Headline June 12th, 2012

''The Make Believe Of Schizophrenia''

No one, least of all Mrs Trollope should register any surprise that the U.S government eventually violated nearly all of the innumerable 'most solemn treaties' signed with various tribes. Yet her criticism was and is dismissed with a version of handy old saw about not being able to fry an omelet without breaking a few eggs. So today, about nearly 200 years later, America continues to boast about its ''exceptionalism'' while Europe continues to resent hearing lectures about freedom and justice from a country founded on ''genocide and slavery''. This sort of contrast between one's self image and one's public image has always been the stuff of comedy, but its getting harder and harder to laugh about the gap between appearance and reality in America. This gap has expectedly widened into a chasm of make-believe that approaches schizophrenia. Hypocrisy is only part of the story. Ignorance plays an important role too, as does sheer brutality. Together with greed and complacency, they feed America's truly astounding capacity for denial. And many intellectuals and even fair Historians are of the opinion, that - in fact denial - more than Christianity, is America's true religion. You need nothing short of religious faith -- untainted by Godless fact and logic  -

to slap a 'NO BLOOD FOR OIL sticker on your S.U.V and fail to see and feel the irony. One great American essayist thinks: ''our aversion to book learning is often blamed for this notorious inability to put two and two together. Not that we are or were completely illiterate.'' And reverting to Mrs Trollope once again, who noted, that whereas American's appreciatiion of literature was very meager indeed --her neighbours in Ohio considered Shakespeare obscene and Chaucer obsolete-- Aamericans were great Newspaper readers. Today Americans are great Television watchers and Web surfers. Their knowledge of the outsider world, therefore, has mainly come to them in sensationalized fragments that are never connected and thus quickly forgotten. Hence, the all famous American ignorance. Haha! Books, by imparting a sense of continuity and context, can enlarge the imagination and enable you to weigh evidence, compare, contrast and make important connections - in short, to exercise skepticism. Catch ya all tomorrow on this delicacy! Haha! Good Night and God bless!

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless!

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