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Cyrano’s Journal Online and its semi-autonomous subsections (Thomas Paine’s Corner, The Greanville Journal, CJO Avenger, and VoxPop) would be delighted to periodically email you links to the most recent material and timeless classics available on our diverse and comprehensive site. If you would like to subscribe, type “CJO subscription” in the subject line and send your email to JMiller@bestcyrano.org

By Jason Miller

10/8/07

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.

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Cyrano’s Journal Online and its semi-autonomous subsections (Thomas Paine’s Corner, The Greanville Journal, CJO Avenger, and VoxPop) would be delighted to periodically email you links to the most recent material and timeless classics available on our diverse and comprehensive site. If you would like to subscribe, type “CJO subscription” in the subject line and send your email to JMiller@bestcyrano.org

The West and the Islamic world clash not because of religion, but because a Darwinian current has taken hold in the West that reduces life to mere production and consumption, writes Abdel-Wahab Elmessiri

By Abdel-Wahab Elmessiri

10/7/07

In the opening years of this century, the world was presented with a historic confrontation between the West and Islamic and Arab worlds. This confrontation has been used in the pursuit of imperial agendas. American failure in Iraq has left underlying reasons exposed. Can the damage done be repaired?

Our relationship with the West began with Alexander the Great, the founder of the colonialist Ptolemaic Dynasty that ruled Egypt and the Levant for several hundred years. In that distant past there existed a form of parity; a certain give and take, an alternation of victory and defeat between the two sides. Even to today, however, it is possible to point to factors that can as easily form the basis of mutual understanding and cooperation between Islam and the West as they can trigger conflict. For example, we share with some Western nations the border of the Mediterranean, whose importance for trade and maritime wealth should compel neighbours on either side towards closer cooperation, especially in this age of the global village.

Yet that very proximity has also been the source of intense friction because of the lure of land and resources on the other side. In its height, Islamic civilisation expanded geographically at the expense of the West as defined by the ambit of Christian civilisation, and the reverse was also true: the expansion of the West took place at the expense of the Islamic world, and tensions reached a zenith when Western powers moved to partition that world amongst themselves. Conversely, the further removed societies and civilisations are from one another geographically, the lower the potential for conflict between them. At least before the rise of Western colonialism, which staked out the entire world as its field of enterprise, there existed no tension between the West and Thailand, for example, simply because land and resources were so far out of reach.

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Cyrano’s Journal Online and its semi-autonomous subsections (Thomas Paine’s Corner, The Greanville Journal, CJO Avenger, and VoxPop) would be delighted to periodically email you links to the most recent material and timeless classics available on our diverse and comprehensive site. If you would like to subscribe, type “CJO subscription” in the subject line and send your email to JMiller@bestcyrano.org

“…..maze of cubicles where artists, copywriters, and concept men work day and night to define the products of The Nation.”

By Adam Engel

10/2/07

Awakened midnight nobody home. Alone against the music of the Angry Young.
Kid outside screamed poems into a mike. Squat amp dragged behind him on a wagon. Surrounding friends clapped stomped cacophonous. Launched his dithyrambs against The City. Cannonades of sing-song bass.

Josh razed Jericho with song.

“Turn off the NOISE and tune in The VOICE of The Nation.”

That ad from somewhere I remember. Subway maybe. Turned on the stereo. Fight noise with noise. Lonely like I’ve never. Unbearable rip. Inside. Alone me in the middle of the night.

Tried to reach The VOICE myself. Dialed, the line was jammed. WSOS after midnight. The VOICE beseeched by the Sleepless of The Nation.

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Cyrano’s Journal Online and its semi-autonomous subsections (Thomas Paine’s Corner, The Greanville Journal, CJO Avenger, and VoxPop) would be delighted to periodically email you links to the most recent material and timeless classics available on our diverse and comprehensive site. If you would like to subscribe, type “CJO subscription” in the subject line and send your email to JMiller@bestcyrano.org

By Vi Ransel

10/1/07

How many pounds of plastic are you dragging around in your wallet? How heavy is the debt monkey you’re carrying on your back? And why, pray tell, are you doing this?

“Credit.” My Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary lists the following synonyms: belief, faith, trust, confidence, favor, influence, name, character, reputation and honor. In fact, belief, faith, confidence and trust are all included in the number one definition of “credit”. Number two? Credible or trustworthy. Do you feel confident and influential when you open your credit card bills? Do you consider the companies sending the bills to be trustworthy and honorable? How does it affect your reputation when they call you at work? Just what is this “credit” you have so much faith in?

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Cyrano’s Journal Online and its semi-autonomous subsections (Thomas Paine’s Corner, The Greanville Journal, CJO Avenger, and VoxPop) would be delighted to periodically email you links to the most recent material and timeless classics available on our diverse and comprehensive site. If you would like to subscribe, type “CJO subscription” in the subject line and send your email to JMiller@bestcyrano.org

By Adam Engel

9/30/07

So outside can’t speed

anachronism past

heavier accretion

orders of magnitude

no style but in things

one is born with

no authority thrown

government steeple

shall not

perish for

lack of

consequence subtract

unpleasant minutia from

yesterday’s news print

foul weather no

compromise possible

desirable within

our means punishment

toward those who list

hive camera shot

do-bee/don’t-bee

weather fine vain

owning means

production distro

size medium

new improved

MORE STUFF

to come to

come

Adam Engel is a Contributing Editor for Cyrano’s Journal. Adam has published poetry, fiction, articles, and reviews in several web sites and magazines such as CounterPunch, Dissident Voice, Online Journal, Hudson Review, Accent, The Concord Journal, Beacon, Art World, Ward6 Review, CounterCurrents, LewRockwell.com, Literal Latte, Lummux, POESY, Chronogram, Press Action,and many others. Adam was a featured reader, along with Robert Creeley, Suzanne Pomme Vega, Robert Bly and others at the Woodstock Poetry Festival, August, 2001, where he read from his first book of poetry, “Oil & Water. He can be reached at bartleby.samsa@verizon.net, or at his partially completed (very partially) website at www.adamengel.com.

Cyrano’s Journal Online and its semi-autonomous subsections (Thomas Paine’s Corner, The Greanville Journal, CJO Avenger, and VoxPop) would be delighted to periodically email you links to the most recent material and timeless classics available on our diverse and comprehensive site. If you would like to subscribe, type “CJO subscription” in the subject line and send your email to JMiller@bestcyrano.org

By Charles Sullivan

9/26/07

It is evident that the US, or Israel, is going to launch an unprovoked attack on Iran in the near future, just as it did against Iraq and countless other defenseless nations within recent memory. As a result, untold numbers of innocent people will die and huge sums of money will change hands. Both the U.S. and Israel will consolidate their power in the Middle East and injustice and death will follow in their wake.

Bush’s co-conspirators in Congress are standing down, leaving little doubt as to whom they serve. As always, the mainstream media is preparing the way by serving as an organ of the Military-industrial complex by beating the drums of war and perpetuating lies.

Outside of a small number of citizens, few people seem capable of plumbing the depths of our conundrum. Under the umbrella of capitalism, business is the business of America, and death, inequity, and misery are its chief byproducts. Thus the rich are getting richer and the wealth generated by the producers is being concentrated into fewer hands than ever before.

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Cyrano’s Journal Online and its semi-autonomous subsections (Thomas Paine’s Corner, The Greanville Journal, CJO Avenger, and VoxPop) would be delighted to periodically email you links to the most recent material and timeless classics available on our diverse and comprehensive site. If you would like to subscribe, type “CJO subscription” in the subject line and send your email to JMiller@bestcyrano.org

By Vi Ransel

9/23/07

We are constantly urged to buy things we don’t need, which we use once, if at all, and then dispose of to buy another thing we don’t need, and often don’t really want. Who does it benefit if we, in essence, buy the same thing over and over and over and over and over? Why pay every day for something you should be able to buy once a week, once a month, or … once? Who does that benefit? You? You’re being ripped off and gotten over on and deep down you know it, but you feel like you can’t “not buy stuff.” So you just keep doing it and not thinking about it because it feels good - at the moment you’re doing it. But soon you feel the urge to do it again. Can you say “addict”?

You buy shoddy, inferior goods purposefully made to fall apart as fast as possible. And you’re urged to throw away things that are still perfectly serviceable just so someone can make a profit off you. Why do you have fifty pairs of shoes? Are you a centipede? Why have you become almost totally dependent on “electronics” to the point where you can’t brush your own teeth without a battery-operated brush? To the point where you can’t sit still without the distraction of a cell phone, an I-pod, a CD or DVD player, a TV, a radio, a laptop, videogames and video cameras, etc., etc., etc. to keep reality from staring you in the face?

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Cyrano’s Journal Online and its semi-autonomous subsections (Thomas Paine’s Corner, The Greanville Journal, CJO Avenger, and VoxPop) would be delighted to periodically email you links to the most recent material and timeless classics available on our diverse and comprehensive site. If you would like to subscribe, type “CJO subscription” in the subject line and send your email to JMiller@bestcyrano.org

Is greed good? Gordon Gekko and Ragnar Redbeard III think so!

[To highlight the deep malevolence of our rotten-to-the-core system, we bring you this repulsive apologia for capitalism. Since many have deluded themselves with the far-fetched notion that decency and humanity can coexist with the inherent depravity of profits and property over people, we are providing you with a celebration of capitalism, the way it was meant to be written!]

December 6, 2006

by Ragnar Redbeard III

“What kind of a society isn’t structured on greed? The problem of social organization is how to set up an arrangement under which greed will do the least harm; capitalism is that system.”

—Milton Friedman

What kind indeed? Certainly not a prodigious society such as ours. Thanks to Capitalism, the United States is replete with opulence, might, and benevolence.

Guided by the brilliant foresight of Hamilton, manacled by men like Keynes, Galbraith, and FDR, and ultimately granted a refreshing degree of freedom by the heroic intellectual efforts of Rand and Friedman, Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” has wrought a citadel for those wishing to pursue healthy greed, self-interest, and enlightened oppression. While Capitalism in the United States is still afflicted with the diseases of a mixed economy, government regulation and socialistic tendencies, America’s socioeconomic system is far superior to any rival, past or present.

Yet despite having propelled the human family to the zenith of prosperity, technology, and freedom, American Capitalism has been, and remains, under constant siege. Vile Communists have waged multiple wars (hot and Cold) against us. Islamofascist terrorists struck at the very heart of our economic freedom when they felled the Twin Towers. Crazed Latino Leftist leaders espousing frightening notions of nationalization, protectionism, and wealth redistribution are springing up like noxious weeds in our backyard. And despite their diminished prevalence, domestic entitlement programs and organized labor continue to pose significant threats to the evolution, perpetuation, and proliferation of the American Way.

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Cyrano’s Journal Online and its semi-autonomous subsections (Thomas Paine’s Corner, The Greanville Journal, CJO Avenger, and VoxPop) would be delighted to periodically email you links to the most recent material and timeless classics available on our diverse and comprehensive site. If you would like to subscribe, type “CJO subscription” in the subject line and send your email to JMiller@bestcyrano.org

[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

9/20/07

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 Petraeus, 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.)

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Cyrano’s Journal Online and its semi-autonomous subsections (Thomas Paine’s Corner, The Greanville Journal, CJO Avenger, and VoxPop) would be delighted to periodically email you links to the most recent material and timeless classics available on our diverse and comprehensive site. If you would like to subscribe, type “CJO subscription” in the subject line and send your email to JMiller@bestcyrano.org

By Emily Spence

9/13/07

What an enjoyable summer many Americans experienced! Living in their own small air conditioned bubbles, they confirmed that whatever happened in the outside environment could be of little concern. Detached from the natural world, they passed between various cool zones with relative ease and no discomfort.

So for many, did it matter, for instance, that it was the hottest July on record for Wyoming, Montana and Idaho according to the NOAA National Weather Service? Who cared that Boise, Idaho’s average high temperature, a blistering 98.6 degrees F (37 degrees C), was more than nine degrees F (five degrees C) above average so that July 2007 was Boise’s hottest month ever documented? What difference did it make that drought conditions worsened in parts of the northern Rockies, northern Plains, Midwest, and mid-Atlantic while more than 5 million parched acres burned in the contiguous U.S. by early August according to the National Interagency Fire Center? So what that August was even worse [1]? Likewise, so it goes relative to the floods, hurricanes, droughts and other weather related extremes being faced in Europe, Australia, Africa, and all other land masses. So what if countless species are slowly being destroyed in the process while a rapidly increasing amount of terrain is rendered unusable for any life [2]?

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