http://selvesandothers.org/ en SPIP - www.spip.net http://www.selvesandothers.org/article16496.html 2008-06-30T14:00:00Z text/html en Jason Miller <p>Both George Bush and Dick Cheney have emphatically proclaimed the American Way of Life as “non-negotiable.” As hard as it may be for the feeble-minded, deluded, conscienceless, or hopelessly addicted to grasp, Mother Nature and billions of human beings are going to force us to the bargaining table. We can kick, scream, stomp our feet, and hold our breath all we want, but our abhorrent mode of existence is going down. (...)</p> - <a href="http://www.bestcyrano.org/THOMASPAINE/" rel="directory">Jason Miller</a> http://www.selvesandothers.org/article16495.html 2008-06-30T13:55:00Z text/html en Jason Miller <p><i>6/17/08</i></p> <p>Let's face it, my fellow freedom and burger loving Americans. It is becoming painfully obvious that our non-negotiable American Way of Life is increasingly under attack. Yet while our meat consumption may be a wedge issue our foes are using against us, it can also be our salvation. (...)</p> - <a href="http://www.bestcyrano.org/THOMASPAINE/" rel="directory">Jason Miller</a> http://www.selvesandothers.org/article16464.html 2008-04-25T19:56:00Z text/html en Jason Miller <p><i>(As inspired by a conversation with Derrick Jensen)</i></p> <p><i>“There's got to be just more to it than this;</i><br /></p> <p><i>Or tell me why do we exist?”</i></p> <p>–Iron Maiden</p> <p>Is the Western consumerist culture that we inflict upon the rest of the world truly the pinnacle of our evolution? If it is, I resign my membership in the human race. Though I don't fear that I'll be compelled to tender my resignation any time soon because our so-called “non-negotiable American Way of Life” is a piece of shit, for myriad reasons. (...)</p> - <a href="http://www.bestcyrano.org/THOMASPAINE/" rel="directory">Jason Miller</a> http://www.selvesandothers.org/article16441.html 2008-04-17T21:07:00Z text/html en Jason Miller <p><i>Dedicated to Bobbie L.</i></p> <p><i>In the sermon just minutes before his death, Archbishop Oscar Romero (a man who truly practiced the teachings of Christ) reminded his congregation of the parable of the wheat. “Those who surrender to the service of the poor through love of Christ, will live like the grains of wheat that dies. It only apparently dies. If it were not to die, it would remain a solitary grain. The harvest comes because of the grain that dies We know that every effort to improve society, above all when society is so full of injustice and sin, is an effort that God blesses; that God wants; that God demands of us. I am bound, as a pastor, by divine command to give my life for those whom I love, and that is all Salvadoreans, even those who are going to kill me.”</i></p> <p>—These words appeared in a newspaper just two weeks before Archbishop Romero was shot (by a filthy Right Wing Death Squad supported by the US) while celebrating Holy Communion in the hospital which had been his home since his enthronement in 1977.</p> <p><i>“You could piss off Jesus Christ himself!”</i></p> <p>In 1947 Harry Truman wrote to Pope Pius XII that the United States “is a Christian nation.” This proclamation came from the man responsible for the “Christian act” of annihilating over 200,000 Japanese civilians by unleashing nuclear hell.</p> <p>George W. Bush, who has perpetrated war crimes for which he should be hanged and whose entire being is drenched with the blood of over a million Iraqis and 4,000 US soldiers, has often spoken openly about his “Christian faith.” Imagine that. Our “Christian nation” is led by a craven, mean-spirited, remorseless, conscienceless mass murderer. (...)</p> - <a href="http://www.bestcyrano.org/THOMASPAINE/" rel="directory">Jason Miller</a> http://www.selvesandothers.org/article16440.html 2008-04-17T18:05:00Z text/html en Jason Miller, Patrice Greanville <p>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. (...)</p> - <a href="http://www.bestcyrano.org/THOMASPAINE/" rel="directory">Jason Miller</a> http://www.selvesandothers.org/article16439.html 2008-04-17T18:00:00Z text/html en Jason Miller <p>Sorry kids, but you're just going to have to deal with the fact that we are greedy narcissists. We're dyed in the wool consumers, we worship Mammon, and eliminating the cancer of capitalism is simply out of the question.</p> <p>What's that, our beloved sons and daughters? You're worried that the air will be too polluted to breathe, the water too toxic to drink, the rain forests too sparse to act as the Earth's lungs, and the resources too depleted to sustain you and the other sentient inhabitants of this planet? You don't believe “clean” coal, biofuels, and nuclear power will sustain the exquisite industrial civilization we will bequeath you once we've siphoned off the last drop of oil and departed for the big suburb in the sky? (...)</p> - <a href="http://www.bestcyrano.org/THOMASPAINE/" rel="directory">Jason Miller</a> http://www.selvesandothers.org/article16414.html 2008-02-29T22:10:00Z text/html en Jason Miller <p><i>2/20/07</i></p> <p>Dear Bill,</p> <p>This is a note from an American radical.</p> <p>We are few in number, but we do exist.</p> <p>Time and again we've watched you bully your victims (or “guests” as you duplicitously refer to them) from your secure little perch high atop the food chain of craven and mendacious propagandists dutifully maintaining the pernicious lies that perpetuate the moral retardation and turpitude of this nation. You are a truly despicable human being. And by the way, Bill, characterizing you as a human being is a sign of our generosity and open-mindedness. (...)</p> - <a href="http://www.bestcyrano.org/THOMASPAINE/" rel="directory">Jason Miller</a> http://www.selvesandothers.org/article16364.html 2008-01-31T15:05:00Z text/html en Jason Miller <p>Canine. It's what's for dinner.</p> <p>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? (...)</p> - <a href="http://www.bestcyrano.org/THOMASPAINE/" rel="directory">Jason Miller</a> http://www.selvesandothers.org/article16363.html 2008-01-31T15:00:00Z text/html en Jason Miller <p><i>[30] In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. [31] A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. [32] So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. [33] But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. [34] He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him. [35] The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,' he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.'</i></p> <p><i>[36] “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”</i></p> <p><i>[37] The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”</p> <p>Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”</i></p> <p>—Luke 10:25-37</p> <p>In contrast to the seriousness of Christ's message, consider a related irony that is comically absurd. Commonly referred to as the “U.S.” our nation consists of grossly deformed social, political, economic, and cultural systems that indoctrinate us in the quasi-religion of “it's all about me” while conditioning us to reflexively reject nearly all things related to the collective “US.” (...)</p> - <a href="http://www.bestcyrano.org/THOMASPAINE/" rel="directory">Jason Miller</a> http://www.selvesandothers.org/article16362.html 2008-01-31T11:05:00Z text/html en Jason Miller <p><strong>Ron and Ron: Two of capitalism's finest</strong></p> <p><i>“Capitalism is the legitimate racket of the ruling class.”</i></p> <p>—Al Capone</p> <p>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. (...)</p> - <a href="http://www.bestcyrano.org/THOMASPAINE/" rel="directory">Jason Miller</a> http://www.selvesandothers.org/article16333.html 2007-12-06T13:45:00Z text/html en Jason Miller <p><i>“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]</i></p> <p>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.” (...)</p> - <a href="http://www.bestcyrano.org/THOMASPAINE/" rel="directory">Jason Miller</a> http://www.selvesandothers.org/article16328.html 2007-11-26T08:00:00Z text/html en Jason Miller <p><i>Gluttony and greed kill more than the sword.</i></p> <p>—Italian proverb</p> <p><i>Gluttony and surfeiting are no proper occasions for thanksgiving.</i></p> <p> Charles Lamb, 1821</p> <p>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. (...)</p> - <a href="http://www.bestcyrano.org/THOMASPAINE/" rel="directory">Jason Miller</a> http://www.selvesandothers.org/article16319.html 2007-11-15T01:23:00Z text/html en Jason Miller <p><i>“Thoughtcrime does not entail death: thoughtcrime IS death.”</i></p> <p>–Winston Smith from George Orwell's 1984</p> <p>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.</p> <p>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. (...)</p> - <a href="http://www.bestcyrano.org/THOMASPAINE/" rel="directory">Jason Miller</a> http://www.selvesandothers.org/article16285.html 2007-10-25T00:45:00Z text/html en Jason Miller <p><strong>Cluster B Personality Disorders</strong></p> <p><strong>1776.0 Americanistic Personality Disorder</strong></p> <p>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.</p> <p>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. (...)</p> - <a href="http://www.bestcyrano.org/THOMASPAINE/" rel="directory">Jason Miller</a> http://www.selvesandothers.org/article16199.html 2007-08-27T23:03:00Z text/html en Jason Miller <p><i>“It is impossible for capitalism to survive, primarily because the system of capitalism needs some blood to suck. Capitalism used to be like an eagle, but now it's more like a vulture. It used to be strong enough to go and suck anybody's blood whether they were strong or not. But now it has become more cowardly, like the vulture, and it can only suck the blood of the helpless. As the nations of the world free themselves, the capitalism has less victims, less to suck, and it becomes weaker and weaker. It's only a matter of time in my opinion before it will collapse completely.”</i></p> <p><i>–Malcolm X</i></p> <p>Striving with the unwavering dedication of true believers and slaves to the grind, those of us who exist within the geographic, social, cultural, economic, and political boundaries of the United States are collectively destroying the Earth.</p> <p>With dutiful efforts, heavily sedated consciences, and sweet obliviousness to the depth of our depravity, we toil away at our chosen or assigned tasks. After all, predatory plutocrats like “Mitt” Romney would be impotent without his minions—the hundreds of millions of wage slaves exercising their “right to work” (for as small a wage as they desire) while obediently manning the bulwarks of a system so putrid that were it possible to feed it to a pig, our porcine friend would wretch his guts out. (...)</p> - <a href="http://www.bestcyrano.org/THOMASPAINE/" rel="directory">Jason Miller</a>