iOS app Android app More   America Needs Obama To Recreate Our
National Narrative  Posted: 10/10/08 09:02 AM ET  The late
British psychiatrist R.D. Laing made a career out of his idea
that civilization is a psychosis. He said you had to be crazy to
even get out of bed in the morning in countries that routinely
murder millions of human beings with carcinogenic products,
zombie-like militaries, and pathological legal and medical
practices. He said a diagnosis of mental illness is often the
result of seeing what's real instead of believing the consensual
lies of family or culture.  Laing has lost his luster as a
psychotherapist, because even if he was right, it's no path to
sanity if you think you can see the truth and the rest of the
world can't.  Still, when I see Republicans trying to explain
foreign or fiscal policy, I decide Laing was onto something.
Listening to Attorney General Michael Mukasey talk about torture
during his confirmation hearings was like listening to a mental
patient talk around the family