By Jason Miller

Thomas Paine's Corner

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.

"Here There Be Monsters"

Essay by Jason Miller

"America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy."

--John Quincy Adams

While it certainly was not his intent, Adams' assertion serves to remind us of a truth revealed by vast oceans of tears, torrential rivers of blood, and formidable piles of human remains. Leaving murder, mayhem, and misery in its wake, America does "go abroad," but not, as Adams noted, "in search of monsters to destroy." What Adams failed to perceive, despite living in the midst of the Native American genocide and the abject evil of chattel slavery, is that America is the monster.

Of Illusory Democracies, Rogue States, and Accelerating Humanity's Demise

by Jason Miller

I see trees of green, red roses too
I see them bloom for me and you
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world....

---Louis Armstrong

In an increasingly frightening and unstable world, there is one nation we know will stand firm and resolute in its commitment to freedom, human rights, democracy and the rule of law. Without the relentless, selfless efforts of the United States, humankind would plunge into a seething cauldron of tyranny, slavery, chaos and endless war. Besides Israel, severely weakened as it is by the constant strain of fending off the barbarian hordes seeking to "wipe it off the map" and Great Britain, incessantly pressured by its Leftist, pacifist neighbors to appease and negotiate, the home of the brave wages its courageous struggle virtually alone.

"Of Savage Imperialism, Pigskin Monopolists, and Intellectual Emasculation"

By Jason Miller

"Two things only the people anxiously desire -- bread and circuses."

--Juvenal

Searching for masculine bliss incarnate?

Look no further than NFL football and its myriad machismo delights....

Fierce armor-clad gladiators applying wicked hits, battering each other relentlessly, engaging in bone-jarring collisions, and performing feats of near super-human athleticism....

Provocatively undressed cheerleaders manifesting our culture's ideal of feminine perfection.....

Rivers of ice cold beer gushing forth to satiate our desire to numb the mind and lower inhibitions....

And lest we forget, the NFL provides us with "Man Law" to shield us from our long repressed anima, which is constantly poised to assail our grossly exaggerated masculinity ....

Hence, it might be instructive to look at the mode of being evinced by the pioneers of Punk Rock ... Tired of endless guitar solos and of Arena Rock and Roll's egomaniacal inanities, they learned to play three cords -- real fast -- and would play for little or no money in shot-out downtown clubs -- thereby reintroducing the danger and allure of the subversive intimacy of early Rock and Roll to a new generation -- and forever establishing the enduring principle that being an imbecilic Rock and Roll egoist should be a democratic process -- not limited to only corporate, guitar technocrats (or even those individuals possessed of the tyranny of talent).

Hence, it might be instructive to look at the mode of being evinced by the pioneers of Punk Rock ... Tired of endless guitar solos and of Arena Rock and Roll's egomaniacal inanities, they learned to play three cords -- real fast -- and would play for little or no money in shot-out downtown clubs -- thereby reintroducing the danger and allure of the subversive intimacy of early Rock and Roll to a new generation -- and forever establishing the enduring principle that being an imbecilic Rock and Roll egoist should be a democratic process -- not limited to only corporate, guitar technocrats (or even those individuals possessed of the tyranny of talent).

Product (RED), an initiative conceived by Bono to get international brands to market and support the Global Fund for AIDS, TB, & Malaria, officially hit American shores Friday.  I have a feeling that many readers are wondering what on earth it is and that most readers cock their heads when they hear "Bono" and "Global Fund" in the same sentence (albeit for dramatically different reasons, depending on what you think of Bono).  Regardless, you won't be wondering for much longer.  But the question I have to ask is, "Why didn't you know in the first place?"

If an individual's conformity to group, cultural, and national pathology is rewarded -- thereby encouraging the formation of what R.D. Laing termed, "False Self" -- how might one, stranded within the dysfunctional dynamic, resist it all and begin to work towards an awareness of their own essential nature, then perhaps arriving at an individual reckoning involving how to live, flourish, and subvert the life defying demands of the present era.

A Soul Defying, Tacit Approval Of Torture: how did we come to this?

By Phil Rockstroh

"True sanity entails in one way or another the dissolution of the normal ego, that False Self competently adjusted to our alienated social reality . . . and through this death a rebirth, the ego now being the servant of the divine, no longer its betrayer." --R. D. Laing