toward worse” is embedded in the dynamics of the system–and how could it be otherwise in a socioeconomic structure premised on greed and selfishness? There are systemic contradictions at play that almost force the hand of capitalists to do what they do-for example they are now trying to roll back the social democratic gains of the European working class during the postwar period. Merkel, Brown, Berlusconi, and Sarkozy are no accidents. They represent the concerted effort of the European bourgeoisie, egged on by the American elites(2), to push back on the working class and take it all back under the pretext of “remaining competitive” and a plethora of other fraudulent reasons.

Capitalism faces insoluble issues. As the world’s population continues to grow, it cannot hope to cure unemployment–ever- because the dynamic of modern capitalist industry is toward ever larger portions of machine labor replacing human labor. Neither science nor technology can be stopped. And advancing technology naturally makes work production routines continuously more efficient, thereby reducing the need for human workers. This phenomenon can be seen nearly everywhere now (it was always there lurking right under the surface, but remained hidden from most via cultivated ignorance, lies, and the complicity of the media) including in “cheap labor” zones such as India and China, which at last count had more than 150 million unemployed. In many places in Europe one paycheck has to be spread among 2 or even 3 “employed” workers. That means that 2 jobs have vanished and the fiction of smaller unemployment is kept alive by musical chairs, a trick which is becoming increasingly transparent to many.

The American people, in keeping with their reputation as the most misinformed people on the planet, have been the slowest to recognize that as citizens of a clearly fibrillating bourgeois democracy they are perpetually teetering on the brink of fascism. Meanwhile, while the world edges ever closer to the edge, the media-including those revered phonies on the PBS Lehrer Newshour–rarely talk about these things and the politicians even less (both out of sheer ignorance and a sense that such topics are taboo), which enables the cancer to grow unchecked. What we do receive are fictions like those of Robert Reich and his ilk, who go about preaching the pseudocure of “better education” and job retraining for technological unemployment. Reich-a terrifically intelligent fellow–may really believe his own message, but either way, it doesn’t matter because the solution is no solution. This is not to say that under any and all circumstances it’s not better to be educated. However the structural aspects of a capitalist economy at this point make that posture moot: all the titles in the world will not get you a job when the economy says it needs only 5 PhDs and 10 skilled technicians while there are 25,000 PhDs and 15 million technicians clamoring for jobs. (Check out Jeremy Rifkin’s THE END OF WORK, to get a taste of what this is all about).

Those who bank on stopping the slide to fascism through a liberal president are deluding themselves, because the American president is powerful ONLY when he’s playing with the consent of most of the ruling class and the institutions it controls. Such personal power deflates rapidly when playing against the values and consensus of the US power elite, at which point a “rogue president” would likely suffer a wave of opposition that would literally bring them down-via impeachment or through a coup orchestrated during a state of tumult created by capital strikes, agents provocateurs, and the media. Not to mention even a military takeover.

Further, we must recall that the slide to fascism is both a witting and unwitting choice by the bourgeoisie in power. The very essence of capitalism is anarchy: anarchy in production, anarchy in distribution and so on. Military precision may rule the day within each business entity, but from the larger societal perspective there is little coordination, only the selfish pursuits of the companies in play. Hence the horrific duplication and waste we see. For example, in the health care sector up to 1/3 of costs are squandered on paper-shuffling. None of this is likely to change until one deals with the fatal flaws of capitalism, which an Obama is about as likely to do as a lion is to go vegetarian.

Remember that FDR’s reforms (FDR representing the classic example of the “savior” liberal president), radical as they seem now (and denounced at the time by many fellow capitalists as sheer communism and rank “class betrayal”) were never such; they were just realistic measures to save the store that remained at all times totally respectful of the rights of private big business property. Thus FDR never really went deep into the question of workplace democracy, production choices, income distribution, or many other issues that would have meant a true clash of class interests. And the War of course obscured all that. Sure, FDR entered the war against the Axis, and MOMENTARILY a segment of official propaganda shifted to demonize the Germans and Japanese insteads of the “Reds”, but those were not so much antifascist/anti-imperialist sentiments as nationalist power calculations.

The above means that if the ruling cliques deem it necessary to take the “nice mask” of democracy off (a big gamble since they may never restore the “legitimacy” they retain through this ruse), it will happen, no matter who’s nominally in charge at the White House. In the case of the Bush/Cheney duo, they were born to stage the perfect friendly fascist coup and have almost pulled it off in slow motion over the last eight years. But if confronted with a less cooperative president, the power elite would find a way to neutralize him. We’re dealing with a huge cast of actors here, many with colossal stakes, and who have enormous resources at their disposal to create all sorts of mischief, which they have done at taxpayer expense all over the world for years. These criminals will not give up their accustomed ways without a fight. In fact, they will do as Bush/Cheney have done and go on the offensive in a nearly transparent way.

What the world needs–desperately (and we are using this word sans hyperbole here) are dramatic changes in policies and top personnel and new models of advanced democratic enfranchisement. That means real democratic restructuring, proportional representation, certifiable elections, workplace democracy, a disenfranchisement of the power and income rights of the reigning plutocracy, and an effective global program of ecological respect and sanity. Do you see that being initiated under ANY establishment politico, including “Mr. Change” himself? Do you see any of these radical (yet utterly necessary) changes being implemented without a HUGE fight from capital and its affiliated elites around the globe?

Even if, and that is a big if, Obama wanted to institute beneficent change, he would be facing impossible odds. Need proof? Consider one of the ugliest and most absurd contradictions of American capitalism. Despite frontpage acknowledgement by the crypto-fascist WSJ in 1973 that 68% of US Americans supported a universal, single-payer healthcare system, the fact that even fellow capitalist nations have such a system, and the reality that our existing health care system is ruining many capitalists in the US (especially those in the small and middle sectors but even making corporate giants like GM uncompetitive), the health of the masses remains tertiary to the profits of health-care industry giants and to the availability of the gold standard in health care to a relative few. Think Obama and his family don’t have the best medical care known to man?

The American people must de-link themselves from our farcical presidential election circus, turn their eyes to a different kind of electoral politics, develop and field new forms of oppositional struggle, and create mass mobilization instruments such as a real popular party. In all these tasks, the Democrats like Obama just stand in the way, beguiling the people with illusions and sucking up precious oxygen. That long journey has to be made, and the sooner the better. Trying to avoid the arrival of fascism by appealing to the “good cop” of the bourgeoisie is an illusion; fascism can only be stopped when the masses are organized–and fully aware.

Some think we gain time for such organization under the Democrats. Problem is, the Democrats and their half measures that appear to thwart the capitalist juggernaut are what keeps the masses enthralled with the system and in effect dissuade them from joining the struggle against it. The public will not do what needs to be done until professional and charismatic charlatans like Obama are revealed for what they are. Band-aid solutions by the Democrats will not stop the slide toward the disaster and chaos guaranteed by the dynamics of the system.

Simply look at what has happened with the subprime crisis, an abortion that wriggled and writhed its way directly from the foul womb of a freewheeling, mature, ultra-cynical crony capitalism. It was a deep-rooted phenomenon that happened as inevitably as the transformation of undifferentiated cells into cancers. Politicians could not see it or stop it because that’s not their job under the traditional task distribution of the system.

Obama or anyone else in the establishment can’t cure the myriad ills of capitalism. These ills can never be cured from within or through playing by the accepted rules of the world’s plutocracy. That’s why all American politicians are into tinkering and superficialities. Their programs and “solutions” to the most glaring and obvious aspects of a severely broken system are complex, almost ludicrous Rube Goldberg contraptions (the health system comes to mind yet again). Obama and his fellow liberals are incredible illusionists: they give the people the distinct impression they are acting to cure the very disease that provides the life-blood to the opulent class whose interests they strive so hard to preserve. This would be obvious to most US Americans and the WaPo, the WSJ, CBS, NBC, Fox, CNN, the NY Times and even the CIA headquarters would have been stoned and razed to the ground already if so many of us were not braindead and kept in that vegetative state by the corporate media, an entity that more aware Latin Americans justly call, the “falsimedia.”

So if Obama-let alone Hillary-won’t and can’t guarantee the defeat of friendly-fascism in America, what’s the point? Sure, Obama very intelligently trades on HOPE. And many people, us included, are always loath to give up on hope. Hope is a powerful drug. Cyrano is in itself a work of HOPE. So this is tricky territory.

But hope must always be tempered with reason, especially in politics and war. And no reasonable human being could conclude that putting Obama at the helm of the USS Titanic will avert disaster for anyone but him and his cronies in the first class berths.

Suddenly Ralph Nader doesn’t sound like such a ridiculous option, unless you’re a plutocrat or a corporado.

Patrice Greanville is Cyrano’s Journal Online’s founder and editor in chief. Jason Miller is CJO’s Associate Editor and Editorial Director of Thomas Paine’s Corner, Cyrano’s largest blog.

Meat’s Meat….So Let’s Eat

By Jason Miller

Click on the link below to see the hard-hitting photos that accompany this essay:

http://www.bestcyrano.org/THOMASPAINE/?p=566

Canine. It’s what’s for dinner.

We pride ourselves on our devotion to the principle of equality here in the United States, so it’s time to put our values where our mouths are, so to speak. Pigs, chickens, cows, and the like already endure abject suffering so we can consume their flesh, so it is only fair that we include “man’s best friend.” How could they better prove their deep loyalty to us than by sacrificing their lives to feed us?
There is plenty of room on our plates to accommodate a few slices of Lassie. Even here in our resource-hog of a nation people experience hunger. Why not run a hundred million or so Rovers through the meat industrial complex each year? We have no reservations about torturing and slaughtering billions of other sentient beings to satiate our lust for meat. Research has indicated that pigs are actually more intelligent than dogs and thus would be more conscious of their misery. So there is no valid moral objection.

Our capacity to immunize ourselves from conscience and compassion as we greedily devour the flesh of non-human animals (who experienced pain beyond the scope of our imaginations so that we might savor their cooked remains) will serve us well if we implement this solution to the problem of hunger (both here and abroad). In some nations, dog meat is already prized as a delicacy, so we’d be in for a real treat!

Being the good little capitalists that we are, we need to determine the most profitable means to deliver “dog food” to our tables. After all, we are all about the “freedom” to generate profit and protect our sacrosanct property rights. We do manage to slightly conceal our greed and selfishness with a thin veneer of faux compassion–hence our “helping solve world hunger” rationale. Yet we know that ultimately the dogs we butcher will simply be another means to enhance the wealth of the power elite so that the excess can trickle down to the rest of us.

Obviously, the “good folks” running Tyson and Smithfield Foods will need a large infusion of canines to seed the factory farms they will construct to begin mass production and distribution of dog meat. A federal law requiring dog owners to sell their pets to these benevolent corporate entities at a fair price, a strident effort to capture strays, and emptying animal shelters will certainly give them the “livestock” they need to ramp up production to please our palates. Since consumers will be the ultimate beneficiaries of this wonderful addition to our culinary choices, it will make sense to use federal tax dollars to subsidize our meat packers’ acquisition of their initial stock AND their construction of the facilities necessary to add such a delicious addition to our menus.

Fast food restaurants, the progenitors and principal beneficiaries of factory farming, need to get on board with our newest source of meat very quickly. It will be essential that McDonald’s roll out something along the lines of a McBark at the very early stages of this endeavor. Burger King’s version might be called the Whoofer. Branding issues aside, the shock troops of the animal flesh consumption industry will need to divert their formidable resources toward selling consumers on eating their former companions.

Once we have the dogs and factory farms in place, we will need to implement the actual logistics of breeding, raising, and slaughtering our former pets and future meals. Since dogs are intellectually superior to cattle yet slightly inferior to pigs, perhaps we would be wise to model our canine processing system after the pork industry.

We will need to keep large numbers of bitches in a state of near perpetual pregnancy. To keep costs low, we will want to cram as many of these mother dogs into as small a space as possible. They don’t need to turn around or even move really. As long as we supply them with a cheap source of food (i.e. ground-up waste product from the slaughter house floor–theirs will truly be a “dog eat dog world”), water, and heavy doses of antibiotics, they will remain fertile enough to yield substantial numbers of pups and healthy enough to eat later.

Given their intellect, the dogs will probably suffer similar mental disturbances as pigs do in such confined quarters, which means they will become dangerously aggressive and a threat to themselves and others. Hence we will need to remove their teeth. Anesthetizing them would create an unnecessary expense, so we will simply put them in restraints, yank out their choppers, and cauterize them to stop the bleeding and prevent infection.

If our dogs (male and female alike) suffer wounds in their miniscule holding pens whilst they await their turn to fill our stomachs, we won’t waste time or money tending to them. Pigs suffer through the loss of body parts, broken legs, and ulcerated wounds, so there’s no reason to increase our costs by tending to the injured. A certain percentage of our stock will die, but they will provide fodder for the survivors. The stench emanating from the cankerous sores, feces, urine, and rotting corpses will be immense, but like their brethren pigs who also have highly developed senses of smell, the dogs will simply need to live with the fetid air and pneumonia they develop. As human beings, our desires for meat and profit preclude the possibility of ending the unnecessary suffering we inflict upon sentient creatures.

Once a dog has been appropriately aged and fattened to maximize taste and profit, we will load it onto a ventilated truck packed with as many dogs as possible without causing significant numbers of deaths by trampling or asphyxiation. Handlers will be trained to beat uncooperative dogs into submission with heavy steel rods. Or for those workers who have “bleeding hearts,” they can humanely stick electric cattle prods into the dogs’ rectums.

Upon arrival at the slaughter facility, the dogs who haven’t frozen to death or died of heat exhaustion, thirst, or suffocation will be man-handled off the truck (so as to keep them submissive) and forced to the kill floor. “Downers” (dogs too injured or sick to walk) will be dragged to their deaths. Euthanizing dying dogs will be out of the question because then we could not legally sell their flesh for consumption.

Ridiculous animal welfare laws will require that we stun the dogs before we kill them, but there is no legal mandate that we make certain they are unconscious. As with pigs, many dogs will probably remain conscious as they are scalded to death in the tanks that will soften their skin and remove their fur (or they may feel the searing pain of the blow torch if we opt to go that route to remove their hair).

Other kill options available include chaining their hind legs, suspending them from an overhead conveyor and slitting their throats; snapping their necks (employees with heavy boots can simply stomp on them) and skinning them alive if we determine their pelts have commercial value; or impaling them in the head with a retractable four inch nail.

After our former best friends are dead, bled, gutted, boned, sliced and diced, their tasty flesh will be coming to a supermarket or restaurant near you. Let’s put this plan in motion and make the mythical “man bites dog” story a reality!

[Inspired by Jonathan Swift, this animal liberationist and vegetarian essayist is dedicating the above satirical piece to the Animal Liberation Front and their courageous efforts in the face of the apathy, ignorance, and savagery of rampant and deeply ingrained speciesism. The ALF has been labeled as a “terrorist” organization by a system and society that value property, profit, and the human comfort of a relative few over most non-human animals and many human beings. This essayist and social activist fully supports and endorses the actions of the ALF as long as they don’t take human or non-human animal lives. As founder and editor of Thomas Paine’s Corner, he offers his little piece of real estate on the Internet to the ALF whenever they need a place to communicate with the world. And come to think of it, since they are an underground operation operating in cells of a few people, this agitator could be a part of the ALF. But we’ll leave that for the FBI, ATF, NSA, DHS, or the rest of the alphabet soup of agencies protecting our rights as Americans to fuck the rest of the world to determine.]

Jason Miller is a recovering US American middle class suburbanite who strives to remain intellectually free. He is Cyrano’s Journal Online’s associate editor (http://www.bestcyrano.org/) and publishes Thomas Paine’s Corner within Cyrano’s at http://www.bestcyrano.org/THOMASPAINE/. You can reach him at JMiller@bestcyrano.com

Ron Paul in 2008? Just Say No to Dr. No

By Jason Miller

Thomas Paine’s Corner

http://www.bestcyrano.org/THOMASPAINE/?p=515

“Capitalism is the legitimate racket of the ruling class.”

–Al Capone

It has taken Nuremberg-class war crimes, craven ineptitude by Congressional Democrats, foreclosures on every other home in the neighborhood, and a metaphorical gun to our heads when we fill our gas tanks, but growing numbers of us US Americans are shedding our smug insularity.
“Ron Paul in 2008” has become the mantra for untold millions who are realizing that the establishment in the United States is an abomination that needs to be torn down and replaced. Ostensibly, Dr. Paul is the populist maverick we need to shake up the system and set our nation on a path to sanity and viability. His political coffers are overflowing with cash, almost none of which came from corporate or “special” interests. He is principled and consistent. And his position on a number of important issues aligns with the interests of the masses.

When he appeared on Meet the Press on December 23rd, even Tim Russert, one of the system’s most prominent cheerleading whores, couldn’t rattle him. It would certainly have been difficult not to admire Paul’s frontal assault on a number of the “sacred cows” that Russert and his ilk in the mainstream media work so hard to defend.

Consider several of the broad-sides Paul leveled against our malignant status quo:

[MR. RUSSERT: Would you cut off all foreign aid to Israel?

REP. PAUL: Absolutely.

REP. PAUL: They don’t come here to attack us because we’re rich and we’re free. They come and they, and they attack us because we’re over there.

MR. RUSSERT: “Because we’re over there.” And then you added this on Tuesday: “But” al-qaeda has “determination. The determination comes from being provoked.”
How have we, the United States, provoked al-Qaeda?

REP. PAUL: Well, read what the lead-the ringleader says. Read what Osama bin Laden said. We had, we had a base, you know, in Saudi Arabia that was an affront to their religion, that was blasphemy as far as they were concerned. We were bombing Iraq for 10 years, we were-we’ve interfered in Iran since 1953. Our CIA’s been involved in the overthrow of their governments. We’re bought right now in the process of overthrowing that nation. We side more with Israel and Pakistan, and, and they get annoyed with this. How would we react if we were on their land-if they were on our land? We would be very annoyed, and we’d be fighting mad.

MR. RUSSERT: Do you think there’s an ideological struggle that Islamic fascists want to take over the world?

REP. PAUL: Oh, I think some, just like the West is wanting to do that all the time. Look at the way they look at us. I mean, we’re in a, we’re in a 130 countries. We have 700 bases. How do you think they proposed that to their people, saying “What does America want to do? Are they over here to be nice to us and teach us how to be good Democrats?”

REP PAUL: ….But the point is I’m not against the FBI investigation in doing a proper role, but I’m against the FBI spying on people like Martin Luther King. I’m against the CIA fighting secret wars and overthrowing government and interfering…]

Amen to ending over a hundred years of imperialistic foreign policy, breaking up the military industrial complex, cutting off our financial and military support of the genocidal squatters in Palestine, and reining in the torturers and assassins in our “intelligence” community. His pursuit of these goals is certainly an objectively sound reason to support Ron Paul.

Yet despite these highly laudable positions, Paul is potentially as treacherous as the creatures of the system most of us have come to loathe. Compared to opportunistic moneyed elites like Mitt Romney or Hillary Clinton, Paul is indeed an alluring candidate.

However, he has at least one very deep flaw which would almost certainly make his presidency an unmitigated disaster for the poor and the working class the world over:

Ron Paul ardently supports the libertarian notions of laissez faire, free markets, deregulation, and privatization. In an ironic and almost comical twist, the imperialism, corporatism, and prefigurements of fascism he has so accurately identified (and vowed to eradicate) are symptoms of monopoly capitalism, a mature form of the system that his libertarian principles would serve to buttress and amplify.

In “The Shock Doctrine” Naomi Klein amply documents the widespread murder, mayhem, and misery caused by implementing a libertarian economic doctrine (as the United States facilitated under the tutelage of Milton Friedman and his acolytes) throughout South America, Southeast Asia, Russia, and China. Savage capitalism at its finest. And for evidence that it CAN happen here (in our “enlightened” Western culture), one need only look back to the Gilded Age and Dickensonian England.

Regardless of how malformed it was due to the relentless pressure applied by the United States via the nuclear arms race we initiated to break it and our HUGE economic advantages, the Soviet Union represented a powerful counter-balance to the forces of unrestrained capitalism. Upon its collapse, the capitalists of the world united and set out to eliminate the hard fought gains the working class had made throughout the Twentieth Century. And Dr. Paul wants to hand those cynical bastards the keys to the kingdom by dismantling what is left of government restraints on the bourgeoisie.

Contrary to the agenda advanced by Ron Paul, “all government” is not inherently evil. It is true that the federal government we have now is an enemy to the masses in many respects. But Uncle Sam is not our foe because he “over-regulates” the parasitic capitalists who are raping the planet, “steals” our money through taxation, or acts as a “nanny state” by providing what has become a nominal safety net for the poor and elderly, as Paul suggests. He is our adversary because he is looking out for the wealthy elite and views people like you and me as disposable. In contrast to Lincoln’s vision–“of the people, by the people and for the people,” we have a government of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich.

While Ron Paul MIGHT be able to slay the dragons of the military industrial complex and undue Zionist influence, his adherence to a “prehistoric” form of capitalism has the potential to essentially eliminate what is left of the rapidly eroding gains the working class and poor have made over the last century.

Despite his apparent opposition to the powers that be, a vote for Ron Paul is still a vote for our continued enslavement by a system predicated on greed, selfishness, and the prosperity of the few at the expense of the many. In fact, unless by some miracle a viable candidate who opposes capitalism actually emerges, the act of voting in our bourgeois democracy is little more than a validation of our servitude.

So don’t participate. Our ruling elite can’t mouth hollow platitudes about democracy if they don’t have voters.

Lies, Injustice and the Capitalist Way: We’re on the Highway to Hell–Don’t Stop Us!

By Jason Miller

Thomas Paine’s Corner

http://www.bestcyrano.org/THOMASPAINE/?p=502

We “Free World” capitalistic Westerners are a loathsome lot–or to put it more crudely, we suck. When one considers how degenerate we are from a collective standpoint, it is difficult to suppress intense feelings of disgust and contempt. There are many layers to our repugnant, depraved, and “beloved” capitalism, a socioeconomic system which ultimately furnishes the members of its upper echelon with de facto licenses to exploit, plunder, and murder with impunity. Problem is that as one peels back each successive layer hoping to find some purity, one finds a more profound rot.
We have fouled our own environment to the point that recovery and renewal may be impossible; we eradicate non-human animals at an estimated rate of 100 species per day; we slaughter millions upon millions of human beings in wars of imperial aggression driven by capitalism’s insatiable demand for resources and market expansion; we torture and slaughter billions of non-human animals to please our palates; and we insist upon imposing a system of infinite demand upon an all too finite planet.

Yet despite our multi-century “bender” and its obvious consequences, and despite the rational, egalitarian, just, and sustainable alternative which sprung from the minds of Marx and Engels (along with countless others who have contributed to the evolution of their brainchild), we cling to an abomination whose chief benefactors (the ruling class and their sycophantic propagandists in the mainstream media) deserve to be publicly flogged and then imprisoned in the gulag they devised to control the lower classes and black population.

Our collective selfishness, self-absorption, narcissism, greed, and mean-spiritedness are psychic malformations wrought by the wretched systemic exploitation we hold so dear to our withered, Grinch-like hearts. Smug and self-satisfied in our deeply rooted belief in the idiocy that despicable character traits like greed and selfishness can be harnessed in such a way that they provide virtuous means to benevolent ends, we revel in the delusion that the tremendous effort necessary to nurture the human spirit is a waste of time. The uglier and coarser we become on the inside, the greater our likelihood of achieving “success” by the standards of our soul-murdering society. Our worship of a man like Donald Trump as a cultural icon demonstrates how spiritually perverse we have become.

Apologists argue that “true capitalism” doesn’t exist because we have a “mixed economy.” It isn’t enough that one of the most affluent societies in history has 3.5 million homeless human beings, 46 million people without a viable means to attain proper healthcare, deteriorating public infrastructures, a wealth gap that would prick the consciences of the Robber Barons, larcenous CEO compensation, economic apartheid, and trillions of dollars of public money devoted to funding a murderous military machine that serves to ensure that our bourgeois parasites have uninterrupted access to the resources and markets they crave. According to wild-eyed libertarians and our blood-sucking plutocracy, we still need to root out the “socialist” elements that are contaminating our “sacred” free market. You know, that “free market” that inflicted abject misery upon the masses in the United States during the Gilded Age, throughout South America under the tutelage of the human pile of feces known as Milton Friedman (may Satan torment his soul), and in present day China. The excesses, irrationalities, and corrupt nature of capitalism are destroying the world. So let’s implement a more extreme form. What a brilliant notion!

As transparently ridiculous as it is, many amongst the poor and working class in the United States (a group which comprises about 80% of the population) continue to pledge their undying allegiance to a system in which they are merely cogs and cannon fodder serving at the pleasure of their opulent masters.

How have the cynical and ruthless ruling elite of the United States and the “Axis of Good” accomplished this seemingly impossible feat?

In breathtakingly simple fashion. Battering their “inferiors” with a dizzying array of cleverly crafted psychological assaults from cradle to grave, the plutocracy maintains the mass delusion that a system that exploits and impoverishes a majority of the population, rapes the Earth, and necessitates endless resource wars represents the pinnacle of our socioeconomic development.

Many of us suffer from such a deeply fractured (or perhaps butchered) consciousness that even when presented with a humane and sane alternative to the malevolent insanity of capitalism, we still rally to the cause of our bourgeois oppressors. What “patriotic American” isn’t on board with vilifying, blockading, crippling, “regime-changing,” and even invading nearly any nation that dares to implement a system that even remotely resembles socialism, Marxism, or worst of all, Communism? Uh-oh! Hugo Chavez’s social uplift programs are threatening the interests of the millionaires and billionaires of Venezuela (wretched people who have been fucking the poor of their nation for many years). Hurry! Everybody in the United States who is poor or working class! Let’s rush to side with the wealthy elite and support US-sponsored efforts to undermine and depose Chavez!

Deftly applying the superb agitprop techniques developed by Bernays, armies of advertisers, public relations “experts,” government-funded researchers, pundits, talk show hosts, “journalists,” and academics whore for the system to ensure that the masses remain in a perpetual state of moral delusion. How else could they hope to sustain a system that contradicts nearly every decent and humane instinct a human being possesses?

Consider that in the upside-down world the “keepers of the capitalist faith” have contrived, many vices and despicable human traits have been elevated to the status of virtue. Selfishness, avarice, ego, self-absorption, narcissism, careerism, winning at all costs, crushing the competition, the ruthless pursuit of profit, and gluttonous consumption are “all in a day’s work” for the good little capitalists of America. Even those who have broken free of their indoctrination and recognize the depravity of enshrining infantile, mean-spirited, and cruel behavior have little choice but to practice it in some instances simply to survive in our reprehensible “dog eat dog” environment.

Given that the Ministry of Truth can convert vice into virtue, it doesn’t take a tremendous mental leap to conclude they can also do the opposite. In adhering to the insidious indoctrination they provide, we are robbed of experiencing the full spectrum of our humanity because we have been trained to trivialize the aspects of ourselves that would pose a significant threat to the filthy status quo. Imagine the problems a large contingent of people of conscience would present to the sociopaths who routinely wield their immense economic power to engage in wholesale terrorism (i.e. the Iraqi genocide that began with the Gulf War, perpetuated with Clinton’s merciless economic sanctions, and continues to this very moment via the Bush Regime’s Nuremberg class war crimes). Thankfully for these soulless shells posing as human beings, most of the us in the United States have been bribed and brain-washed into complacency and complicity to the extent that with respect to the illegal occupation, we are flag wavers, indifferent by-standers, or protesters essentially rendered impotent by the overwhelming resources and might of the ruling class. Tragically, Bush and his ilk will probably never receive the trials and hangings they so richly deserve.

As we busy ourselves compulsively pursuing the acquisition of material possessions, looking out for number one, vying for promotions, building and preserving our egos, and gorging on the latest brain candy the mainstream media is peddling, who wants to “endure the agony” of engaging in introspection, thinking critically, educating oneself, acting on one’s conscience, empathizing, or pursuing a principled existence? Giving a damn isn’t worth the trouble when we can simply swallow the lies, take the bribes, and let the rest of the human and non-human animals of the world pay our outrageous bills (using their pain and blood as currency).

But we do need to realize that our path to hell isn’t paved with good intentions; we are racing along a road to perdition comprised of suffering, subjugation, oppression, theft, destruction, and wholesale murder.

We are riding alongside Angus and Malcolm Young on the “Highway to Hell.”

Moral Primitivism Anyone? A Satirical Examination of an Apologia for Industrialized Torture

“Again, if PETA is putting something out, I will always have my doubts – they see things one way and one way only. Theirs. In many ways the activists in this country are terrorists of a kind….” [Excerpt from an email written by a heavily indoctrinated and reactionary US American]

by Jason Miller

Thomas Paine’s Corner

http://www.bestcyrano.org/THOMASPAINE/?p=460

For a year now I have been an ethical vegetarian. Last Thanksgiving, I made what I thought was an enlightened moral decision to stop eating meat and to severely restrict my egg and dairy consumption. However, an email recently hit my inbox that presents such a powerful argument justifying the wanton torture and slaughter of animals (so we can please our palates) that my moral sensibilities and capacity to reason have been utterly disarmed. Signed with a cryptic “JC,” this missive pummeled me with points I had not even considered when I made what I now rightly view as my ridiculous decision to go “meatless.”
In fact, rarely a day goes by that I don’t catch scent of the pungent aroma of the famous Kansas City barbeque I still crave–one can barely travel a mile or two in KC without finding oneself in olfactory range of restaurants that prepare extraordinarily delicious servings of non-human animal flesh. I fully admit that I miss devouring tender, succulent sauce-drenched ribs, burnt ends, sliced beef, brisket….As I write this, I’m salivating like one of Pavlov’s dogs tethered to the Cathedral Tower in Limerick on a Sunday morning….

What an extraordinary dilemma JC has created for me. At times I am still consumed by an almost overwhelming temptation to indulge myself in the consumption of one of my fellow animals. Feasting on sentient beings that had endured tortured, miserable existences (existences that were mere warm-ups for the sheer savagery that awaited them in the slaughterhouse) was one of my favorite pastimes.

So the question is, do I continue denying myself the sublime pleasure of dining on animal tissue in order to appease my conscience, or do I embrace JC’s brilliant justification of meat consumption and satiate my hunger with a thick rare burger drowned in Heinz?

Allow me to examine and dissect some of JC’s eloquent and illuminating conclusions:

JC: “I can’t be held responsible for how turkeys or any animals are slaughtered. I’m never going to give up meat or fish or fowl, as our diet does require us to have protein and other nutrients that we receive from these products and I and many others enjoy eating them.”

So forget the notion of the banality of evil. As a consumer, even if I eat meat I am absolved of ALL responsibility for the unimaginable horrors the producers inflict upon factory-farmed animals from “cradle to grave.”

For Christ’s sake! I’ve been subsisting for over a year without said “protein and other nutrients” from meat! I am a miracle of modern science!

And I find it nearly impossible to disagree with JC’s statement that “I and many others enjoy eating them.” (The “them” being animals of course– I would be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy eating meat). As I was growing up my mother frequently confronted me with the question, “If everyone else jumped off a bridge would you do it too?” Obviously the “correct” response was “no.” Sorry, Mom, but JC’s lemming logic is a hell of a lot more enticing than going against the grain and “doing the right thing.” Screw that–I’ll have the porterhouse, please!

JC: “People have to eat and the bulk of their protein comes from animal sources. They have been doing it since the cave man and it isn’t going to stop anytime soon. Tofu just doesn’t cut it for most people as a meat substitute, nor those grotesque meat imitations made from veggie products and then shaped into meat like looking products.”

Now that is a truly impenetrable Maginot Line of reasoning. I can’t begin to argue with the assertion that people have to eat. And the bulk of my protein did indeed come from animal sources for about 39 years of my life. JC is a tough nut to crack! And to think I’ve actually been eating tofu and “those grotesque meat imitations made from veggie products and then shaped into meat like looking products.” I cannot imagine what I’ve been thinking. Hunks of blood-saturated animal flesh, fat, and muscle that at some point in the production process were commingled with various organs, hooves, fur, and shit-forget those “grotesque meat imitations.” I can really wrap my appetite around mutilated and raw animal parts that quickly rot if they aren’t refrigerated.

Sorry Bossy, Wilbur and feathered friends. Since we human animals don’t find “meat like looking products” to be delectable, we’re going to continue confining you in dark, cramped quarters throughout your rueful lives, pumping you full of a toxic stew of antibiotics and growth hormones, causing you to grow so rapidly that you become crippled, performing surgery on you with no anesthetic, ripping out your teeth and clipping off your beaks so that when you go insane from the conditions we keep you under you can attack your fellow victims without damaging our product, loading you into severely over-crowded trucks in which you will do without food or water for several days, and ultimately hanging you by your hind legs, slitting your throats, crushing your skulls, and boiling you to death.

Besides, consuming animal flesh worked well for Neanderthals and a mere 50,000 years have passed. Don’t rush us into making changes.

JC: “All the people that chose to eat vegetarian style to attempt to make a statement, can do so, but their numbers will never increase enough to make a difference in the amount of animals that are slaughtered. Its supply and demand and it appears that the demand is still there. I think a more riveting point in considering limiting human consumption of some of these products is to be more careful about the meat/fowl/fish one eats is because
of all the contamination w/ e.coli, salmonella & mercury. That to me, is the real concern.”

She’s right. Every last one of us who “eat vegetarian style” just wants “to make a statement.” It has NOTHING to do with ethics, moral or conscience. We’re just showing off, carving out a niche and making a name for ourselves. And there are so damn few of us that the immutable laws of capitalism (which all good libertarians from Texas KNOW were handed down to Moses along with the Ten Commandments) will inevitably prevail. It is God’s will that we adhere to the law of supply and demand as the chief guiding principle of humanity. So when JC so astutely observes, “it appears the demand is still there,” who are we humble herbivores to argue?

And what self-respecting speciesist inflated with the hubris of humanity’s inherent right to subjugate and exploit “lesser” beings wouldn’t agree with this gem from JC?

“I think a more riveting point in considering limiting human consumption of some of these products is to be more careful about the meat/fowl/fish one eats is because of all the contamination w/ e.coli, salmonella & mercury. That to me, is the real concern.”

Fuck the non-human animals. Humans are the REAL concern. Why didn’t I think of that before I wasted 12 months of prime meat-eating time? Keep brutalizing the cows, pigs and chickens. Just take care not to get sick when you eat them.

JC: “This is not one plight that I’m going to worry about – especially since itis an American tradition. If people want to eat plain lasagne for T-day or just a green bean casserole for any holiday they can certainly do so, but it isn’t something that I would personally choose to do.”

Inflicting unconscionable pain and abuse upon non-human animals so that we can eat them is an “American tradition.” JC is right! And you don’t fuck with traditions, especially American ones. Like bombing smaller countries into the Stone Age. Manifest destinying our way across the North American continent. Installing and supporting ruthless dictators who adhere to the Washington Consensus. Wielding our economic power like a cudgel to beat sovereign nations into submission. Lynching. Jim Crow. Slavery. Native American genocide. Just to name a few.

And I have to admit that there is something fundamentally flawed with anyone who would “want to eat plain lasagna for T-day or just a green bean casserole for any holiday.” That is just plain un-American. Let’s start carving that bird!

JC: “Again, if PETA is putting something out, I will always have my doubts – they see things one way and one way only. Theirs. In many ways the activists in this country are terrorists of a kind. They think they are more civilized in their behavior but they try to terrorize people “by educating them” to the extreme conditions some animals face and are unable to be reasoned with at all. Its their way or the highway.”

“If PETA is putting something out, I will always have my doubts – they see things one way and one way only.” Amen to that, JC. Simply examine their name. Can you imagine a more arrogant, rigid group than the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals? Thanks to JC’s email, I too am beginning to harbor many doubts about them. Where the hell do Ingrid Newkirk and her band of “terrorists of a kind” get off thinking they are “more civilized in their behavior?” As human beings, don’t we have the God-given right of dominion, which would mean we can abuse animals whenever we damn well please? And PETA members, don’t you dare terrorize us with your knowledge. The reality is that we enjoy eating the flesh of dead animals and the more ignorant of their pain we remain, the better. So PETA, you can take OUR way or the highway. I think you know where the meat-eating population wants you to shove your ethics. We’re broiling pork chops tonight!

So for a year now I have engaged in this rotten behavior known as vegetarianism. I have been depriving my body of protein, have been eating “grotesque” meat substitutes for no reason, have been violating sacred American traditions, have been “making a statement,” have been engaging in a form of elitism, and have been a “terrorist of a kind.” Somebody stop this bus! I want off!

Mea culpa!

And just how many pounds of meat must I consume before I am once again practicing the “American Way of Life” and reveling in its “non-negotiable” splendor?

Institutionalized Glorification of our Greed and Gluttony:

Thanksgiving Reflections of an Anti-Capitalist

By Jason Miller

Thomas Paine’s Corner

http://www.bestcyrano.org/THOMASPAINE/?p=453

Gluttony and greed kill more than the sword.

–Italian proverb

Gluttony and surfeiting are no proper occasions for thanksgiving.

~Charles Lamb, 1821

Another propaganda-driven greed-fest has nearly passed in the land of the corporatized and the home of the subservient. Obedient little wage slaves and consumers that most of us are (to varying degrees of course), we have once again dutifully greased the wheels of the monstrous capitalist machine and made our proper sacrifices at the altar of Mammon. Between our voracious inhalation of all manner of edibles to our obscene spree of rapacious spending using money eagerly fronted by the usurious kings of finance capital, Thanksgiving and Black Friday are celebratory days indeed for the moneyed elite comprising the allegedly non-existent ruling class in our “egalitarian” and “democratic” nation.
I celebrated Thanksgiving. However, I wasn’t bowing my head and expressing gratitude to the Calvinist God in which I am “supposed to” believe for the things for which I “should” be grateful. There was an interesting duality to my day as I contemplated that for which I feel a deep ingratitude and celebrated that which sparks my feelings of sincere gratitude.

The components of my “Thanklessgiving” included:

The trillions of OUR tax dollars OUR government spends each year attempting to attain global hegemony through nearly ubiquitous military bases, a nuclear arsenal large enough to obliterate the universe, and numerous ecocidal, genocidal invasions of ridiculously weaker nations which, fortunately, usually give us a bit of what we deserve by sending us home limping.
The US American Gulag, a penal system populated by over two million human beings. The “land of the free” has the largest number of incarcerated people in the world, even surpassing China, the most populous and allegedly most repressive nation in the world. Criminalizing select forms of self-medicating (those that predominate in the urban core Bantustans to which we have relegated much of our black population) has proven to be an efficient means of “legally” repressing black males. Meanwhile, alcohol, a drug which severely impairs judgment, lowers inhibitions, causes the bloody demise of over 16,000 innocents on our highways each year, and tends to increase the belligerence factor exponentially, remains quite legal and practically flows from the spigots of our homes. And we’re imprisoning people for the possession of marijuana?
Factory farms and the fast food industry that necessitated their genesis. Speciesism is a cancer that has long infected our collective thinking with the notion that we can selectively inflict wanton cruelty on non-human animals. Pigs are as intelligent as dogs (imagine the mass outrage if we began large-scale torture, mutilation, and consumption of family canines) yet we imprison them in such tight quarters for such extended periods that they go insane, treat sows as breeding machines, rip out their teeth without anesthetizing them, sometimes disembowel them with hooks through their anuses while they are alive, and at other times boil them to death while they are still conscious. Recently, the turkeys who suffered unimaginably painful lives and deaths (so their flesh could help expand the midriffs of scores of millions of human animals) experienced their own “thanksgiving” when their agonized existences finally came to an end. Instead of using the monster military (which We the Taxpayers have paid to create) as a means to murder untold millions of civilians who “are in the wrong place at the wrong time,” perhaps we would be better served to evacuate the human and non-human animals from the murderous slaughterhouses and thus finally facilitate the smart use of “smart bombs.”
The crypto-racism that continues to mar our sociocultural landscape like cesspools of toxic sludge. Aside from the aforementioned “War on Drugs” that targets black males and enables us to justify arming and supporting Latin American Right Wing dictators who foster an environment which allows our corporations to rape their nations, there is still a chasm of inequality between blacks and whites in terms of income, wealth, health, and education. The root causes of this gross injustice are myriad but include rampant covert racism (Jim Crow is not dead; he has simply gone incognito) and epidemic intergenerational poverty perpetuated by deplorable public education in predominately black schools and various other nearly insurmountable systemic impediments to climbing the socioeconomic ladder. And let’s not forget Lou Dobbs’ crusade against the Mexican migration to the US forced by neoliberal economic policies born of savage capitalism.
The War on Terror. A more appropriate name for this abomination would be “The War on Islamic People because many of their nations possess much of the oil that capitalism needs to continue fueling the engines of profit and endless growth and because many Muslims are furious that the Zionists stole Palestine.” I guess they went with the War on Terror because the true name is too cumbersome. If we stopped bankrolling the terrorist state of Israel, launching imperial invasions, installing and supporting ruthless regimes, and wielding our economic power like a cudgel, we would stop pissing off so many people and wouldn’t have the constant concern of angry victims employing asymmetric warfare against us.
The evisceration of our Constitution and steady march toward fascism. Bush’s signing statements, the Patriot Act and subsequent Orwellian legislation, the trend toward privatization of the military, the increasingly incestuous relationship between the public and private sectors, two consecutive stolen Presidential elections, Islamophobia, pathological nativism, and an ever-increasing obsession with militarism are the obvious symptoms of a nation plunging into an abyss not unlike that experienced by the Germans under the Nazi regime. While we are not there yet, we are certainly experiencing the prefigurements of “capitalism in decay.” Remember that Hitler and his cabal did not fully initiate the machinations of fascism overnight either.
The soul (and human and animal and Earth) murdering socioeconomic construct of capitalism. While it is true that selfishness, greed, narcissism, and the tendency to exploit are intrinsic to each human being, we choose to glorify, embrace, amplify and perpetuate a system that demands that we hone these characteristics like weapons in order to “succeed” within our malignant means of economic organization. Tragically, even those who recognize the infinite toxicity of such practices still need to employ them to some extent simply to survive.
The mainstream media and Madison Avenue. These entities are deeply complicit in crimes of the highest order, including the ongoing genocide in Iraq that has killed millions of people dating back to the Gulf War and the insatiable desire we US Americans have to acquire more “stuff” (also known as consumerism–a practice that is literally killing our planet). Crypto-fascist media outlets like Fox News and the endless stream of advertising blasted at us 24/7 serve the interests of our depraved moneyed elite well as they shepherd the masses to support and glorify the malevolent American Empire with sanguine enthusiasm.
The myth that “America doesn’t torture.” Sorry folks, but we have been doing it for quite some time. Abu Ghraib was no anomaly. MK-ULTRA was not about mind control. The CIA used the results of the horrifying abuse Dr. Ewen Cameron inflicted on his psychiatric patients to write Kubark, their manual on employing psychological torture. During the Vietnam War, the US employed Operation Phoenix, which included the routine use of torture and resulted in the deaths of over 20,000 Vietnamese. The School of Americas (now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation) at Fort Benning in Georgia has churned out over 60,000 Latin American Right Wing thugs trained to torture and murder any who dare challenge the sacred right of capitalists to rape and exploit our neighbors to the south, including saintly men like Archbishop Oscar Romero, who was gunned down for having the fortitude to stand up for the impoverished victims of US-sanctioned and financed death squads in El Salvador.
The existence of over one million homeless human beings in a nation awash in abundance. Our perverse system spends trillions of PUBLIC dollars on our leviathan killing apparatus yet we apply asinine palliatives, like the privately-funded Christian homeless shelter where I helped prepare and serve Thanksgiving dinner again this year, to feed and shelter our indigent and hungry brethren (many of whom are veterans who were brain-washed into serving in our imperial conquests and then kicked to the curb like yesterday’s garbage).

As I reveled in my role of ingrate to the Empire, I gave sincere thanks for:

Family and true friends.
Chandra
Patrice Greanville, the editor in chief of Cyrano’s Journal, who is also my friend, ally, and mentor.
My intellect, moral stamina and profound life experiences which have enabled me to shed my false consciousness and begin waging a sustained struggle against the many ravages of the cancer of capitalism and the American Empire.
The numerous anti-capitalist individuals, websites, publications, and groups with which I have become allied and affiliated.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, for providing us with the knowledge and tools to battle the exploitative, murderous abomination that is destroying the Earth.
Radicals throughout history, including Thomas Paine, Rosa Luxemburg, Emma Goldman, MLK, Malcolm X, Archbishop Romero, and many others.
The numerous brilliant and intellectually courageous contributors to Cyrano’s Journal and Thomas Paine’s Corner.
The Earth, its infinite beauty, and its capacity to sustain life.
Groups like PETA and the Animal Liberation Front. While I don’t formally militate with a specific group, I am a passionate animal liberationist. Collectively, we horrifically torture and slaughter billions of animals each year. While too far ahead of the consciousness curve to effect sweeping changes to the prevailing paradigm, “terrorist groups” like the ALF serve the movement well and their efforts are laudable.
Hamas, for the social service work it does on behalf of its horribly oppressed people and for its relentless struggle against US/Israeli efforts to eradicate the Palestinians.
Hugo Chavez, for catalyzing and perpetuating the Bolivarian Revolution as an alternative to the deeply entrenched Washington Consensus and for the huge strides he has made towards egalitarianism in Venezuela.
Fidel Castro, despite his imperfections (which have been ridiculously over-exaggerated by both the capitalist propaganda networks and the reactionary Gusanos), has remained steadfast in his defiance against US and capitalist domination of the Western Hemisphere and has launched numerous invasions of other nations with his army of physicians. Small wonder he invokes such fear in the tiny, shriveled hearts of capitalists and petite-bourgeoisie the world over.
The Internet, for providing a means for people of conscience to connect, network, and strive to give the masses an education to supplant their capitalist mind-fuck. Underestimating the importance of winning hearts and minds would be a gross miscalculation indeed for those of us who want to evoke significant social and political change for the better.

Yes, our social indoctrination to immerse ourselves in the “traditional activities” of Thanksgiving and Black Friday is premised on filthy lies, the torture of hundreds of millions of innocent birds, a celebration of the initiation of the Native American Genocide, an unconscionable waste of resources, and the insatiable greed of those atop the capitalist hierarchy. More nauseating than eating too much turkey, isn’t it?

Yet that doesn’t mean that we can’t opt out of “the great American tradition,” use the time to experience gratitude for those aspects of our existence which are truly meaningful, and commit ourselves to the struggle against the beast that is devouring them.

Mentes Peligrosas: Confession of an American Thought Criminal

By Jason Miller

Thomas Paine’s Corner

http://www.bestcyrano.org/THOMASPAINE/?p=436

“Thoughtcrime does not entail death: thoughtcrime IS death.”

-Winston Smith from George Orwell’s 1984

If you needed more evidence that most of our “esteemed” members of Congress are members of a criminal class of ruling elites, who regard the likes of us in the poor and working classes with the disdain most people reserve for cockroaches, look no further than H.R. 1955.

93% of the filth “representing” us in the House voted in favor of the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007. Once this vile piece of legislation sails through the Senate and the sociopath on Pennsylvania Ave gleefully slaps his endorsement on it, the mechanisms will be in place for our lords and masters to initiate programs that will make Cointelpro and the murder of Fred Hampton look like child’s play.

According to our “betters” amongst the US plutocracy, we can’t afford the “luxury” of dissent. We are waging war on terrorism, a threat to the continued existence of the American Way of Life, which we know to be non-negotiable. Besides, dissidents simply present an obstacle to the wholesale terrorism we are inflicting on entire nations so that we can bring them “freedom and democracy.” As Bill O’Reilly suggested on Faux News last night, the only “sane thing” to do is to support the troops. And war protestors need to be arrested. So whether we are committing heinous war crimes or not, ignore your conscience, root for the home team, thank a vet and shut the fuck up!

Under the soon-to-be law Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007, state and local police will join forces with the FBI, DHS, ICE, and like fascist entities to eradicate ideologies, plans, Internet “terrorist-related propaganda,” and any other “noxious weeds” which might spring forth to “threaten” the “aesthetics” of the immaculate grounds of our glorious corporatocracy, amply fertilized by the corpses of the millions of victims of our imperial and neoliberal conquests.

Within the Orwellian construct of H.R. 1955, I have not decided whether I am a violent radical or a homegrown terrorist. Perhaps the powers that be will deem that I am both. Were I neither, that would mean that I had sold my soul and taken the last refuge of a scoundrel. What a nightmare that would be!

Yes, America, I am a thought criminal. Consider my confession:

While I have deep reservations about the death penalty for a number of reasons, I will gladly suspend those misgivings once the gradually intensifying social unrest reaches critical mass. Little would please me more than to see the likes of Bush, Cheney, Condi, O’Reilly, Perle, Clarence Thomas, Bolton, Negroponte and a host of others who have committed and enabled some of the most grievous crimes in history dangling lifelessly from the end of a rope.
I view Zionism as a mental disease. The criminal apparatuses which pass themselves off as governmental structures in DC and Jerusalem do need to be “wiped off the map.” A majority of the constituencies in both the US and Israel view their governments with disgust and contempt. Both ruling bodies are infected with supporters of the Zionist plague and frequently implement policies which serve to inflict abject misery on millions of human beings.
While I am not a direct participant, I wish the Animal Liberation Front great success in their endeavors. Under our depraved system of capitalism, the property ALF destroys and the profits they stymie are sacred. Yet the billions of sentient beings they champion are mere objects which we can wantonly subject to maiming, torture and death.
I loath the Holocaust industry. Zionists have hijacked and exploited a horrific tragedy, cynically employed it to enact their own ethnic cleansing against the Palestinians, and used it as a justification for the continued existence of the monstrous state of Israel. While it is profoundly tragic that the Nazis tortured and murdered so many Jews, there were also significant numbers of Romas, homosexuals, and socialists who suffered similar fates. Besides, there have been many genocides throughout human history, including the one we have been inflicting upon Iraqis through the Gulf War, Clinton’s heinous economic sanctions, and the present illegal occupation.
I long for the collapse of the American Empire. While we can’t predict what will arise to fill the ensuing vacuum, at least it will present an opportunity for us to create a more humane and just sociopolitical order.
I believe the world would be a much better place if Wall Street and Madison Avenue ceased to exist. The greed, narcissism, and exploitation spewing forth from the entities and industries they represent are toxins to the human soul.
I admire and support demonized people and entities such as Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, and Hamas as true champions of victimized people. Our ruling class portrays them as “threats” and “terrorists” because they have the cajones to stand up to the biggest, meanest, and most powerful bullies in history. Are they perfect? No. Are they admirable? Definitely.
I despise the American flag. Since 9/11, it’s nearly ubiquitous presence has helped foster a cancerous form of patriotism and nativism. The “Stars and Stripes” has become a symbol of imperialism, oppression, and state terrorism. And yes, I have burned an American flag.
I consider capitalism to be an abomination and a crime against humanity, the rest of the sentient beings on the planet, and the Earth. I am aggressively pursuing its demise through my intellectual efforts, including writing, educating, motivating, and publishing on my brain-child, Thomas Paine’s Corner at http://www.bestcyrano.org/thomaspaine/.
I have known, befriended, and helped so-called “illegal” immigrants, and will continue to do so. People flooding the United States from Mexico are doing so because of the abject poverty caused by our neoliberal economic terrorism, NAFTA, and our support of their right wing oligarchs who joyfully implement the Washington Consensus, a recipe for misery for the poor and working class amongst their people. “Illegal immigration” is a forced migration caused by the ever-growing hubris and avarice of our moneyed elite.

Much to the chagrin of those of you who remain enslaved by the intellectual chains of your indoctrination or who are dedicated reactionaries, I have as much right to remain in the United States as you do. And I’m not going anywhere voluntarily. So save your emails offering me passage on a slow boat to Russia. One thing we can probably agree upon though is the sanctity of the Second Amendment. My .38 caliber and 12 gauge are ready. Just in case I need to exercise my right to defend family, hearth and home.

Meanwhile, let’s see if a thought criminal like me, who has committed no felonies, has no history of violence, and has formulated no plans to foment violence or engage in violent acts becomes a target of the Bush Regime’s Orwellian apparatus once they have read my confession.

Jason Miller is a wage slave of the American Empire who has freed himself intellectually and spiritually. He is Cyrano’s Journal Online’s associate editor (http://www.bestcyrano.org/) and publishes Thomas Paine’s Corner within Cyrano’s at http://www.bestcyrano.org/THOMASPAINE/. You can reach him at JMiller@bestcyrano.com

Shouting at the Devil: "Fuck You, Capitalism!"

By Jason Miller

Thomas Paine’s Corner

http://www.bestcyrano.org/THOMASPAINE/?p=407

“America touts itself as the land of the free, but the number one freedom that you and I have is the freedom to enter into a subservient role in the workplace. Once you exercise this freedom you’ve lost all control over what you do, what is produced, and how it is produced. And in the end, the product doesn’t belong to you. The only way you can avoid bosses and jobs is if you don’t care about making a living. Which leads to the second freedom: the freedom to starve.”

-Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine

Does my profanity offend? If so, accept my sincere apologies for having the audacity to use a vulgar expletive in reference to the malignant force that is raping the Earth and murdering its sentient inhabitants. Then take my `deeply sincere’ pleas for forgiveness, and with the aid of an unlubricated rod of significant diameter, ram them firmly up the collective asses of the plutocratic bags of shit who comprise the ruling elite in the United States.
Capitalism, capitalism. How do I loath thee? Let me count the ways….

Few would argue with the conclusion that greed, selfishness, ruthlessness, and egocentrism are qualities that all of us humans possess, to varying degrees of course. Equally compelling is the argument that nearly all of us are capable of acting with kindness, compassion, justice, honesty, generosity, and empathy. Yet despite the sweeping epidemic of unnecessary suffering caused by torrential waves of avarice, self-centeredness, and brutality, our filthy moneyed elite, their well-compensated sycophants, and countless millions of deeply inculcated members of the working class defend the sacred cow of capitalism with the zeal of the Siccari. What a brilliant way to conduct human affairs and organize ourselves socioeconomically! Not only do we embrace the inevitability of our human frailties; we willfully and perpetually embrace a system that ensures that the worst elements of the human psyche will predominate AND which amply rewards those who act the most reprehensibly.
One of the idiocies advanced as a logical argument to justify the continued existence of the abomination of capitalism is that while it may be flawed, it is still better than any alternative. If capitalism is the best humanity can do, it’s time to cash in our chips and leave Earth to our non-human animal counter-parts. They may not have opposable thumbs and formidably sized frontal lobes, but at least they don’t engage in the systematic destruction of themselves and the rest of the planet. However, before we act too hastily and engage in mass Seppuku, perhaps it would make more sense to implement a mass reorganization of our socioeconomic structure, basing the new paradigm on far more egalitarian, sustainable, democratic, just, and rational principles. Or we could just keep destroying each other and the fucking planet….
Capitalismo has raped Central and South America nearly to death. Unlike the “Land of the Free,” most of those horribly victimized nations have a vibrant, thriving, and well-organized Left to stand in opposition to the scourge of humanity and the Earth. US-sponsored death squads, torture, disappearances, privatization, “free” trade, deregulation, union busting, evisceration of social programs, coups, and vilification of leaders with the audacity to defy the status quo of avarice on steroids have assailed our southern neighbors since we in the United States (the self-appointed champions of capitalism) began our wholesale exploitation, imperialism, and neoliberalism by “acquiring” half of Mexico. Let’s see now. Remind me again. How many invasions has that “dire threat” to humanity named Hugo Chavez launched? How much “collateral damage” has he inflicted?
Capitalism is an anachronism that long ago out-lived its usefulness (except to the morally rotten parasites comprising our de facto aristocracy) and has proven itself to be an abject failure as a means of human interaction and organization. It’s one step removed from feudalism, for Christ’s sake! (Oops! Sorry, I forgot about mercantilism–the transition to capitalism made such a difference). One of humanity’s strengths is our capacity to evolve. Given that, why in the hell do we stubbornly cling to a system that enables a fraction of a percent of the population to live in OBSCENE opulence while 35,000 of our fellow human beings die of starvation-related causes each day? Are the rest of us truly inane enough to believe that asinine myth that any of us has a REALISTIC chance of becoming the next Bill Gates, if we “just work hard enough.” Or that there is an ounce of moral virtue in pursuing the accumulation of excessive wealth?
Resting upon the “pillars” of greed, selfishness and hyper-competitiveness, capitalism is irrational and unstable. Crisis and resource wars are chronic and inevitable. How could we expect it to be otherwise? Unleashing some of the ugliest aspects of the human spirit and creating artificial shortages in a world of abundance (by allowing a select few to hoard most of the resources as “their property”), capitalism doesn’t exactly engender an environment of peace and brotherly love. While our filthy ruling plutocracy has allowed a degree of socialism to diminish their power to rape, pillage and plunder, they only did so to quell social unrest during times of serious instability (i.e. The New Deal). Meanwhile, reactionary elements in our “democracy” are consistently scheming to eliminate the use of public monies to actually benefit the public. Witness George Bush’s ongoing demands for an open purse to fund our insanely bloated military and the war crimes we are committing in Iraq. Compare that to his recent refusal to spend an additional $35 billion to provide health care for 3.9 million children. Bush and the moneyed interests for whom he is fronting are inflicting gaping, cankerous wounds upon humanity and the Earth. How much more obvious could it be? (And this administration isn’t an aberration; they are simply bold enough to reveal their agenda–that’s the scary part).
Thanks to our slightly adulterated yet plenty virulent infestation of capitalism, the United States is not the “Christian nation” it touts itself to be. While we certainly abide by the Golden Rule in the sense that “he who has the gold makes the rules,” there is little about the manner in which we conduct ourselves as a nation (particularly in terms of foreign policy) of which the person meeting the Biblical description of Jesus Christ would have approved. Let’s just run through a few highlights. We have killed millions of Iraqis via two invasions and barbaric economic sanctions (the sanctions alone killed over half a million children–they’re on your tab, Bill Clinton)–and these are people who NEVER attacked us nor posed a true threat to our “national security.” We arm and support Israel, the diseased enforcer of the mental illness known as Zionism. Ethnic cleansing. Now there’s a spiritually nourishing Christian pastime for you. We revere, idolize, and empower talented, “beautiful” people whose moral evolution came to a screeching halt at about age five. They are our CEOs, politicians, celebrities, athletes, billionaires, pundits, and Wall Streeters whose smug, hubristic “all-American” mugs, talking heads, and `surgically enhanced’ bodies are blasted into our homes 24/7 via Fox, CNN, ABC, and a host of other disseminators of the fetid garbage of infotainment. Sorry folks. Calvinism is about as close as our culture comes to the compassion and love modeled by Christ. And with John Calvin in the saddle, we fall significantly short of that mark. As his unwitting disciples, we are imbued with cynicism and self-hatred (we are, after all, “original sinners”), a sadistic desire to inflict ample doses of punishment for the smallest of transgressions (hence the US having the largest prison population in the world–comprised largely of non-violent drug offenders) and the notion that being rich means one has acquired God’s stamp of approval. (Thoughts of camels, needles, and kingdoms of heaven keep throwing me into a horrid state of cognitive dissonance in my desperate efforts to be a good little capitalist by embracing Part III of the Calvinist doctrine…..). Somehow I don’t think Christ had capitalism in mind when he preached the Sermon on the Mount…..
Let’s consider sustainability and consumerism for a moment, shall we? Two more of capitalism’s noxious, life-extinguishing qualities are its demand for infinite growth and its unavoidable “dilemma” of excess production. Problem number one is insoluble, but we can simply let our grandchildren worry about our insane insistence on maintaining a system demanding infinite resources from a finite world. As for excess production, that one is simple. We have the most advanced agitprop industry (Madison Avenue) and the most powerful delivery devices (the mainstream media) in the history of humanity churning out alluring appeals to consumers to buy what they don’t need, can’t really afford, and may never even use. Surplus schmurplus….
As an “added bonus” to the wounds it inflicts upon humanity as a collective, capitalism also causes serious character malformations in individuals. As infants and young children, human beings naturally believe themselves to be the center of the universe. In order to “succeed” (and sometimes just survive) in the rat race of capitalism, as we mature we begin viewing our narcissism as an attribute. Rather than shedding it, we nurture it with the tenderness of the most devoted of mothers. Looking out for number one, careerism, an obsession with winning, acquisitiveness, and putting money and appearances ahead of principles and people are considered to be virtues in this violently seething cesspool we euphemistically call a culture.
Perhaps most disturbing of all is the way in which capitalism’s relentless advocates have managed to bamboozle billions of people into equating it with democracy. Diabolical to its core, but sheer genius nonetheless. Concluding that capitalism and democracy are somehow synonymous is a bit like saying that Dick Cheney and the milk of human kindness relate to one another in even a very remote fashion. (Have you seen the myriad pictures of his evil grimaces floating around the Internet? Despicable creature that he is, he doesn’t even attempt to mask his malevolence). Capitalism is naturally hierarchal, authoritarian, and brutal. Corporations, the legal vehicles for the plutocracy to maximize their profits while minimizing liability, are structured as tyrannies. What the hell is democratic about dog eat dog, law of the jungle, and every man for himself? Besides, if we uber-capitalists here in the United States are truly “democratic,” and we “elected” a depraved idiot like W to what is ostensibly the most powerful position in the world, what does that say about us?

George Bush, Dick Cheney, et al aren’t anomalies or accidents. They are the naked face of savage capitalism evolved to its ultimate and inevitable state, which is embodied by corporatism, monopolism, cronyism, imperialism, and fuck-everyone-but-the-rich-ism.

Slice it, it dice it and spice it any way you prefer. A pile of shit is a pile of shit by any other name. Capitalism is just that from the standpoint of compassionate, moral, and intelligent human beings. One exceptionally virtuous person, Archbishop Don Helder Pessoa Camara, who was a progenitor of Liberation Theology and an unwavering champion of the poor, once remarked, “To examine capitalism is to indict it.”

Unfortunately, capitalism remains the 800 pound gorilla in the room. There is little doubt that its countless millions of fiercely loyal minions amongst the working class and poor will continue heeding their indoctrination, daring us to pry their copies of Atlas Shrugged “from their cold dead hands.” And we can count on the fact that the likes of the Mars heirs, Richard Mellon Scaife, and their ilk are not destined to experience profound spiritual awakenings anytime soon.

Yet there is hope. Capitalism exists in a state of perpetual crisis. Inequality is on the rise, globally and domestically. Our lords and masters are beginning to fall victim to their own hubris as they practice their predations more and more overtly. Palliatives can only delay the system’s inevitable collapse for so long. Sooner rather than later the deepening undercurrent of social unrest will burst the levees of injustice asunder.

Relative to what’s coming, the Great Depression was a mere warm-up. Yet in adversity there lies opportunity. Our US gulag, often referred to as the prison industrial complex, will serve as excellent quarters for the irredeemable scum stalking the corridors of power in DC, the Walton clan, Larry Ellison, and the rest of the parasites atop the capitalist pyramid.

Or perhaps things will take a more Jacobin turn and we won’t need to waste any more precious resources on these predatory sociopaths….

Fuck you, capitalism; fuck you…..

35% of US Americans Still Support Bush: Diagnosing the Insanity

By Jason Miller

Thomas Paine’s Corner

http://www.bestcyrano.org/THOMASPAINE/?p=362

Cluster B Personality Disorders

1776.0 Americanistic Personality Disorder

The essential features of Americanistic Personality Disorder include pervasive patterns of extreme self-absorption, profound and long-term lapses in empathy, a deep disregard for the well-being of others, a powerful aversion to intellectual honesty and reality, and a grossly exaggerated sense of the importance of one’s self and one’s nation. These patterns emerge in infancy, manifest themselves in nearly all contexts, and often become pathological.
These patterns have also been characterized as sociopathic, or colloquially as the “Ugly American Syndrome.” Note that the latter terminology carries too benign a connotation to accurately describe an individual afflicted with such a dangerous perversion of character.

For this diagnosis to be given, the individual must be deeply immersed in the flag-waving, nationalistic, and militaristic fervor derived primarily from the nearly perpetual barrage of reality warping emanations of the “mainstream media,” most commonly through the medium of television. Typically indoctrinated from birth to believe that they are morally superior, exceptional human beings, these individuals suffer from severe egocentrism, a condition further engendered by the prevalence of the acutely toxic dominant paradigm known as capitalism.

Individuals with Americanistic Personality Disorder are generally covertly racist, xenophobic, and openly speciesistic. They readily participate in the execution of heinous crimes against human and non-human animals, even if their complicity is banal and limited. As long as they are comfortable, safe, and enjoying the relative affluence and convenience afforded by their nation’s economic extortion, cultural genocide, rape of other species and the environment, and imperial conquests, such individuals display an apathetic disregard for the well-being of other human beings, sentient creatures, and the environment.

Individuals with Americanistic Personality Disorder tend to exhibit unabated greed and an insatiable desire for material goods. Fueled by a compulsion to shop and acquire excessive amounts of material goods, a condition sometimes referred to as consumerism, they have no regard for the misery and destruction caused by their pathological need for “more stuff”. When confronted with the finitude and fragility of the Earth, they frequently react with level one ego defenses by denying that their behavior is a part of the problem or by distorting reality by asserting that concerns about Climate Change, resource depletion, and irreversible damage to the environment are over-blown. Their deeply entrenched sense of entitlement renders excessive consumption a nearly immutable aspect of their behavior.

Individuals with Americanistic Personality Disorder are virtually devoid of empathy or compassion. They view life as a game played by “law of the jungle” rules and co-exist with others in a chronic state of hyper-competitiveness, seeking only to advance their careers and “keep up with the Joneses.” Their desire to win, get ahead and “protect what is theirs” has been so deeply etched into their psyches that their capacity to empathize and experience true concern for the well-being of others is severely stunted or extinguished. The pursuit of property, profit, and power rules their malformed psyches, nearly eliminating their capacity for humane behavior.

Individuals with Americanistic Personality Disorder almost always rely on extortion or violence to get their needs met and to resolve conflict. Believing in their inherent superiority, they eschew laws or rules except when they can utilize them for personal gain or when they fear punishment. Given a choice between a just resolution to a situation and the opportunity to humiliate, subdue, or subjugate the other party, they will choose the latter with a high degree of frequency. They have an amazing capacity to justify their unethical or criminal behavior using false pretexts such as self defense, good intentions, ignorance of the consequences of their actions, or asserting that they were merely carrying out orders.

Individuals with Americanistic Personality Disorder tend to manifest traits indicative of two of Erich Fromm’s personality orientations. They thrive on adding to their possessions, and appreciate their acquisitions more when they attain them through coercion, theft, or manipulation, thus showing strains of Fromm’s exploitative type. They also exist at a very superficial level, offering the world the “friendly face” of the marketing personality that Bernays and Madison Avenue have taught them is the most effective way of advancing their selfish agenda. Opportunism, careerism, and narcissism poison nearly all of their interactions and relationships.

Specific Culture Features

Americanistic Personality Disorder appears to prevail in a very high percentage of those in the upper strata of the socioeconomic order in the United States (and to persist tenaciously because these individuals have little motivation to alter their pathological behavior as they are largely immune from the consequences of their actions). While it is epidemic amongst the opulent, this characterological deficiency does not recognize socioeconomic boundaries. Various segments of the middle, working and impoverished classes comprise a notable percentage of those exhibiting this condition, including those practicing deeply conservative Christianity, many residents of reactionary states such as those in the south, Kansas, Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming, and many members of the Republican Party.

Prevalence

The overall prevalence of Americanistic Personality Disorder was recently measured at approximately 35% of the overall population in the United States.

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Diagnostic Criteria for 1776.0 Americanistic Personality Disorder:

A pervasive pattern of greed, selfishness, and lack of empathy, beginning the moment he or she begins to intellectualize and presented in nearly all contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:

lacks empathy due to an excessive degree of self-absorption
believes that he or she is exceptional and morally superior
frequently engages in exploitative behaviors
requires frequent acquisition of goods he or she doesn’t need
usually resorts to some form of overt or covert violence, coercion, or extortion to resolve conflicts
perceives others as obstacles to his or her “success”
disregards laws and rules except as a means to achieve his or her agenda
demonstrates deep hypocrisy by projecting a righteous, benevolent image while committing reprehensible acts
refuses to accept the consequences of his or her actions

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A Conservative’s Garden of False Narratives: Who are you calling a moonbat, anyway?

[The Republican candidates for president and their fantasy-prone constituents wish to set the Way Back Machine to the golden days of the 1980s when Ronald Reagan was impersonating a man just arrived via the 1940s. This phenomenon is known as the Law of Republican Special Relativity, which states: When events begin to accelerate forward, the conservative mind will be cast, at an equal rate of speed, backwards in time.]

by Phil Rockstroh

Thomas Paine’s Corner

http://www.bestcyrano.org/THOMASPAINE/?p=310

One would think that from the cries of (feigned) indignation and calls for repentance arising from conservatives regarding Move-On.org’s ad in the N.Y. Times that the liberal-leaning group had not simply questioned the insights and intentions of a public servant, promoting, in a public forum, the policy of an illegal and immoral occupation of a sovereign nation; rather, the folks of Move-On.org had committed blasphemy against the holy name of some revered saint — General Mary Petreus, Mother of God.

The false outrage of perpetually offended conservatives serves as cover for the true outrages of our era, including: truncated civil liberties, rising levels of social and economic inequality and injustice, and foreign wars of aggression waged by an insular and secretive executive branch and fought by a permanent underclass. The outrages keep arriving, because the collective imagination of the citizen/consumers of the US, arbitrated by a careerist media elite, has been, for decades, in the thrall of false narratives that serve the interests of the elite of the corporate/militarist classes.

Concurrently, a sense of unease and despair, due to a sense of personal and collective powerlessness before exploitive power, has created the tone and tenor of the times, and begot the phenomenon of supine liberalism and Viagra conservatism. (In this way, liberals stand fecklessly by, as the public is, time and time again, screwed by the decrepit schemes of the right.)

In this way, liberal paternalism is insufferable; worse, it is dangerous. This has been the right’s craftiest accomplishment: inducing “reasonable” liberals and “sensible” centrists to enable their crimes, from stolen elections to their present preparation for a massive bombing campaign of Iran, by intimidating them with the fear that any protest on their part will cast them among the ranks of America-hating, lefty moonbats, who wish to see the terrorist win, dumpsters piled high with discarded fetuses and metro-sexuality made the official state religion.

Moreover, these assaults upon both reason and the republic (what’s left of it) will persist until progressives begin to effectively counter the narratives of the predatory right. Some call it shameful demagoguery; although, conservatives call it career advancement. This is not a novel situation. Throughout history, these kinds of pernicious mindsets have always been with us; it is our tragedy that they have been allowed to prevail.

Conservatives are eager to embrace false narratives: The surge is working; the terrorists hate us for our freedom; Fred Thompson is Ronald Reagan incarnate, but with a touch of Jed Clampett “folksiness.” Accordingly, when the times are roiled with uncertainty, when thoughts of the future are tinged with dread, conservatives, like a character in Southern Gothic literature, will fall into a swoon, longing for the return of an imagined, purer past that never was. One can picture these rightwing sorts wandering the streets, wearing a faded prom dress and a broken, prom queen tiara, twittering and cooing, while repeating over and over again, “the surge is working; Anbar Province is now a beacon of freedom unto the world…”) in an imaginary dialog with the ghost of their long lost beau, Ronald Reagan.

Ronald Reagan, an ungifted actor, by means of playing the role of a “resolute” Cold Warrior, was able to gain the approbation and wealth that had eluded him as a contract player in Hollywood. In truth, Reagan’s greatest accomplishment was convincing himself of his own sincerity.

Constantin Stanislavsky, who is considered the father of modern acting technique, is reputed to have said that when an actor starts to believe he is the character he’s portraying it is time to escort him from the theatre. Withal, Fred, Rudy, Rush, Hannity, O’Reilly, et al., can you find the exits on your own or will you need to be medicated, strapped to a gurney, and wheeled from the public arena? Rather than being candidates for President of the United States, most of the Republican field seems to be vying for the title of National Crazy Uncle — the kind of guy who corners you at a family gathering and rants that the PTA is a terrorist front group and gangs of illegal aliens are engaged in a vast conspiracy to steal single socks from his washer-dryer.

The Republican candidates for president and their fantasy-prone constituents wish to set the Way Back Machine to the golden days of the 1980s when Ronald Reagan was impersonating a man just arrived via the 1940s. This phenomenon is known as the Law of Republican Special Relativity, which states: When events begin to accelerate forward, the conservative mind will be cast, at an equal rate of speed, backwards in time. But the paradox is: they arrive in a parallel universe, an alternative past that never existed on this earth — a low probability dimension, comprised of platitudes and false pieties, where white male privilege is sacrosanct, only for the reason (according to their reality-proof perspective) that it serves to provide all mankind with all things good and holy.

This law can be tested by performing the following simple exercise: Engage a conservative true believer in a dialog regarding the manner by which “state’s rights” was misused in the Jim Crowe dominated Deep South of the pre-Civil Rights Era in order to propagate and maintain segregation, and your conservative-minded test subject will respond as if those realities transpired long ago and far away on a planet that he has never visited.

Yet, paradoxically, rightists have manage to create a Time Retrieval Device, a device that has summoned from the past wonders, such as the following: a reversal of many of the rights of working people; the return of unsafe and unsanitary practices in the food industry; widening gaps of wealth, health and privilege between social, racial and economic classes; in short, many the excesses of plutocratic rule inherent to unfettered capitalism.

As a result, a generation has inherited power that is devoid of the concept of causation and consequence. Ergo, we have developed a political class who rule by narratives of denial and shallow self-justification. An example of this is the blaming of the people of Iraq for the blood-drenched debacle that has resulted from the illegal and immoral invasion of their nation. As well as, an enabling cadre of media elitists who served as cheerleaders for the invasion, because they deemed it to be good for business, and, to this day, are unwilling to admit their complicity.

All of the above leads to the question: What are present day conservatives striving to conserve? Historically, conservatives gave their utmost to conserve institutions such as slavery, Jim Crowe, child labor — and, of course, the use of leeches for medical purposes. (Perhaps, they simply couldn’t stand the thought of a fellow blood-sucker being deemed dangerous, and they feared the start of a trend.) At present, the central paradox of contemporary conservatism is this: How does one practice conservatism within an all-encompassing economy based on disposability? This is analogous to establishing a brothel devoted to the goal of abstinence.

When engaged in a dialog with many conservatives, the question becomes: Are their reactions and responses evoked therein simply borne of plain ignorance, willful ignorance, or outright lying? Or are their responses the result of a group hallucination? All progressives have experienced the following nonsensical encounter of the conservative kind. Present a reasoned argument to a conservative — and, all at once, completely ignoring the tenet, tone and thrust of the point, they begin hallucinating a creature, only known to exist in the rightwing bestiary, known as a “moonbat” — a mythological beast that, ironically, seems to appear when a conservative is confronted with reality.

Accordingly, the time has come for a study of political zoology and to posit who are the true moonbats now making their habitat in the United States. Case study: Unregulated, wish-fulfillment-based conservative economic policy has created those suburban arrays of mold-incubating Petri dishes known as products of the housing boom. Moreover, the bursting of the whole bubble-prone Ponzi scheme has sent shock waves throughout international economies and is surging the economy of the US towards recession. Furthermore, conservative anti-regulatory policies have rendered us babes in a cheap, plastic Toyland.

What has an era of conservatism wrought? Answer: a culture that has all the value, integrity, sustainability and safety as a toy manufactured in China. Apropos, contemporary life, as conceived and manufactured by conservative “values”, is shoddily made, toxic and not a lot of fun.

In addition, it has spawned a culture ridden with public relations fabulists and media-savvy confidence artists who tell us that the taste of corporate ass-suck is the ambrosia of the gods. The locked-down, stultifying mindset and ideological barbarianism of present day conservatism is directly linked to the steep decline of the quality of life in the United States.

The recent revelations regarding the “I’m-not-gay-I-simply-engage-in-same-sex-encounters-in-puplic-restrooms” wing of the Republican Party are instructive in understanding the rightist’s worldview and its effect on our times. Covert sex in a public bathroom stall is an apt metaphor for how contemporary conservatism limits and restricts the possibilities of human life. In the same way that a closet-case gay conservative stunts the possibilities of his love life, the conservative mindset limits the scope of a culture’s possibilities. Accordingly, economic life must be ruled by ruthless, unregulated competition, and the nation’s meaning can only be found in war. Hence, under the Bush Junta, we are told, as far as international relations go, that the nation has few options other than its present policy of predatory capitalism and “wide-stance” militarism.

Regarding perma-fools such as these, Ernest Becker wrote: “Once you base your whole life striving on a desperate lie, and try to implement that lie, you instrument your own undoing.” Accordingly, the republic is dead; it’s ghost howls online only in pixelated protests such as this one. This grim reality will remain, until we rise up and repudiate the false narratives that have created and continue to comprise these tragic times.

Phil Rockstroh, a senior contributing editor for Cyrano’s Journal Online and a self-described auto-didactic, gasbag monologist, is a poet, lyricist and philosopher bard living in New York City. He may be contacted at philangie2000@yahoo.com.