Overgrown Kids, Unshackled Ids, and the Death of the Superego

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by Jason Miller

“Children are completely egoistic; they feel their needs intensely and strive ruthlessly to satisfy them.”

–Sigmund Freud

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Frightening as it may be, the Earth’s fate rests in the hands of children. With incredibly formidable military firepower at its disposal, the United States could catalyze Armageddon at any time. And while they may be adults chronologically, our sociopolitical structure is dominated by emotional infants.

Nietzsche once pronounced God dead. In the United States, we have a more readily demonstrable (and perhaps related) problem. Our collective id has rendered its governing superego impotent, and perhaps dead. Our prevailing moral standards, as inconsequential as they have become, are of the Jerry Falwell variety. They are mean-spirited, self-serving, judgmental, narrow-minded, selfish, and belligerent. As far as US Americans are concerned, Christ may as well have preached the Sermon on the Mount from the lowest recesses of Death Valley.

Recall that our basic drives such as libido, hunger, and aggression flow from the infantile dimension of our psyche known as the id. In terms of psychodynamics, the superego’s role is to counter-balance the irresponsible, amoral, and essentially sociopathic nature of the id with a healthy degree of conscience and guilt. Yet in the United States, we are inculcated with a deep sense of our exceptionalism and entitlement from the moment we emerge from the birth canal, thus crippling our ability to empathize and seriously impeding the development of our superego. Read more



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Into Pyramid’s Shadow: At War with Ourselves

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by Manuel Valenzuela

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Like Taking Candy from a Baby

As natural as the end of summer giving way to cooler temperatures and the changing colors of the trees, the vast machinations of the military-energy industrial complex has yet again begun to spin in preparation for the upcoming midterm elections, using the myriad number of tools at its disposal to manipulate the electorate into once more voting against its own interests, into voting for the interests of the elite few. Knowing the absolute ignorance, gullibility and lack of critical thinking of the American masses, those in power are able, once more, in what has become all too familiar throughout the annals of history, to skew the decision, mentality and vote of large segments of the population by simply reaching to the primitive instincts of human nature and manipulating emotions, psychology and the instinct of survival prevalent in every living organism.

To the corporatists and elites steering the nation, this exercise is like taking candy from a baby, for having a citizenry devoid of reason, logic and common sense has its privileges. Unaware that their lives are in firm control by the elite, not knowing the level of manipulation they are subjected to, ignorant to their incessant brainwashing practically from birth, the American masses are like sheep being herded from pasture to slaughter, unable to understand the control over their lives, unwilling to confront the malignancy that festers in their midst, and subservient to the wolves disguised as shepherds that lead them up the ramp of mirages into the corral of complete manipulation. Read more



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The Curse of Dick Cheney

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The veep’s career has been marred by one disaster after another

by T.D. ALLMAN / ROLLING STONE

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The Cheney jinx first manifested itself at the presidential level back in 1969, when Richard Nixon appointed him to his first job in the executive branch. It surfaced again in 1975, when Gerald Ford made Cheney his chief of staff and then — with Cheney’s help — lost the 1976 election. George H.W. Bush, having named Cheney secretary of defense, was defeated for re-election in 1992. The ever-canny Ronald Reagan was the only Republican president since Eisenhower who managed to serve two full terms. He is also the only one not to have appointed Dick Cheney to office.

This pattern of misplaced confidence in Cheney, followed by disastrous results, runs throughout his life — from his days as a dropout at Yale to the geopolitical chaos he has helped create in Baghdad. Once you get to know his history, the cycle becomes clear:

First, Cheney impresses someone rich or powerful, who causes unearned wealth and power to be conferred on him. Then, when things go wrong, he blames others and moves on to a new situation even more advantageous to himself. Read more



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Cheney Power Grab: Says White House Rules Don’t Apply to Him

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by Justin Rood

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Vice President Dick Cheney has asserted his office is not a part of the executive branch of the U.S. government, and therefore not bound by a presidential order governing the protection of classified information by government agencies, according to a new letter from Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., to Cheney.

Bill Leonard, head of the government’s Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO), told Waxman’s staff that Cheney’s office has refused to provide his staff with details regarding classified documents or submit to a routine inspection as required by presidential order, according to Waxman.

In pointed letters released today by Waxman, ISOO’s Leonard twice questioned Cheney’s office on its assertion it was exempt from the rules. He received no reply, but the vice president later tried to get rid of Leonard’s office entirely, according to Waxman. Read more



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Northern Light

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Tony Sutton of ColdType interviewed by Jason Miller

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Nearly asphyxiated by the fetid stench wafting from the mendacious corporate media pundits I’ve been profiling, I decided to ascend from the intellectual sewer into which I had crawled in order to observe them in their natural habitat. At last some detoxified air! It was an incredible boost to my faltering faith in humanity when I recently had the privilege to conduct a cyber-interview with Tony Sutton, the editor and publisher of ColdType, an online journal which presents “Writing Worth Reading from around the World.”

As you will discover, Tony and his marvelous publication are two of the best kept secrets we political educators and agitators for social justice have in our arsenal. Domiciled in the Great White North, Tony publishes one of the finest radical journals in existence.

In terms of content, contributing writers, and presentation, ColdType’s quality is unparalleled.

Judge for yourself: www.coldtype.net

To learn more about ColdType, Tony Sutton, and Tony’s highly refined insight on the dynamics of oppression (which was forged in the crucible of his involvement in the struggle against South African Apartheid), let’s move on to the interview: Read more



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The Great Betrayal

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by Ayaz Amir*

*Mr. Ayaz Amir is a prominent Pakistani columnist.

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FRUSTRATED and now clearly deprived of the power of clear thinking, dictatorship is on the retreat in Pakistan. As it steps back, it is having to perform a slow striptease, its authority and credibility stripped away layer by layer to reveal the startling hollowness inside.

Field Marshal (self-appointed) Ayub Khan’s diaries display nothing so much as his essential shallowness. In them is revealed a very limited man, incapable of a single arresting or original thought. And he ruled Pakistan, as a one-man endeavour, for eleven years. How could Pakistan suffer such a person, who never won much distinction in his military career - the battles he fought and won being largely against his own people - for so long?

A similar question could be asked of Gen Yayha Khan and his given-to-merriment cronies. What was it in Pakistan’s genetic make-up that allowed such clowns not only to preside over Pakistan’s destiny but also ensure the country’s break-up at the hands of India, and the unstoppable force of Bangladeshi nationalism?

If merit and military proficiency had anything to do with it, Zia would never have made it past the rank of brigadier. But he not only was promoted but found himself army chief, on the strength of which he ruled Pakistan for another eleven years. Crafty, devious but again of shallow outlook, he too prompts the question: how could such a person come into the legacy of Iqbal and Jinnah? Was it for the likes of him that Pakistan was founded? Read more



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Republicans Love Generals

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Democrat President Clinton danced in India but refused to shake hands with General Musharraf. Republican President George Walker Bush and President-General Pervez Musharraf have been ‘friends’ for at least five years

by Farrukh Saleem*

*Dr. Farrukh Saleem is an Islamabad-based economist and analyst.

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Republicans have never met a general they didn’t fall in love with. In 1959, Republican President Dwight Eisenhower signed a bilateral security agreement with Generalissimo Muhammad Ayub Khan (the agreement called upon the United States to use her armed forces as may be mutually agreed upon). Eisenhower then went on to establish intelligence facilities near Peshawar to spy over the Soviet Union. Two years later, Democrat John Fitzgerald Kennedy won the White House. President Kennedy gave US$1 billion to Jawaharlal Nehru and a paltry US$150 million to our generalissimo.

In April 1965, Democrat President Lyndon B Johnson imposed a de facto freeze on aid to the government of General Ayub Khan. Five months later, Johnson officially suspended all military and economic aid to Pakistan.

Intriguingly, General Agha Muhammad Yahya Khan’s coup d’état took place when Republican Richard Nixon had taken over the White House from Democrat Lyndon Johnson. Nixon and Yahya became friends. Nixon partnered with Yahya in Operation Moonglow, the secret US-China channel though Pakistan. Read more



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Iraq’s Four-year Looting Frenzy

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British and American collusion in the pillaging of Iraq’s heritage is a scandal that will outlive any passing conflict

by Simon Jenkins

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Fly into the American air base of Tallil outside Nasiriya in central Iraq and the flight path is over the great ziggurat of Ur, reputedly the earliest city on earth. Seen from the base in the desert haze or the sand-filled gloom of dusk, the structure is indistinguishable from the mounds of fuel dumps, stores and hangars. Ur is safe within the base compound. But its walls are pockmarked with wartime shrapnel and a blockhouse is being built over an adjacent archaeological site. When the head of Iraq’s supposedly sovereign board of antiquities and heritage, Abbas al-Hussaini, tried to inspect the site recently, the Americans refused him access to his own most important monument.

Yesterday Hussaini reported to the British Museum on his struggles to protect his work in a state of anarchy. It was a heart breaking presentation. Under Saddam you were likely to be tortured and shot if you let someone steal an antiquity; in today’s Iraq you are likely to be tortured and shot if you don’t. The tragic fate of the national museum in Baghdad in April 2003 was as if federal troops had invaded New York city, sacked the police and told the criminal community that the Metropolitan was at their disposal. The local tank commander was told specifically not to protect the museum for a full two weeks after the invasion. Even the Nazis protected the Louvre. Read more



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Lies, Damn Lies, and Lies that Unleash Hell

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by Jason Miller

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Each day untold millions of US Americans unwittingly immerse themselves in an intellectual, social, cultural, economic, political and spiritual cesspool so rancid and toxic that even microbes with the most voracious appetites for human waste, vomit, and inanimate flesh would shun this infinitely repulsive sewer.

Many highly qualified and intelligent researchers, analysts, and authors have written books, essays, and reports documenting the astounding multitude and variety of crimes committed by the United States throughout its history. Since a nation is an entity comprised of numerous elements and dynamics, we can’t simply blame the government, the Republicans, the Religious Right, the Democrats, George Bush, Bill Clinton, or any one particular component. Therefore, nearly all US Americans bear a degree of responsibility. Obviously, some (i.e. Bush and Cheney) are far more culpable than others because they wield such tremendous power and act with a conscienceless, cynical awareness of the suffering they are inflicting on the Earth and its sentient inhabitants.

Since only about 4% of the population shares Bush’s sociopathic inability to experience empathy or guilt, what is this powerful siren call that motivates so many inherently decent human beings to repeatedly lacerate their souls upon the jagged rocks of complicity in acts that inflict unnecessary suffering upon billions of humans and animals?

How did we become a statistical aberration to the extent that we are a nation of resource-rich, technologically-advanced, mean-spirited, intellectually-stunted moral barbarians where a significant percentage of the population behaves as sociopaths by directly supporting or apathetically ignoring the evils in which they are complicit? Read more



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Those Who Must Never Be Named

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no_name.jpgThere are a people- these people have been around for thousands of years. Yet, they are not a people with their own culture, spirit, art, philosophy or science. Like leeches, they suck the life from every culture they have ever encountered in history. They enter a village and seem, at first, friendly and in need of food and shelter, or even guidance. They eventually take root, slowly acclimating themselves to their new found environment. But they do not meld into this environment like most long lost family members. They secretly long to turn their visit into an invasion and transformation. This invasion is covert. Seemingly, they assist in building or adding to the society. But in reality, they are learning all they can, so they can steal the knowledge of the culture, as they’ve done with many cultures over the millennium. Once they have stolen this knowledge, they disenfranchise the natives by taking over their way of life and spreading tales of their beginnings. These beginnings slowly exclude the natives, until little semblance of who they were is left. They change monuments, destroy monuments and create new ones in their image, using the history of the natives as their background. Read more



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Anwaar’s articles appear simultaneously here at Truth Spring and at Soul Vibes in The Pakistan Tribune.


US loses its status as economic world power
DAVOS, Switzerland, 2008
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