Souless Psychopaths

Could complaints about his abusive behavior help Britain's prime minister get re-elected?

2010-02-27T08:03:00.000-08:00

Bullies are usually tyrants and tyrants are psychopaths!

http://www.slate.com/id/2245871/

Bully for Brown
Could complaints about his abusive behavior help Britain's prime minister get re-elected?
By June Thomas
Wednesday, Feb. 24, 2010

Like most things related to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, the material was rather dull. On Sunday, the Observer newspaper ran an excerpt from columnist Andrew Rawnsley's new book The End of the Party, about Labor's rule since 2001. The 8,000-word selection rehashed familiar episodes from recent history, such as Brown's inability to make up his mind about calling an early election in the fall of 2007 and his rapprochement with longtime political rival Lord Peter Mandelson. It was in the Observer'sseparate front-page story about the book that things got more interesting: "Gordon Brown's abusive behaviour and volcanic eruptions of foul temper left Downing Street staff so frightened that he received an unprecedented reprimand from the head of the civil service," the article began. It further claimed that "Sir Gus O'Donnell, the cabinet secretary, became so alarmed by the prime minister's behaviour that he launched his own investigations when he received reports of Brown's bullying of staff."

The prime minister and his allies (and Sir Gus) denied the allegations. His former adversary Lord Mandelson told the press, "I don't think [Brown] so much bullies people as he is very demanding of people. He's demanding of himself." Few people thought there was much new in Rawnsley's portrait of the prime minister. As the Guardian's Michael White put it in a podcast Tuesday, "You only have to look at Gordon Brown to realize that he's not a little ray of sunshine."

That might have been the end of the story if it hadn't been for Christine Pratt. What she did not only extended the story for a few more chapters; it may even have helped the Labor cause less than three months before a general election whose outcome is surprisingly hard to predict. It also provoked near-unprecedented agreement from commentators across the political spectrum: Brits, they say, need to toughen up and quit their complaining.

Pratt is the founder of a small British charity, the National Bullying Helpline, who contacted the BBC after hearing the reports and claimed: "Over recent months we have had several inquiries from staff within Gordon Brown's office. Some have downloaded information; some have actually called our helpline directly and I have spoken to staff in his office." She continued, "We are not suggesting that Gordon Brown is a bully, what we are saying is staff in his office working directly with him have issues, and have concerns, and have contacted our helpline."

Pratt's allegations had two effects: She was attacked for the breaching the confidentiality of hotline callers—at least three high-profile patrons, including an outspoken Tory MP, broke with the charity over her gaffe—and the press, including many of the prime minister's harshest critics, rushed to defend Brown against interfering tittle-tattles.

As Libby Purves put it in the Rupert Murdoch-owned Times, "Any mild disapproval of Gordon Brown banging and roaring round Downing Street like Godzilla is now eclipsed by disgust at the prim, self-aggrandising whiners of the victim industry." She roared on, "This is Downing Street, the heart of government in an age of recession, terrorism, war and electioneering. It is not a sheltered workshop for the emotionally frail."

In the true-blue Tory Daily Mail, A.N. Wilson declared: "By all means, if you will, say that he has been a lousy Prime Minister. But Brown's bad temper is not a reason for discrediting him—any more than his having the sight of only one eye, or his having a Scottish accent."

Of course, the focus on Brown's personality—and that of his main rivals, Conservative Party leader David Cameron and, to a lesser extent, the Liberal Democrats' Nick Clegg—is all about the upcoming election, which is expected to be called for May 6. The latest polls show the Conservative lead shrinking, and most commentators now predict a hung Parliament. None of the parties cares to linger on the issues—particularly the trickiest, public spending and the need to make cuts in Britain's generous entitlement programs—so it suits everyone to prioritize the personal.

In the last few weeks, the famously private and dour Brown has submitted to several sit-downs. In a TV interview with Piers Morgan that aired on Valentine's Day, he talked about proposing to his wife and cried when he discussed his daughter, Jennifer, who died 10 days after her birth, and his concerns for his son Fraser, who suffers from cystic fibrosis. According to the Daily Mail, during the interview he also admitted that "he lost his temper sometimes, but denied he had ever hit any of his aides."

Few would claim that the prime minister's charisma deficit is a strength. But these days, Britain's best-known political operative is Malcolm Tucker, the foul-mouthed short-tempered Scotsman from the movie In the Loop and the TV show that spawned it, The Thick of It. Perhaps it's better for a politician to be seen as a badass than a bungler. In the last three years, Gordon Brown has survived three palace coups in which underlings tried to oust him from the top spot in the Labor Party. Last November, he was harangued by a bereaved mother who complained about his penmanship in a 13-minute phone call, which was later made public by the Sun newspaper. Now he is the action hero of a CGI animation from Taiwan's Apple Daily.

No one likes or wants to elect a bully, but it won't hurt Brown to be seen as a serious, hardworking politician who cares enough to lose his temper. As one of the commentators on the Observer Web site put it, referring to Rawnsley's claim that Brown "would habitually stab the seat back with his black marker pen" when he was angry: "[I]f he was honest and acted like this when in public he would storm the election. Less creepy smiles more biro stabbing."

Ayn Rand, Hugely Popular Author and Inspiration to Right-Wing Leaders, Was a Big Admirer of Serial Killer

2010-02-26T05:52:00.001-08:00

She wasn't a sociopath. She was a psychopath! Much more evil!

Ayn Rand, Hugely Popular Author and Inspiration to Right-Wing Leaders, Was a Big Admirer of Serial Killer
By Mark Ames, AlterNet
February 26, 2010
http://www.alternet.org/story/145819/

There's something deeply unsettling about living in a country where millions of people froth at the mouth at the idea of giving health care to the tens of millions of Americans who don't have it, or who take pleasure at the thought of privatizing and slashing bedrock social programs like Social Security or Medicare. It might not be as hard to stomach if other Western countries also had a large, vocal chunk of the population who thought like this, but the US is seemingly the only place where right-wing elites can openly share their distaste for the working poor. Where do they find their philosophical justification for this kind of attitude?

It turns out, you can trace much of this thinking back to Ayn Rand, a popular cult-philosopher who exerts a huge influence over much of the right-wing and libertarian crowd, but whose influence is only starting to spread out of the US.

One reason why most countries don't find the time to embrace her thinking is that Ayn Rand is a textbook sociopath. Literally a sociopath: Ayn Rand, in her notebooks, worshiped a notorious serial murderer-dismemberer, and used this killer as an early model for the type of "ideal man" that Rand promoted in her more famous books -- ideas which were later picked up on and put into play by major right-wing figures of the past half decade, including the key architects of America's most recent economic catastrophe -- former Fed Chair Alan Greenspan and SEC Commissioner Chris Cox -- along with other notable right-wing Republicans such as Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Rush Limbaugh, and South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford.

The loudest of all the Republicans, right-wing attack-dog pundits and the Teabagger mobs fighting to kill health care reform and eviscerate "entitlement programs" increasingly hold up Ayn Rand as their guru. Sales of her books have soared in the past couple of years; one poll ranked "Atlas Shrugged" as the second most influential book of the 20th century, after The Bible.

So what, and who, was Ayn Rand for and against? The best way to get to the bottom of it is to take a look at how she developed the superhero of her novel, Atlas Shrugged, John Galt. Back in the late 1920s, as Ayn Rand was working out her philosophy, she became enthralled by a real-life American serial killer, William Edward Hickman, whose gruesome, sadistic dismemberment of 12-year-old girl named Marion Parker in 1927 shocked the nation. Rand filled her early notebooks with worshipful praise of Hickman. According to biographer Jennifer Burns, author of Goddess of the Market, Rand was so smitten by Hickman that she modeled her first literary creation -- Danny Renahan, the protagonist of her unfinished first novel, The Little Street -- on him.

What did Rand admire so much about Hickman? His sociopathic qualities: "Other people do not exist for him, and he does not see why they should," she wrote, gushing that Hickman had "no regard whatsoever for all that society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. He has the true, innate psychology of a Superman. He can never realize and feel 'other people.'"

This echoes almost word for word Rand's later description of her character Howard Roark, the hero of her novel The Fountainhead: "He was born without the ability to consider others."

The Fountainhead is Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas's favorite book -- he even requires his clerks to read it.

I'll get to where Rand picked up her silly Superman blather from later -- but first, let's meet William Hickman, the "genuinely beautiful soul" and inspiration to Ayn Rand. What you will read below -- the real story, details included, of what made Hickman a "Superman" in Ayn Rand's eyes -- is extremely gory and upsetting, even if you're well acquainted with true crime stories -- so prepare yourself. But it's necessary to read this to understand Rand, and to repeat this over and over until all of America understands what made her mind tick, because Rand's influence over the very people leading the fight to kill social programs, and her ideological influence on so many powerful bankers, regulators and businessmen who brought the financial markets crashing down, means her ideas are affecting all of our lives in the worst way imaginable.

Rand fell for William Edward Hickman in the late 1920s, as the shocking story of Hickman's crime started to grip the nation. His crime, trial and case was a non-stop headline grabber for months; the OJ Simpson of his day:

Hickman, who was only 19 when he was arrested for murder, was the son of a paranoid-schizophrenic mother and grandmother. His schoolmates said that as a kid Hickman liked to strangle cats and snap the necks of chickens for fun -- most of the kids thought he was a budding manic, though the adults gave him good marks for behavior, a typical sign of sociopathic cunning. He enrolled in college but quickly dropped out, and quickly turned to violent crime largely driven by the thrill and arrogance typical of sociopaths: in a brief and wild crime spree that grew increasingly violent, Hickman knocked over dozens of gas stations and drug stores across the Midwest and west to California. Along the way it's believed he strangled a girl in Milwaukee, and killed his crime partner's grandfather in Pasadena, tossing his body over a bridge after taking his money. Hickman's partner later told police that Hickman told him how much he'd like to kill and dismember a victim someday -- and that day did come for Hickman.

One afternoon, Hickman drove up to Mount Vernon Junior High school in Los Angeles, and told administrators that he'd come to pick up "the Parker girl" -- her father, Perry Parker, was a prominent banker. Hickman didn't know the girl's first name, so when he was asked which of the two Parker twins -- Hickman answered, "the younger daughter." And then he corrected himself: "The smaller one." The school administrator fetched young Marion, and brought her out to Hickman. No one suspected his motive; Marion obediently followed Hickman to his car as she was told, where he promptly kidnapped her. He wrote a ransom note to Marian's father, demanding $1,500 for her return, promising that the girl would be left unharmed. Marian was terrified into passivity -- she even waited in the car for Hickman when he went to mail his letter to her father. Hickman's extreme narcissism comes through in his ransom letters, as he refers to himself as a "master mind [sic]" and "not a common crook." Hickman signed his letters "The Fox" because he admired his own cunning: "Fox is my name, very sly you know." And then he threatened: "Get this straight. Your daughter's life hangs by a thread."

Hickman and the girl's father exchanged letters over the next few days as they arranged the terms of the ransom, while Marion obediently followed her captor's demands. She never tried to escape the hotel where he kept her; Hickman even took her to a movie, and she never screamed for help. She remained quiet and still as told when Hickman tied her to the chair -- he didn't even bother gagging her because there was no need to, right up to the gruesome end.

Hickman's last ransom note to Marion's father is where this story reaches its disturbing: Hickman fills the letter with hurt anger over her father's suggestion that Hickman might deceive him, and "ask you for your $1500 for a lifeless mass of flesh I am base and low but won't stoop to that depth " What Hickman didn't say was that as he wrote the letter, Marion was already several chopped-up lifeless masses of flesh. Why taunt the father? Why feign outrage? This sort of bizarre taunting was all part of the serial killer's thrill, maximizing the sadistic pleasure he got from knowing that he was deceiving the father before the father even knew what happened to his daughter. But this was nothing compared to the thrill Hickman got from murdering the helpless 12-year-old Marion Parker. Here is an old newspaper description of the murder, taken from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on December 27, 1927:

"It was while I was fixing the blindfold that the urge to murder came upon me," he continued, "and I just couldn't help myself. I got a towel and stepped up behind Marian. Then before she could move, I put it around her neck and twisted it tightly. I held on and she made no outcry except to gurgle. I held on for about two minutes, I guess, and then I let go. "When I cut loose the fastenings, she fell to the floor. "I knew she was dead. "Well, after she was dead I carried her body into the bathroom and undressed her, all but the underwear, and cut a hole in her throat with a pocket knife to let the blood out."
Another newspaper account dryly explained what Hickman did next:

Then he took a pocket knife and cut a hole in her throat. Then he cut off each arm to the elbow. Then he cut her legs off at the knees. He put the limbs in a cabinet. He cut up the body in his room at the Bellevue Arms Apartments. Then he removed the clothing and cut the body through at the waist. He put it on a shelf in the dressing room. He placed a towel in the body to drain the blood. He wrapped up the exposed ends of the arms and waist with paper. He combed back her hair, powdered her face and then with a needle fixed her eyelids. He did this because he realized that he would lose the reward if he did not have the body to produce to her father.
Hickman packed her body, limbs and entrails into a car, and drove to the drop-off point to pick up his ransom; along his way he tossed out wrapped-up limbs and innards scattering them around Los Angeles. When he arrived at the meeting point, Hickman pulled Miriam's head and torso out of a suitcase and propped her up, her torso wrapped tightly, to look like she was alive--he sewed wires into her eyelids to keep them open, so that she'd appear to be awake and alive. When Miriam's father arrived, Hickman pointed a sawed-off shotgun at him, showed Miriam's head with the eyes sewn open (it would have been hard to see for certain that she was dead), and then took the ransom money and sped away. As he sped away, he threw Miriam's head and torso out of the car, and that's when the father ran up and saw his daughter--and screamed.
This is the "amazing picture" Ayn Rand -- guru to the Republican/Tea Party right-wing -- admired when she wrote in her notebook that Hickman represented "the amazing picture of a man with no regard whatsoever for all that a society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. A man who really stands alone, in action and in soul. Other people do not exist for him, and he does not see why they should."

Other people don't exist for Ayn, either. Part of her ideas are nothing more than a ditzy dilettante's bastardized Nietzsche -- but even this was plagiarized from the same pulp newspaper accounts of the time. According to an LA Times article in late December 1927, headlined "Behavioralism Gets The Blame," a pastor and others close to the Hickman case denounce the cheap trendy Nietzschean ideas that Hickman and others latch onto as a defense:

"Behavioristic philosophic teachings of eminent philosophers such as Nietzsche and Schopenhauer have built the foundation for William Edward Hickman's original rebellion against society," the article begins.

The fear that some felt at the time was that these philosophers' dangerous, yet nuanced ideas would fall into the hands of lesser minds, who would bastardize Nietzsche and Schopenhauer and poison the rest of us. Which aptly fits the description of Ayn Rand, whose philosophy developed out of her admiration for "Supermen" like Hickman. Rand's philosophy can be summed up by the title of one of her best-known books: The Virtue of Selfishness. She argues that all selfishness is a moral good, and all altruism is a moral evil, even "moral cannibalism" to use her words. To her, those who aren't like-minded sociopaths are "parasites" and "lice" and "looters."

But with Rand, there's something more pathological at work. She's out to make the world more sociopath-friendly so that people like Ayn and her hero William Hickman can reach their full potential, not held back by the morality of the "weak," whom Rand despised.

That's what makes it so creepy how Rand and her followers clearly get off on hating and bashing those they perceived as weak--Rand and her followers have a kind of fetish for classifying weaker, poorer people as "parasites" and "lice" who need to swept away. This is exactly the sort of sadism, bashing the helpless for kicks, that Rand's hero Hickman would have appreciated. What's really unsettling is that even former Central Bank chief Alan Greenspan, whose relationship with Rand dated back to the 1950s, did some parasite-bashing of his own. In response to a 1958 New York Times book review slamming Atlas Shrugged, Greenspan, defending his mentor, published a letter to the editor that ends: "Parasites who persistently avoid either purpose or reason perish as they should. Alan Greenspan."

As much as Ayn Rand detested human "parasites," there is one thing she strongly believed in: creating conditions that increase the productivity of her Supermen - the William Hickmans who rule her idealized America: "If [people] place such things as friendship and family ties above their own productive work, yes, then they are immoral. Friendship, family life and human relationships are not primary in a man's life. A man who places others first, above his own creative work, is an emotional parasite."

And yet Republican faithful like GOP Congressman Paul Ryan read Ayn Rand and make declare, with pride, "Rand makes the best case for the morality of democratic capitalism." Indeed. Except that Ayn Rand also despised democracy, as she declared: "Democracy, in short, is a form of collectivism, which denies individual rights: the majority can do whatever it wants with no restrictions. In principle, the democratic government is all-powerful. Democracy is a totalitarian manifestation; it is not a form of freedom."

"Collectivism" is another one of those Randian epithets popular among her followers. Here for example is another Republican member of Congress, the one with the freaky thousand-yard-stare, Michelle Bachman, parroting the Ayn Rand ideological line, rto explain her reasoning for wanting to kill social programs:

"As much as the collectivist says to each according to his ability to each according to his need, that's not how mankind is wired. They want to make the best possible deal for themselves."

Whenever you hear politicians or Tea Baggers dividing up the world between "producers" and "collectivism," just know that those ideas and words more likely than not are derived from the deranged mind of a serial-killer groupie. When you hear them threaten to "Go John Galt," hide your daughters and tell them not to talk to any strangers -- or Tea Party Republicans. And when you see them taking their razor blades to the last remaining programs protecting the middle class from total abject destitution -- Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid -- and brag about their plans to slash them for "moral" reasons, just remember Ayn's morality and who inspired her.

Too many critics of Ayn Rand-- until I was one of them -- would rather dismiss her books and ideas as laughable, childish, hackneyed. But it can't be dismissed because Rand is the name that keeps bubbling up from the Teabagger crowd and the elite conservative circuit in Washington as The Big Inspiration. The only way to protect ourselves from this thinking is the way you protect yourself from serial killers: smoke the Rand followers out, make them answer for following the crazed ideology of a serial-killer-groupie, and run them the hell out of town and out of our hemisphere.

Read more of Mark Ames at eXiledonline.com. He is the author of Going Postal: Rage, Murder, and Rebellion: From Reagan's Workplaces to Clinton's Columbine and Beyond.

Video Book Review: Political Ponerology by Andrew M. Lobaczewski

2010-02-21T17:13:00.000-08:00

I read Political Ponerology by Andrew M. Lobaczewski. A science on the nature of evil adjusted for political purposes. It was translated by Alexandra Chciuk-Celt, Ph. D. and edited with notes and commentary by Laura Knight-Jadczyk and Henry See. This is the second edition. Copyright 1998, 2006. It was published in Canada by Red Pill Press.

This book was kind of hard for me to read. I read it twice and I still don’t really understand it.

The guy Zbigniew Brzezinski didn’t want Political Ponerology to be published. He’s the guy who wrote The Grand Chessboard and Between Two Ages. The publisher says:

There are a number of ways of preventing the circulation and distribution of ideas that are considered dangerous to the ensconced powers. The first is to work to prevent their publication. Lobaczewski describes how Zbigniew Bzrezinski, while singing words of praise for the manuscript and saying he would see it published, in fact did his best, successfully, to see the book did not get into print. [p. 223]

A good quote to kind of start off this video is from the publisher:

Human history is the tale of powers and regimes rising and falling. Behind many of them stand individuals that fit the descriptions of pathological types in this book. While Lobaczewski offers us, perhaps for the first time in recorded history, the key to understanding this process, for coming to grips with the true nature of human evil in our world, it is obvious that the key will only unlock more horror and suffering if it is held by those types described in the pages of this book. Only if normal people, the billions of normal people of conscience in our world, can be made aware of the real threat we face and can learn to immunize themselves, do we stand a chance of breaking the cycle. [p. 224]

Another good quote to help start this video off is from the editor’s preface:

Andrew Lobaczewski addresses the problem of the psychopath and their extremely significant contribution to our macrosocial evils, their ability to act as the éminence grise behind the very structure of our society. [p. 15]

So who is Andrew M. Lobaczewski? He’s the author. More on him . . .

I [, Andrew M. Lobaczewski,] am a very aged clinical psychologist. Forty years ago I took part in a secret investigation of the real nature and psychopathology of the macro-social phenomenon called “Communism”. [p. 19]

What is “ponerology”? Some quotes . . .

Nevertheless, based on the work of myself and others in that past tragic time, a new discipline arose that became our beacon; two Greek philologists/monks baptized it “PONEROLOGY” from the Greek poneros = evil. The process of the genesis of evil was called, correspondingly, “ponerogenesis”. [p. 71]

A ponerological approach facilitates an understanding of some of mankind’s more dramatic difficulties on both levels, the macrosocial and the individual human scale. This new discipline will make it possible to achieve first theoretical, and then practical, solutions for problems we have been attempting to solve by ineffective traditional means, resulting in feelings of helplessness against the tides of history. These latter means are based on historiographical concepts and excessively moralizing attitudes, which makes them overrate force as a means of counteracting evil. Ponerology can help equalize such one-sidedness by means of modern naturalistic thinking, supplementing our comprehension of the causes and genesis of evil with the facts necessary to build a more stable foundation for practical inhibition of the processes of ponerogenesis and counteraction of their results. [p. 125]

Ponerology was born in the crucible of attempts to understand, scientifically, a macro-social phenomenon of what can only be called extreme and excessive evil: Fascism and Soviet Communism. [p. 234]

The ponerogenesis of macrosocial phenomena — large scale evil — which constitutes the most important object of this book, appears to be subject to the same laws of nature that operate within human questions on an individual or small-group level. The role of persons with various psychological defects and anomalies of a clinically low level appears to be a perennial characteristic of such phenomena. In the macrosocial phenomenon we shall later call “pathocracy”, a certain hereditary anomaly isolated as “essential psychopathy” is catalytically and causatively essential for the genesis and survival of large scale social evil. [p. 31]

A cool quote on evil:

Evil in the world, in fact, constitutes a continuum: one kind opens the door to another, irrespective of its qualitative essence or the ideological slogans cloaking it. [p. 198]

Quotes on psychopaths:

Martha Stout, [in The Sociopath Next Door (Broadway, 2005),] who has worked extensively with victims of psychopaths, writes:

Imagine — if you can — not having a conscience, none at all, no feelings of guilt or remorse no matter what you do, no limiting sense of concern for the well-being of strangers, friends, or even family members. Imagine no struggles with shame, not a single one in your whole life, no matter what kind of selfish, lazy, harmful, or immoral action you had taken.
And pretend that the concept of responsibility is unknown to you, except as a burden others seem to accept without question, like gullible fools.
Now add to this strange fantasy the ability to conceal from other people that your psychological makeup is radically different from theirs. Since everyone simply assumes that conscience is universal among human beings, hiding the fact that you are conscience-free is nearly effortless.

. . .

If you are born at the right time, with some access to family fortune, and you have a special talent for whipping up other people’s hatred and sense of deprivation, you can arrange to kill large numbers of unsuspecting people. With enough money, you can accomplish this from far away, and you can sit back safely and watch in satisfaction. . . .

Crazy and frightening — and real, in about 4 percent of the population. . . .

The prevalence rate for anorexic eating disorders is estimated a 3.43 percent, deemed to be nearly epidemic, and yet this figure is a fraction lower than the rate for antisocial personality. The high-profile disorders classed as schizophrenia occur in only about 1 percent of [the population] — a mere quarter of the rate of antisocial personality — and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say that the rate of colon cancer in the United States, considered “alarmingly high,” is about 40 per 100,000 — one hundred times lower than the rate of antisocial personality.

The high incidence of sociopathy in human society has a profound effect on the rest of us who must live on this planet, too, even those of us who have not been clinically traumatized. The individuals who constitute this 4 percent drain our relationships, our bank accounts, our accomplishments, our self-esteem, our very peace on earth.

[pp. 10-11]

“Likeable”, “Charming”, “Intelligent”, “Alert”, “Impressive”, “Confidence-inspiring,” and “A great success with the ladies”. This is how Hervey Cleckley described most of his subjects in The Mask of Sanity. It seems that, in spite of the fact that their actions prove them to be “irresponsible” and “self-destructive”, psychopaths seem to have in abundance the very traits most desired by normal persons. The smooth self-assurance acts as an almost supernatural magnet to normal people who have to read self-help books or go to counseling to be able to interact with others in an untroubled way. The psychopath, on the contrary, never has any neuroses, no self-doubts, never experiences angst, and is what “normal” people seek to be. What’s more, even if they aren’t that attractive, they are “babe magnets”.
Cleckley’s seminal hypothesis is that the psychopath suffers from profound and incurable affective deficit. If he really feels anything at all, they are emotions of only the shallowest kind. He is able to do whatever he wants, based on whatever whim strikes him, because consequences that would fill the ordinary man with shame, self-loathing, and embarrassment simply do not affect the psychopath at all. What to others would be a horror or a disaster is to him merely a fleeting inconvenience. [p. 14]

Hervey Cleckley actually comes very close to suggesting that psychopaths are human in every respect — but that they lack a soul. This lack of “soul quality” makes them very efficient “machines”. They can write scholarly works, imitate the words of emotion, but over time, it becomes clear that their words do not match their actions. They are the type of person who can claim that they are devastated by grief who then attend a party “to forget”. The problem is: they really do forget. [p. 15]

In short, the psychopath is a predator. If we think about the interactions of predators with their prey in the animal kingdom, we can come to some idea of what is behind the “mask of sanity” of the psychopath. Just as an animal predator will adopt all kinds of stealthy functions in order to stalk their prey, cut them out of the herd, get close to them, and reduce their resistance, so does the psychopath construct all kinds of elaborate camouflage composed of words and appearances — lies and manipulations — in order to “assimilate” their prey. [p. 17]

Familiarity with this common weakness of human nature and the normal person’s “naÏveté” is part of the specific knowledge we find in many psychopathic individuals . . . [p. 103]

Psychopaths are conscious of being different from normal people. That is why the “political system” inspired by their nature is able to conceal this awareness of being different. They wear a personal mask of sanity and know how to create a macrosocial mask of the same dissimulating nature. When we observe the role of ideology in this macrosocial phenomenon, quite conscious of the existence of this specific awareness of the psychopath, we can then understand why ideology is relegated to a tool-like role: something useful in dealing with those other naive people and nations. Pathocrats must nevertheless appreciate the function of ideology as being something essential in any ponerogenic group, especially in the macrosocial phenomenon which is their “homeland”. [p. 143-144]

Lobaczewski talks about how in a system there’s a group of 6% that make up the nobility and a group of 12% that make up the bourgeoisie. The rest of the population makes up the 82%. And it’s the 18% that controls the 82% I guess.

You can think of it like a triangle:

The 6% group constitute the new nobility; the 12% group gradually forms the new bourgeoisie, whose economic situation is the most advantageous. Adapting to the new conditions, not without conflicts of conscience, transforms this latter group into both dodgers and, simultaneously, intermediaries between the oppositional society and the active ponerological group, whom they can talk to in the appropriate language. They play such a crucial role within this system that both sides must take them into account. Since their technical capacities and skills are better than those of the active pathocratic group, they assume various managerial positions. Normal people see them as persons they can approach, generally without being subjected to pathological arrogance.
So it is that only 18% of the country’s population is in favor of the new system of government; but concerning the layer we have called the bourgeoisie, we may even be doubtful of the sincerity of their attitudes. This is the situation in the author’s homeland. This proportion can be variously estimated in other countries, from 15% in Hungary to 21% in Bulgaria, but it is never more than a relatively small minority. [pp. 157-158]

It was relatively easy to determine the environments and origins of the people who succumbed to this process, which I then called “transpersonification”. They came from all social groups, including aristocratic and fervently religious families and caused a break in our student solidarity to the order of some 6%. The remaining majority suffered varying degrees of personality disintegration which gave rise to individual searching for the values necessary to find ourselves again; the results were varied and sometimes creative.
Even then, we had no doubts as to the pathological nature of this “transpersonification” process, which ran similar but not identical in all cases. The duration of the results of this phenomenon also varied. Some of these people later became zealots. Others later took advantage of various circumstances to withdraw and re-establish their lost links to the society of normal people. They were replaced. The only constant value of the new social system was the magic number of 6%. [p. 26]

The first conclusion which suggested itself soon after meeting with the “professor” introduced at the beginning of this volume, was that the phenomenon’s development is limited by nature in terms of the participation of susceptible individuals within a given society. The initial evaluation of approximately 6% amenable individuals proved realistic; progressively collected detailed statistical data assembled later were unable to refute it. This value varies from country to country in the magnitude of about one percentage point upward or downward. Quantitatively speaking, this number is broken down into 0.6% essential psychopaths, i.e. about 1/10 of this 6%. However, this anomaly plays a disproportionate role compared to the numbers by saturating the phenomenon as a whole with its own quality of thought and experience. [p. 156]

Neurosis develops in people under pathocratic rule.

. . . neurosis is human nature’s normal response to being subjugated to a pathological system. [p. 200]

Every person in the span of his life, and particularly during childhood and youth, assimilates psychological material from others through mental resonance, identification, imitation, and other communicative means, thereupon transforming it to build his own personality and world view. If such material is contaminated by pathological factors and deformities, personality development shall also be deformed. There product will be a person unable to understand correctly either himself and others, normal human relations and morals; he develops into a person who commits evil acts with a poor feeling of being faulty. Is he really at fault? [p. 73]

Neurosis is a natural response of human nature if a normal person is subordinated to domination of pathological people. The same applies to the subordination of a society and its members to a pathological system of authority. In a pathocratic state, every person with a normal nature thus exhibits a certain chronic neurotic state, controlled by the efforts of reason. The intensity of these states, varies among individuals, depending upon different circumstances, usually more serious in direct proportion to the individual’s intelligence. Psychotherapy upon such people is only possible and effective if we can rely on adequate familiarity with the causes of these states. Western educated psychologists thus prove completely impractical with regard to such patients. [p. 177]

Some quotes about “happy times”:

In general, most people are horrified by such literature; in hedonistic societies particularly, people have the tendency to escape into ignorance or naive doctrines. Some people even feel contempt for suffering persons. The influence of such books can thus be partially harmful; we should counteract that influence by indicating what the authors had to leave out because our ordinary world of concepts and imaginings cannot contain it. [p. 29]

Perception of the truth about the real environment, especially an understanding of the human personality and its values, ceases to be a virtue during the so-called “happy” times; thoughtful doubters are decried as meddlers who cannot leave well enough alone. This, in turn, leads to an impoverishment of psychological knowledge, the capacity of differentiating the properties of human nature and personality, and the ability to mold minds creatively. The cult of power thus supplants those mental values so essential for maintaining law and order by peaceful means. A nation’s enrichment or involution regarding its psychological world view could be considered an indicator of whether its future will be good or bad.
During “good” times, the search for truth becomes uncomfortable because it reveals inconvenient facts. It is better to think about easier and more pleasant things. Unconscious elimination of data which are, or appear to be, inexpedient gradually turns into habit, and then becomes a custom accepted by society at large. The problem is that any thought process based on such truncated information cannot possibly give rise to correct conclusions; it further leads to subconscious substitution of inconvenient premises by more convenient ones, thereby approaching the boundaries of psychopathy.
. . . Catastrophe waits in the wings. In such times, the capacity for logical and disciplined thought, born of necessity during difficult times, begins to fade. When communities lose the capacity for psychological reason and moral criticism, the processes of the generation of evil are intensified at every social scale, whether individual or macrosocial, until everything reverts to “bad” times.
. . .
When a few generations’ worth of “good-time” insouciance results in societal deficit regarding psychological skill and moral criticism, this paves the way for pathological plotters, snake-charmers, and even more primitive impostors to act and merge into the processes of the origination of evil. They are essential factors in its synthesis. In the next chapter I shall attempt to persuade my readers that the participation of pathological factors, so underrated by the social sciences, is a common phenomenon in the processes of the origin of evil.
Those times which many people later recall as the “good old days” thus provide fertile soil for future tragedy because of the progressive devolution of moral, intellectual, and personality values which give rise to Rasputin-like eras.
. . .
When bad times arrive and people are overwhelmed by an excess of evil, they must gather all their physical and mental strength to fight for existence and protect human reason. The search for some way out of the difficulties and dangers rekindles long-buried powers of discretion. Such people have the initial tendency to rely on force in order to counteract the threat; they may, for instance, become “trigger-happy” or dependent upon armies.
Slowly and laboriously, however, they discover the advantages conferred by mental effort; improved understanding of the psychological situation in particular, better differentiation of human characters and personalities, and, finally, comprehension of one’s adversaries. During such times, virtues which former generations relegated to literary motifs regain their real and useful substance and become prized for their value. A wise person capable of furnishing sound advice is highly respected. [pp. 62-64]

The cycle of happy, peaceful times favors a narrowing of the world view and an increase in egotism; societies become subject to progressive hysteria and to that final stage, descriptively known to historians, which finally produces times of despondency and confusion, that have lasted for millennia and continue to do so. The recession of mind and personality which is a feature of ostensibly happy times varies from one nation to another; thus some countries manage to survive the results of such crises with minor losses, whereas others lose nations and empires. Geopolitical factors have also played a decisive role. [p. 64]

In “happy times” especially, the tendency for conversive thinking generally intensifies. It appears accompanied by a rising wave of hysteria in said society. Those who try to maintain common sense and proper reasoning finally wind up in the minority, feeling wronged because their human right to maintain psychological hygiene is violated by pressure from all sides. This means that unhappy times are not far away. [p. 109]

Quotes that I thought were cool:

Carriers of this anomaly [, schizoidia or schizoidal psychopathy,] are hypersensitive and distrustful, while, at the same time, pay little attention to the feelings of others. They tend to assume extreme positions, and are eager to retaliate for minor offenses. Sometimes they are eccentric and odd. Their poor sense of psychological situation and reality leads them to superimpose erroneous, pejorative interpretations upon other people’s intentions. They easily become involved in activities which are ostensibly moral, but which actually inflict damage upon themselves and others. Their impoverished psychological worldview makes them typically pessimistic regarding human nature. We frequently find expressions of their characteristic attitudes in their statements and writings: “Human nature is so bad that order in human society can only be maintained by a strong power created by highly qualified individuals in the name of some higher idea.” Let us call this typical expression the “schizoid declaration”. [pp. 87-88]

In the psychopath, a dream emerges like some Utopia of a “happy” world and a social system which does not reject them or force them to submit to laws and customs whose meaning is incomprehensible to them. They dream of a world in which their simple and radical way of experiencing and perceiving reality would dominate; where they would, of course, be assured safety and prosperity. In this Utopian dream, they imagine that those “others”, different, but also more technically skillful than they are, should be put to work to achieve this goal for the psychopaths and others of their kin. “We”, they say, “after all, will create a new government, one of justice”. They are prepared to fight and to suffer for the sake of such a brave new world, and also, of course, to inflict suffering upon others. Such a vision justifies killing people, whose suffering does not move them to compassion because “they” are not quite conspecific. They do not realize that they will consequently meet with opposition which can last for generations. [pp. 98-99]

Pathocracy survives thanks to the feeling of being threatened by the society of normal people, as well as by other countries wherein various forms of the system of normal man persist. For the rulers, staying on the top is therefore the classic problem of “to be or not to be”. [p. 146]

. . . the practical value of our natural world view generally ends where psychopathology begins. [p. 103]

Nothing poisons the human soul and deprives us of our capacity to understand reality more objectively than this very obedience to that common human tendency to take a moralistic view of human behavior. [p. 105]

Deficiently faithful people have been and are a factor of the pathocratic system’s internal weakness. [p. 140]

Whenever a society contains serious social problems, there will also be some group of sensible people striving to improve the social situation by means of energetic reforms, so as to eliminate the cause of social tension. Others consider it their duty to bring about a moral rejuvenation of society. Elimination of social injustice and reconstruction of the country’s morals and civilization could deprive a pathocracy of an chance to take over. Such reformers and moralists must therefore be consistently neutralized by means of liberal or conservative positions and appropriately suggestive catchwords and paramoralisms; if necessary, the best among them has to be murdered.
Psychological warfare strategists must decide rather early on which ideology would be most efficient in a particular country because of its adaptability to said nation’s traditions. After all, the appropriately adapted ideology must perform the function of a Trojan horse, transporting pathocracy into the country. These various ideologies are then gradually conformed to one’s own original master plan. Finally, off comes the mask.
At the right time, local partisans are organized and armed, with recruits picked from dissatisfied localities; leadership is provided by trained officers familiar with the secret idea as well as the operative idea concocted for propagation in the country in question. Assistance must then be given so groups of conspirators adhering to the concocted ideology can stage a coup d’état, whereupon an iron-fisted government is installed. Once this has been brought about, the diversionary partisans’ activities are stymied — they are made out to be patsies — so that the new authorities can take credit for bringing about internal peace. Any hoodlum who cannot or will not submit to the new decrees is “gently” invited before his former leader and shot in the back of the head. This is the new reality.
This is how such governmental systems are born. A network of pathological ponerogenical factors is already active, as is the inspirational role of essential psychopathy. However, that does not yet represent a complete picture of pathocracy. Many local leaders and adherents persist in their original convictions which, albeit radical, strike them as serving the good of a much larger proportion of formerly abused persons, not just a few percent of pathocrats and the interests of a would-be world wide empire. [pp. 153-154]

Persons less distinctly inclined in the pathocratic direction include those affected by some states caused by the toxic activities of certain substances such as ether, carbon monoxide, and possibly some endotoxins, under the condition that this occurred in childhood. [p. 156]

Still, so many people with a religious upbringing change their world view to that of the Pathocrats very quickly. [p. 158]

Such a great review of individual, social, and historical world views in this search for meaning of life and history is a product of unhappy times and will help along the way back to happy ones. [p. 175]

As Mme. de Stael wrote: “Tout comprendere, c’est tout pardoner”. [Translation: “To understand all is to forgive all.”] [p. 175]

We must be convinced that the Truth can endure such a washing in modern detergent; not only will it not lose its eternal values, but it will actually regain its original freshness and noble colors. [p. 194]

. . . everything begins and ends within the human psyche. [p. 218]

One last quote . . .

When Man can look suffering and even death in the eye with the required calm, a dangerous weapon falls out of the ruler’s hands. [p. 173]

Daniel Kemp

Blame The "Big Business Thugs!"

2010-02-20T11:35:00.001-08:00

Thuggery is tyranny and most tyrants are psychopaths! Whenever someone uses force (physical or otherwise), it is psychopathy!!!

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Blame-The-Big-Business-Th-by-Susan-Strong-100217-757.html

February 18, 2010
Blame The "Big Business Thugs!"
By Susan Strong

In December, 2009, President Obama said, "the buck stops with me," when the Homeland Security Department he inherited from Bush & Co. failed to prevent the Christmas bomber's attempt. But the four alarm mess the Bushies dumped on Obama and the rest of us, including the badly pasted together Homeland Security Department, is not a "buck" he should pick up. Sure, he has to make a big effort to clean up their mess, despite the fact that they are doing everything they can to block him at every turn. But the "buck" still stops with the Right and their backers: the "big business thugs."

Of course the president can't get away with openly blaming "big business thugs" for the gridlock we're stuck in. The stock market will go down again if he does, and then even more of the peoples' pension funds vanish. Naming the blame correctly and succinctly is our job. It's time we answered the Right's scare tactic of "big government" with the truth about what's really scary in the land: it's the "big business thugs" who blackmail Congress. Of course, it's not all big businesses and certainly not all business in general. Small businesses usually aren't trying to obstruct or bleed the citizens they serve either. The "big business thugs" I'm thinking of are those companies and sectors of the economy that continually and actively obstruct the American people's health and well-being in every way they can--big investment banking, the health insurance industry, big pharma, oil companies, big agriculture, and so on.

Like all thugs, they use behind the scenes threats, manipulation, bribes, and above all, passing the buck. It's often been said that the Right is good at framing, in the sense of messaging, but they are even better at framing in the criminal sense: shifting the blame to someone else, and making "you and him fight." Big business thugs are the ones who really betray our democracy and abuse working Americans. And to their gang of captive conservatives in Congress they add worked-over individual Democrats, however progressive those hapless folks might wish to be.

A minute ago I said it's our job to bring all of this up. In a recent piece in Tikkun, ("Why Are Americans Passive as Millions Lose. . .?" January/February 2010 issue, http://www.alternet.org/media/145481 ) psychotherapist Harriet Fraad laid out a brilliant analysis of why Americans have been so passive while big business thugs gutted our economy and our democracy, starting with the Reagan administration. In conclusion, she suggests some excellent new organizing tactics based on her current research. I think there is real cause for hope now too. The American public is hopping mad, and not just the tea party folks either. Let's give them all the whole truth, in phrases that could easily spread, about who's really to blame for our troubles. We could turn the newly aroused creativity of "a can do America" loose again. After all, this would not be the first time in American history that the American people have had to take our country back from big business thugs.

Japan opens lid on mass grave

2010-02-16T11:50:00.001-08:00

http://www.smh.com.au/world/japan-opens-lid-on-mass-grave-20100215-o2v5.html

Julian Ryall
Sdyney Morning Herald
Tue, 16 Feb 2010 02:30 EST

Tokyo: More than 60 years after the end of World War II, the name Unit 731 still has the power to generate shock, revulsion and denial in Japan.

The Imperial Japanese Army's notorious medical research team carried out secret human experiments regarded as some of the worst war crimes in history.

It subjected more than 10,000 people a year to grotesque torture in the name of science. Russian soldiers and downed American aircrews were among the victims.

Experiments included hanging people upside down until they choked, burying them alive and injecting air into their veins. Some victims were subject to vivisection.

New details could be revealed after the authorities in Tokyo announced plans to open an investigation into human bones thought to have come from the unit.

The bones of up to 100 people were discovered in a mass grave in 1989 during construction work. They bore the marks of saws and some of the skulls had drill holes and portions of the bone cut out. But the issue is so controversial in Japan that the remains have since been stored in a repository.

Acting on information from a former nurse, the authorities have said they will re-examine the bones to determine whether they were part of the experiments carried out by Unit 731 in the last days of the war.

Toyo Ishii came forward to say that during the weeks after Japan's surrender in August 1945, she and her colleagues at an army hospital were ordered to bury corpses, bones and body parts before the Allies arrived.

She claimed that the hospital had three mortuaries where bodies with numbered tags around their necks were stored in a pool of formalin to preserve them before they were dissected. Organs and other body parts were preserved in glass jars.

The sites that Mrs Ishii pinpointed as mass graves will now be excavated. The area is an apartment complex in the Shinjuku district of the city which is scheduled for redevelopment.

An investigation after the remains were found in 1989 concluded they were mostly non-Japanese Asians and had probably been used in ''medical education'' or taken to the medical school from battlefields overseas for analysis. The health ministry has repeatedly denied requests from several Chinese whose relatives are believed to have died in Unit 731 experiments to have DNA tests carried out on the bones.

Unit 731 was mostly active in China, where it carried out biological, bacteriological and chemical weapons tests on civilians and prisoners of war.

Intolerable Cruelty: Cover Stories and a Culture of Lies

2010-02-12T09:57:00.001-08:00

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202789-Intolerable-Cruelty-Cover-Stories-and-a-Culture-of-Lies

Harrison Koehli
Sott.net
Wed, 10 Feb 2010 21:23 EST

There was this boy I sent to the 'lectric chair at Huntsville Hill here a while back. My arrest and my testimony. He killt a fourteen-year-old girl. Papers said it was a crime of passion but he told me there wasn't any passion to it. Told me that he'd been planning to kill somebody for about as long as he could remember. Said that if they turned him out he'd do it again. Said he knew he was going to hell. "Be there in about fifteen minutes". I don't know what to make of that. I sure don't. The crime you see now, it's hard to even take its measure. It's not that I'm afraid of it. I always knew you had to be willing to die to even do this job. But, I don't want to push my chips forward and go out and meet something I don't understand. A man would have to put his soul at hazard. He'd have to say, "O.K., I'll be part of this world." - Sheriff Bell in No Country for Old Men

Over the last decades the Coen brothers have repeatedly proven themselves to be masters of portraying the tragicomic realities of American life. From the quirky and trivial to the depths of moral failings and utter depravity, their films often focus on the criminal mind and its varied psychological roots. They get to the heart of human weakness, the tempting lure of a "free lunch", and the inscrutable darkness of the psychopathic mind. Most notable of recent years was Javier Bardem's rendition of Anton Chigurh, the psychopathic killer from the Coens' Academy Award-winning adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's novel, No Country for Old Men. In many ways recalling the Coens' earlier work, Fargo, the audience experiences the film's drama through the eyes and conscience of a county Sheriff in West Texas, Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones). We share his confusion and pained desire to understand the senseless violence against which he struggles every day.

As I mentioned in my last piece, Pathocracy: Brave New World or 1984, "while the creation of a literary world (or a film one, in this case) can teach us many things, it cannot provide a way out. For that we need accurate knowledge." Because if we go out in this world without that knowledge, as Tommy Lee Jones' character says above, we put our souls at hazard. We must have at least some understanding of what we are to face. That said, the main inspiration for this piece comes from what is probably the Coens' worst movie, Intolerable Cruelty, starring George Clooney and Catherine Zeta-Jones as a pair of shallow, greedy shells of human beings in a comedy of Hollywood infidelity and monetarily inspired marital maneuverings. Clooney plays a highly successful divorce lawyer, schooled in the practice of winning arguments by any means necessary. Zeta-Jones plays a conniving, cold-hearted seductress out to catch, and then divorce, a rich husband for half his money. Both show a stunning facility to lie about anything. Naturally, they end up together, and while the film itself is unremarkable it does have something to say about the highly ponerized qualities of Western culture.

Take this line from Clooney's character, Miles Massey, delivered to a cheating wife whose husband caught her in the act, and who, of course wants "fair" representation:
Hmm... Hmm... Yes, your husband did show remarkable foresight in taking those pictures. And, yes, absent a swimming pool, the presence of a pool man would appear to be suspicious. But, Madam, who is the real victim here? Let me suggest to you the following. Your husband, who on a prior occasion had slapped you, beat you...
While the Coens humorously push this tendency to create one's reality out of thin air throughout the movie, sometimes to a ridiculous degree, the line pretty much captures the modus operandi of the film's characters, and of the entire Western legal system, incidentally, thus brining me to my point. A culture without a popular understanding of psychopathy faces a very real danger from the very thing of which they are unaware. A culture without a popular understanding of psychopathy and whose citizens demonstrate an almost inborn tendency to lie, to create personal fictions and to even come to believe those fictions, all to present themselves in a better light, is hurtling so fast towards self-destruction that is perhaps unavoidable at this point.

There is a phrase to describe the fictions that people like Miles Massey are so adept at conjuring. They are called cover stories, plausible stories made to put the facts in a light completely at odds with the reality of a situation. The motivations are simple. In a legal system it goes as follows: how can I put my client, who is undoubtedly guilty, in a good enough light that the judge or jury will be convinced that they are innocent? How can I lie well enough to convince them that it is my opponent that is lying? How can I make my client's victim look like the guilty party? In other words, it's all about perception-management, creating a version of the "truth" that benefits the client, and playing with "facts" in such a way that the word loses all meaning.

The notion of the cover story maps our reality so well that if we trace its roots we are led directly to the roots of the human condition, that murky territory plumbed with such insight by the best philosophers, mystics, novelists, and poets. From the self-deceptions of everyday life to the "big lies" told by scammers who call themselves leaders, most of our notions about life are often little more than cover stories to hide a truth we refuse to see, and often a reality that is too scary to imagine.

So what is the root of the cover story? First and foremost, it has to do with the universal human capacity to dissociate. Not necessarily a bad thing, it is because of this special quality of consciousness that we are even able to function as living, thinking, feeling beings in the world of experience. Dissociation allows us to regulate reality, to focus attention, to not be distracted by the endless expanse of sensory signals barraging our awareness at any given moment. Dissociation is also what makes a harsh reality bearable. We dissociate consciousness during abuse to mute the pain of the ultimate betrayal. We shunt away unnecessary data in a situation where our lives are threatened and narrow focus is essential to our very survival. But this tendency is easily misused. When we become too used to its calming effects, we run the risk of self-deception that places us in danger of even greater harms.

Psychologist and author John F. Schumaker lists the types of dissociative processes in his book The Corruption of Reality:
This evolutionary strategy [i.e. preserving the many advantages of elevated consciousness while simultaneously reducing the emotional impact of that same adaptation] came in the form of the capacity of the brain to dissociate itself from its own data. More specifically, the human brain gained the ability to (a) selectively perceive its environment, (b) selectively process information, (c) selectively store memories, (d) selectively disengage from already stored memories, and (e) selectively replace dissociated data with more "user-friendly" data.
Lobaczewski called these processes subconscious selection and substitution of information, examples of which are easily furnished by playing variations on the theme of the suave divorce lawyer's client. Here's the scenario: the woman's husband comes home early, and is somewhat perplexed to see a pool man's van parked on the driveway of his spacious West Hollywood home, a home by they way, without the pool required to make such services required in the first place. But, the anticipation of "the big game" he's five minutes late for, or perhaps the succulent appeal of the buckwheat sandwich awaiting him in the fridge, causes him to push this paradoxical perception from the purview of his mind's eye. He's got more important things to focus on, after all. He grabs the sandwich, watches the game, and the pool guy slips out on sock-footed feet. That's (a) selective perception. It's not quite denial because the relevant information hasn't been processed well enough to even lead to a conclusion worth denying.

Selective processing (b) is a bit more involved, one example of which is denial, the subconscious blocking of uncomfortable conclusions. In this scenario our unlucky protagonist may arrive home just in time to see the pool guy get in his van and drive away. He manages to free up enough brain power to say to himself, "Wait a minute..." upon seeing the incongruously placed van. For a moment he recalls past instances of the lingering smell of unfamiliar men's cologne on his wife, but he simply shakes his head, "That's ridiculous." On the threshold of entering through the door of truth, he backs away at the last second. And while he blocks the pain of the truth temporarily, he also blocks the benefits gained from passing through that door and the temporary pain it brings.

Subconscious selection of premises occurs a bit earlier in the chain of reasoning. If our minds were police officers, subconscious selection would be like tampering with evidence, that evidence being the data, perceptions, and memories we use to come to logical conclusions about the world, others, and ourselves. It occurs when our mind deletes and represses just that piece of information which was responsible for arriving at the uncomfortable conclusion. We come to a conclusion which is ostensibly and logically correct, but it's "not even wrong" because the premises we use are garbage. In (c) and (d) our memories are simply the data we manipulate. Some memories don't get stored in the first place, others are blocked via trauma, and some simply don't come to mind because otherwise we might be forced to face an uncomfortable truth.

Now, let's say our hypothetical husband enters his home, after seeing the parked van, to find his wife and the much younger pool guy emerge from upstairs with nervous glances and quick breath. They're surprised, but quick on their feet, with a cover story ready, to boot. "Bob, have you met Pool Guy Jim? He's an old friend, and was going door-to-door offering his services when he serendipitously came to our door! We were just catching up."

What a relief! Gone are the slight recollections of manly fragrances (that's selection of premises), now but wisps in the air of the husband's comforted mental landscape. Ignored is the fact that they emerged from what was undoubtedly the bedroom upstairs, an odd place to catch up with a casual acquaintance. It's a plausible story after all, especially in their neighborhood, and Sue was always popular. And, most importantly, it's much more comfortable to believe than the alternative.

The cover story was a success, and the conclusion (she's not cheating) was made possible thanks to the bogus data his wife provided, backed up by Bob's own spurious thinking processes. That's substitution of premises, the most complex process of the bunch, or as Schumaker puts it (e) selectively replacing dissociated data with more "user-friendly" data. Lobaczewski notes that substitution is actually a semi-conscious process, most often helped along collectively, in conversation. It may even occur in one's mental dialogue, "What? Is she cheating? That might explain that cologne... What's that? An old friend? What a relief!" And practiced with enough dedication to cheap imitations of truth, it can become a nasty habit.

And by this vicious cycle of deception we are led back to our main point. When a society develops the habit of twisting the truth, malicious abuse of the truth becomes easy and prevalent. Western culture is asphyxiated by it. What starts as an evolutionarily adaptive brain mechanism becomes a shortcut by which we avoid facing uncomfortable views of ourselves and others. And as the process moves from more automatic and unconscious (denial) to more increasingly conscious (substitution), our thinking becomes increasingly pathological and downright wrong, making us vulnerable to those who take advantage of this face-saving tendency. Lobaczewski writes:
Those people who use conversive operations too often for the purpose of finding convenient conclusions, or constructing some cunning paralogistic or paramoralistic statements, eventually begin to undertake such behavior for ever more trivial reasons, losing the capacity for conscious control over their thought process altogether. This necessarily leads to behavior errors which must be paid for by others as well as themselves.

People who have lost their psychological hygiene and capacity of proper thought along this road also lose their natural critical faculties with regard to the statements and behavior of individuals whose abnormal thought processes were formed on a substratum of pathological anomalies, whether inherited or acquired. Hypocrites stop differentiating between pathological and normal individuals, thus opening an "infection entry" for the ponerologic role of pathological factors. (Political Ponerology, p. 108)
In other words, when we lie to ourselves, we're easy prey for psychopaths who lie to us. We may identify with our nationality to the extent that we filter out negative thoughts about our leaders and our conduct with other countries. We may ignore the atrocities committed in our names. Even worse, we may take the bait offered by our leaders and substitute important data, reaching pseudo-logical and pseudo-moral opinions. "Theydeserve it, because they hate us." "That massacre wasn't actually a massacre. They fired first after all, and we were only defending ourselves." "The guy had weapons of mass destruction." "They're the ones that want to kill us, we're just making sure they'll never get the chance."

We buy the cover story, hook, line, and sinker. On a cultural level, the process is calledmyth-making. We create grand histories, semi-mythical founders of nations, charter documents that sustain the false belief that we are something we are not. The process is described at length in several books. Burton Mack's latest, Myth and the Christian Nation, is a good start and Shlomo Sand's bestseller The Invention of the Jewish People, is a great case study of these processes in action. It is by the cultural substitution of data that we come to see ourselves as a people at odds with another people. We twist the facts available to come to mistaken conclusions about who the real enemy of humanity is, and who is responsible for the propagation and manipulation of myths in the first place: psychopaths.

Take the Underwear Bomber. The available facts make it screamingly clear that the kid was a patsy of Western Intelligence Agencies (ahem! Mossad!), but even with most of the pertinent facts and clues published in the mainstream news, it is only the alternative news websites, like sott.net, who come to the logical conclusion. Everyone else blindly promotes the ludicrous cover story. As the Detroit News reported:
Allowing Adbulmutallab to keep the visa increased chances federal investigators would be able to get closer to apprehending the terror network he is accused of working with, "rather than simply knocking out one soldier in that effort."
Oh, really. And Mossad just happened to have unchecked access and control over security at the airport in question. And the well dressed American with some major pull, who the FBI denied existed for weeks, was just a rich uncle! A quote from Dr. Sidney MacDonald Baker is fitting here:
Empiricists are those of us who believe what we see and rationalists are those who see what we believe. (Detoxification and Healing, p. 50)
An empiricist looks at the data and sees that Adbulmutallab had help, most likely from the very intelligence agencies tasked with "preventing" terrorism. A rationalist operates with several beliefs that distort logical thought processes. "This must be because of this." Or "This must be the explanation." Once this limited thinking becomes habitual, it's common to hear, "I simply don't believe it." "I just can't believe that our government and military would do something like that." But with the proper framework, with accurate data about psychopathology and human psychology, harsh realities are not rejected offhand. Watchthis video on the Israeli assault on Gaza in January of 2009 for one such unveiling of truth. It is stark, horrifying, and free of the convoluted mental manuevers used to reject harsh realities.

Last year's critically acclaimed movie about the Iraq war, The Hurt Locker, provides good material for testing these thought processes. The film follows the operations of an elite U.S. army bomb squad as they handle IEDs, car bombs, "body bombs", and investigate the scenes of exploded materials. Its fairly realistic look and narrative (no mention of Blackwater or its antics, however) is probably because it was written and produced by Mark Boal, who spent time embedded with a real bomb squad in Iraq.

The script reveals only what the characters see and experience and for those who are paying attention, the absence of any real explanation for the violence throughout the film is telling. Bombs are discovered, but never their creators. Stashes are found, but never their owners. A young boy is found murdered, a bomb sewn into his abdomen. In fact, except for a sole sniper and his companions, the so-called "enemy" is never seen, only assumed to be real. This is understandable, given the fact that armed resistance is a given in any occupied territory. In fact, the only villains seen in the film are Americans, like the commander who suggestively orders the murder of an Iraqi man with a survivable wound, or the British (SAS?) bounty hunters dressed in Arab clothing who the main characters encounter in the desert.

The noticeable absence of any real "terrorist network" is particularly evident in two scenes. In the first, the bomb squad is called to investigate a suicide bombing in the Green Zone. The team Sergeant is the only one to point out that it was probably a remote detonation. In the second scene, some soldiers encounter a "suicide bomber" with a bomb vest. While the majority of the near-hysterical soldiers want to shoot the man, it's revealed that he was forced against his will, by parties unknown, to wear the vest and approach the soldiers.

In fact, while the film doesn't reveal it, the truth is that the vast majority, if not all, of the "suicide bombings" in Iraq are orchestrated and engineered by U.S., U.K., and Israeli intelligence to give the illusion of a real enemy, thus justifying an extended occupation and a profitable War Without End against a fabled enemy. The thought patterns concerning the war in Iraq, whether of the soldiers themselves or the American and world public, are built on the false premise that there is an enemy. We naturally "fill in the blanks", but only after the key pieces of data have been provided to complete our collective substitution of data. As a result, the absence of a real enemy isn't noticed.

For those readers used to being fed on the unwholesome chaff of the mainstream media rags, these statements may come as a shock. Scoffs of disbelief and the occasional outburst of "Ridiculous!" accompanied by frantic gesticulations are to be expected. But in a society where entire professions rely on people deliberately manipulating the truth in order to "win" an argument, where policing serves politics and quotas, not care and protection of citizens, where people are so used to lying that it is considered normal and perfectly acceptable, is such a reality really so hard to believe?

When we consider some facts that, taken separately, are relatively easy to believe, the situation becomes clearer. Psychopaths thrive in corporations and politics (witness Madoff and Blagojevich), and the violent ones are considered the worst of the worst criminals (most serial killers are psychopaths). And with unlimited black budgets, cannon fodder soldiers, crafty intelligence agencies with generations of experience in making murder look like an accident, political psychopaths, simply by virtue of the scope of their influence, are potentially the most dangerous. When you combine these facts with the existence of a public that has lost its ability to think, patently false cover stories find fertile ground in the whitewashed pastures of the Western mind, where truth is buried and artifice taken for authenticity.

Psychopathic thinking: How to save the Obama presidency - bomb Iran

2010-02-10T13:09:00.000-08:00

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=167618

Psychopathic thinking: How to save the Obama presidency - bomb Iran
Daniel Pipes
The Jerusalem Post
Tue, 02 Feb 2010

I do not customarily offer advice to a president whose election I opposed, whose goals I fear and whose policies I work against. But here is a way for Barack Obama to salvage his tottering administration by taking a step that protects the US and its allies.

If Obama's personality, identity and celebrity captivated a majority of the American electorate in 2008, those qualities proved ruefully deficient in 2009. He failed to deliver on employment and health care, he failed in foreign policy forays small (e.g., landing the 2016 Olympics) and large (relations with China and Japan). His counterterrorism record barely passes the laugh test.

This poor performance has caused an unprecedented collapse in the polls and the loss of three major by-elections, culminating two weeks ago in an astonishing senatorial defeat in Massachusetts. Obama's attempts to "reset" his presidency will likely fail if he focuses on economics, where he is just one of many players.

He needs a dramatic gesture to change the public perception of him as a lightweight, bumbling ideologue, preferably in an arena where the stakes are high, where he can take charge and where he can trump expectations.

Such an opportunity does exist: Obama can order the US military to destroy Iran's nuclear weapons capacity.

Circumstances are propitious. First, US intelligence agencies have reversed the preposterous 2007 National Intelligence Estimate that claimed with "high confidence" that Teheran had "halted its nuclear weapons program." No one (other than the Iranian rulers and their agents) denies that the regime is rushing headlong to build a nuclear arsenal.

Second, if the apocalyptic-minded leaders in Teheran get the Bomb, they render the Middle East yet more volatile and dangerous. They might deploy these weapons in the region, leading to massive death and destruction. Or they could launch an electromagnetic pulse attack on the US, devastating the country. By eliminating the Iranian nuclear threat, Obama protects the homeland and sends a message to America's friends and enemies.

Third, polling shows long-standing American backing for an attack on the Iranian nuclear infrastructure.
A Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll in January 2006 found that 57% of Americans favored military intervention if Teheran pursues a program that could enable it to build nuclear arms.

A Zogby International poll in October 2007 found that 52% of likely voters supported a US military strike to prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon; 29% opposed such a step.

McLaughlin & Associates in May 2009 asked whether people would support "using the [US] military to attack and destroy the facilities in Iran which are necessary to produce a nuclear weapon"; 58% of 600 likely voters supported the use of force and 30% opposed it.

Fox News in September 2009 asked: "Do you support or oppose the United States taking military action to keep Iran from getting nuclear weapons?" Sixty-one percent of 900 registered voters supported military action and 28% opposed it.

Pew Research Center in October 2009 asked which is more important, "to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, even if it means taking military action" or "to avoid a military conflict with Iran, even if it means they may develop nuclear weapons"; of 1,500 respondents, 61% favored the first reply and 24% the second.
Not only does a strong majority - 57%, 52%, 58%, 61% and 61% - already favor using force, but after a strike Americans will presumably rally around the flag, pushing that number much higher.

Fourth, were the US strike limited to taking out Iran's nuclear facilities, and not aspiring to regime change, it would require few "boots on the ground" and entail relatively few casualties, making an attack politically more palatable.

Just as 9/11 caused voters to forget George W. Bush's meandering early months, a strike on the Iranian facilities would dispatch Obama's feckless first year down the memory hole and transform the domestic political scene. It would sideline health care, prompt Republicans to work with Democrats, make netroots squeal, independents reconsider and conservatives swoon.

But the chance to do good and do well is fleeting. As the Iranians improve their defenses and approach weaponization, the window of opportunity is closing. The time to act is now or, on Obama's watch, the world will soon become a much more dangerous place.

Here There Be Monsters

2010-02-10T10:50:00.000-08:00

Bullies Are Known As 'Little Tyrants' and Psychopaths Are Tyrants, Little or Big!

http://www.truthout.org/here-there-be-monsters56756

William Rivers Pitt
Truthout.org
Mon, 08 Feb 2010 05:06 EST
© Jared Rodriguez/truthout/John Steven Fernandez

They say everything can be replaced,
Yet every distance is not near.
So I remember every face
Of every man who put me here.

- Bob Dylan, "I Shall Be Released"
I have a livid scar in the center of the back of my right hand. It is clearly visible, so I see it every day, and every time I see it, I am reminded of how I got it. One day, several boys in my junior high school class grabbed me and pinned me to the floor. They extended my right arm and held my hand flat to the floor. One of them took out a pencil and began violently rubbing it against the skin of that hand, until the skin broke, until little balls of my flesh stuck to the eraser, until the blood poured.

I did not cry, I did not scream, and with four larger boys crushing down on me, I could not fight back. See, that was the thing. They wanted to see how long I could go before I wept or cried out. These boys, and several of their friends, had been attacking me on a daily basis for more than two years at this point, and I had stopped giving them the satisfaction of my tears. They didn't like that, so the eraser was meant to elicit the response they desired. They never got it, so they finally stopped ripping my hand open with the eraser, and the four of them settled for beating me up again.

For five long years, this was my life. It began toward the end of grammar school, when the first stirrings of puberty began to manifest itself within my classmates and me. To this day, I don't know exactly what the catalyst was; one day, I was just another kid in the group, and the next day I was the outcast, the butt of the joke, the loser. I changed schools after sixth grade, opting for a small private boy's school instead of continuing in public school with the same group that had made the last two years of my life a living hell. Within two months at the new school, however, the same pattern of harassment and rejection emerged once again, but with a far harsher edge.

You see, the leader of my group of tormentors was the son of the dean of students, and because none of the teachers or administrators wanted to get on his bad side, those boys were able to act out with little fear of censure or punishment. I was beaten up in the hallways, in the cafeteria, and especially during gym class. The beatings in the locker room became so severe that I took to sneaking into a teacher-only bathroom so I could change clothes. Once, I was shoved into the goal during gym class without helmet or pads while several boys fired rock-hard lacrosse balls at me while the teacher looked on. Another time, a boy ran up behind me during a gym-class basketball game and delivered a flying kick to my kidneys. I was on the floor for ten minutes, and there was blood in my urine that night.

Incidents like these were a daily occurrence until I changed schools again, this time to a large public school where anonymity was the best refuge. For whatever reasons, the torment ceased, and I became just another face in the halls. Behind that face, however, was a soul covered in scars. I had been the different one, socially awkward and unsure, sensitive, shy. Something in me had brought out the savage side of my schoolmates, and something in them had changed me forever. It took me years, decades, to come to grips with what I had been put through. To live in such a situation is to be in complete darkness. It is toxic to the mind, body and soul, and all too often ends in tragedy.

There is a kid like me in every classroom in America, a fact underscored by a recent story out of my home state of Massachusetts. A 15-year-old girl named Phoebe Prince was mercilessly bullied and tormented by her classmates, until she finally snapped and took her own life. In the aftermath, the local papers have taken to reporting on the reality of bullying in our society. A recent Boston Herald story reported:
Hundreds of angry parents, worried teachers and even terrorized kids are reporting ugly episodes of brutal bullying at schools across Massachusetts as the heartwrenching case of Phoebe Prince continues to expose a painful nerve. The abuse - detailed in e-mails and phone calls to the Herald - is emotionally jarring, often physical and spreading like a merciless virus in cyberspace. Kids tell of being forced to drink toilet water, getting pummeled on the bus and seeing themselves ridiculed for all to see on Facebook.

It's a toxic cauldron of abuse that callers fear could land their children in the same no-win corner as Prince, the South Hadley 15-year-old who apparently took her own life after being bullied. And, in a constant refrain, they all say nobody in power cares. "Nobody listens. It seems like you're talking to the wall unless you have $1 million," said a Cohasset dad who said his boy is picked on constantly. "Put that on the front page."

In one of the more touching exchanges, a 10-year-old Malden boy called this week to say the bullying is becoming too much. "Go ahead. Tell him," his dad coaxed him on the phone. "They won't leave me alone. They bully me," the shy youngster said.

A Boston Latin High School parent said the bullying was so bad her son had to leave the elite school. A teacher on the South Shore said she's sick over special-needs girls being photographed in the bathroom - only to learn it was all posted on Facebook. "The principal just glossed it over," the disgusted teacher added.

"Mommy help me," a Boston elementary schooler told his mom over the phone, she said, while he was being beaten up this week.

"I have bus video of my kid being attacked," added a weary suburban mom. "I'm trying to help my daughter from feeling helpless."
The story of the suicide of Phoebe Prince struck a deep nerve within me. I know exactly how she felt, and very nearly took the same path. When I was 13, the daily violence I endured had reached a terrible peak. My grades were failing, I was withdrawing even further from the world, and my school's response to the ongoing harassment was to give the students a lecture about chickens and the "pecking order." To wit, when one chicken develops a bloody spot from an injury, the other chickens swarm the wounded one and peck that bloody spot until the wounded bird is killed. The principal admonished the student body to not be like those chickens. The end result of the lecture was that my tormentors would punch me as hard as they could whenever they saw me and yell, "Peck!"

It finally became too much after one exceptionally savage day. I went home after school and gobbled a full bottle of pills. I lost my nerve a few minutes later, made myself throw up, and drank as much water as my stomach could hold, but the drugs had already entered my system. For the next two days, I laid in a semi-delirious stupor which my mother believed was a bad flu. I did not tell her about what really happened that day until many years later, and have told very few others about it until now.

It is a national epidemic, and has been for a very long time. Search Google News under the word "bullying" and nearly six thousand stories appear. One such story, out of Tennessee, underscores the horrific consequences that can come from such unrelenting torment:
A lawsuit has been filed against Murray County Schools by a family who says bullying led to their son's suicide. Tyler Long committed suicide in October. The 17-year-old suffered from Asberger's Syndrome, a social anxiety disorder. His family, and their attorneys, say it was unbearable bullying at school that forced him to take his life. The lawsuit says the boy's parents made "countless efforts" to meet with school officials to discuss their son's safety at school due to the constant bullying.

The lawsuit says the school system violated the boys rights under the Americans With Disabilities Act, and that school officials exhibited "deliberate indifference" towards the bullying. In a Murray County school board meeting last year numerous families made similar complaints. Veronica Gearhart says her child is bullied as well.

"My baby is missing school because a gang of boys is waiting for him and it was reported to everyone and no one did nothing," she said.

Others like Carleen Mcatie worry about what might happen next. "It'll be like Columbine because it will have festered so long," said Mcatie. "Something needs to be done about it now, before something major happens in our school."
It is impossible to quantify the insidious effect the phenomenon of bullying has on our society. Those who bully can and do become monsters in adulthood, but all too often, those who are bullied can become equally monstrous. The mother in the story above said the magic word: Columbine. The Columbine killers were bullied, and lashed out against that bullying in a frenzy of violence that beggars imagination.

One of the ugliest aspects of my experience with being bullied is the fact that, nauseating as it sounds, I know exactly how Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold felt; on many occasions, after I had been pummeled in the locker room before gym class, taunted by a Greek chorus of tormentors in the cafeteria, or been set upon in the bathroom, I would sit at my desk and fantasize about raking the room with machine gun fire to settle the score with those who found their fun through torturing me.

For a time, I carried a large knife to school because I needed some sort of equalizer in a world where violence waited around every corner and nobody in authority seemed to give a damn. I never found the courage to use that knife, thank God. But I could have. I remember wanting to, but I never did. Had I used it, I could very well have killed someone. Just brandishing it would have had dire consequences. I escaped my personal hell without lashing out violently. Harris and Klebold did not, and the simple truth is that bullying will eventually create more kids like them.

In the end, the perpetrators of bullying become indistinguishable from the victims. It is equally damaging to all involved. Take, for example, Dick Cheney, the most repellent public figure in modern American politics. It is easy to assume that he was a bully during his school days, given the manner in which he conducted himself in public office. But who is to say he was not the victim of bullying? It takes no great leap of logic to imagine how a person subjected to constant brutality can be transformed into a sadist by it, someone who reflexively needs to inflict the same pain they themselves endured. In the end, the bully and the bullied can, and all too often do, become the same noxious breed of monster.

What is the cause of bullying? Was it my fault that I became the object of so much terrible treatment? Was it the fault of those bullies, and the parents who so completely failed to raise them properly? Were the teachers and administrators to blame for allowing such unconscionable behavior to flourish under their noses?

Perhaps, I could have dressed better, been more socially adapted, but in the end, blaming the victim of bullying for getting bullied smacks of blaming a rape victim for getting raped. Responsibility for this phenomenon falls upon parents, who must raise their children to understand early in life that such behavior is abhorrent and forbidden. Furthermore, teachers and school administrators are duty bound to root out such behavior whenever it appears and deal with it seriously and severely.

Any teachers or administrators who claim ignorance or an inability to address this problem are lying through their teeth. I spent several years as a high school teacher and a dean, and know for a fact that it is nonsense to claim this problem is difficult to locate in a school environment. On my first day, I was able to spot which students were "in" and which were "out," and was immediately able to take steps to thwart bullying whenever it appeared within my sight or knowledge.

One of my proudest accomplishments as a teacher and administrator, in fact, came during my second year in the classroom. Like any group of students, my crew was divided between the "in" kids and the "out" kids. The "in" kids wore the right clothes, had the right looks and knew how to play the high school social game. The "out" kids were not as fashionable, not as physically developed and tended to get the best grades. Through slow and steady pressures, counseling conversations and meetings with parents, I was able to transform the social dynamic that separated "in" from "out." By the end of the year, my "out" kids were the most popular ones in class, and my "in" kids thought hitting the books and getting good grades were the keys to the coolness kingdom. This pattern held until the day those kids graduated.

Disrupting the patterns and social constructs that lead to bullying can be done. I know. I did it.

"The world breaks everyone," said Ernest Hemingway, "and afterward, some are strong at the broken places." I was broken, and deliberately so, day after day, week after week, year after year for five long years, until I could take no more and tried to break myself, finally and forever, to be free of it. I am stronger now in those broken places; in the process of making peace with that past, I finally came to the conclusion that all those years of wretchedness were the most important of my life. I came through that crucible a better person, sensitive to injustice and ever on the side of the underdog and the victim.

But that, in the end, is a rationalization. In truth, there was nothing good about what I was forced to endure, and the echo of it resonates within me to this day. Sometimes, I have nightmares. Sometimes, I react irrationally to seeming slights, especially if one of my many internal scars gets tweaked. For years, I was prone to depression, which led to self-medication through alcohol.

Ancient maps of the world once marked unknown regions of ocean with the words, "Here There Be Monsters." The phenomenon of bullying remains an unknown and unexplored region of our society, and this must change. Here, indeed, be monsters. I am still not fully recovered from my experiences, and may never be. I remember all the faces, and all the names, of those who tormented me during that time of unutterable darkness. I can never forget.

You see, I have this scar on my hand.

Psychopathic Boy 'who said suicide family deserved it' walks free from court

2010-02-07T14:29:00.000-08:00

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2010/01/27/boy-who-said-suicide-family-deserved-it-walks-free-from-court-115875-21999487/

Psychopathic Boy 'who said suicide family deserved it' walks free from court
The Mirror
Sat, 06 Feb 2010 14:03 EST

Ms Fiona Pilkington, 38, set light to her car as she sat inside with her 18-year-old daughter after being attacked by the gang for more than 10 years while she cowered in her home in Barwell, Leicestershire.

A teenager who branded a disabled girl found dead in a burnt-out car as "Frankenstein" walked free from court today after the main prosecution witness collapsed during her testimony.

The 16-year-old boy allegedly abused parish councillor Hazel Smith after she spoke out about the torment faced by Francecca Hardwick and her mother C from a gang of yobs.

Ms Pilkington, 38, set light to her car as she sat inside with her 18-year-old daughter after being attacked by the gang for more than 10 years while she cowered in her home in Barwell, Leicestershire.

A coroner severely criticised police and council officials for failing to help Ms Pilkington and her family in the years before their deaths.

Hinckley Youth Court heard today that following the inquest last September, the boy confronted 48-year-old Mrs Smith, a neighbourhood watch co-ordinator in Barwell, as she walked to work as a lollipop lady.

He branded her a grass and claimed Ms Pilkington and her daughter were "freaks" who "deserved" the abuse they received.

The boy was one of many who had been part of the gang which taunted the family over a number of years.

But as Mrs Smith was giving evidence, she appeared to collapse in a fit and paramedics had to be called.

District Judge David Meredith said he was unhappy about the decision by the Crown Prosecution Service to abort the trial.

Prosecutor Mark Williams said it was in the "public interest" to end the trial and not adjourn it until another date.

Calling the trial off, the judge said: "I am backed into a corner from which I have no escape.
"There are particular aspects of this case that have caused me grave concern by the alleged response to Fiona Pilkington and her daughter's death.

"The alleged comment that Fiona Pilkington deserved what she got is a matter I would view as significant. I view the (CPS) decision not to proceed as a little hasty.

"I should also add that the suggestion that a person (Mrs Smith) who is involved in neighbourhood watch is somehow an irritant to society is something I view as reprehensible."

Comment: You think?

The boy's father left court punching the air. Earlier the boy's mother claimed their lives had been "ruined" by Mrs Smith.

The boy, who was flanked by his parents during today's trial, shouted "Thank you, sir" as he was told by the district judge that the two charges of harassment he faced had been dismissed.

James Bide-Thomas, defending, was congratulated outside court by the boy's father.

The barrister told the court: "I don't want the suggestion to be that (my client) was bang to rights and as a result of the poor misfortune of Mrs Smith while giving evidence has escaped scot-free."

Earlier the court heard from Mrs Smith, who said she was abused by the boy on August 16 and September 23.

She lived a 10-minute walk from Ms Pilkington's home on Bardon Road, which the single mother shared with Francecca and her son Anthony, 19, who suffered from dyslexia.

Francecca, known as Frankie to friends, was hounded by youths in the street in the years leading up to her death despite having the mental age of a four-year-old.

Mrs Smith said she was contacted by the mother on several occasions about the abuse as she was a parish councillor and the area's neighbourhood watch co-ordinator.

As a result, the boy called her a "copper's nark" after she caught him shooting at her pet guinea pigs late one evening last August.

In the second confrontation, Mrs Smith said she was approached by the boy, who was riding his bike and smoking, as she walked to work as a lollipop lady on September 23, shortly after the inquests into Ms Pilkington and her daughter concluded.

Mrs Smith said: "He said that I was a neighbourhood watch bitch, a copper's nark and that I get people into trouble.

"He said he was going to smash my windows at the house and he hated me. I didn't reply to him and he then swore at me and stuck his two fingers up and started to ride off.

"He called the young lady (Francecca) Frankenstein and said she deserved what they got."

Mrs Smith added: "That made me feel terrible, like I was a troublemaker causing problems for everyone around Barwell. I was frightened in case I should say something I shouldn't. I felt stressed out, uncomfortable, terrible."

Moments later Mrs Smith collapsed.

Comment: A typical response of a normal person, when confronted with a psychopathic mind. From Ponerology:
This leads us to an important question: what does the psychopath really get from their victims? It's easy to see what they are after when they lie and manipulate for money or material goods or power. But in many instances, such as love relationships or faked friendships, it is not so easy to see what the psychopath is after. Without wandering too far afield into spiritual speculations - a problem Cleckley also faced - we can only say that it seems to be that the psychopath enjoys making others suffer. Just as normal humans enjoy seeing other people happy, or doing things that make other people smile, the psychopath enjoys the exact opposite.

Earlier two other boys, aged 16 and 17, were convicted of harassing grandmother Carol Sainsbury.

The youths were convicted of swearing and making obscene gestures at Ms Sainsbury, who lived a few doors down from Ms Pilkington on Bardon Road.

A third defendant, Billy-Joe Kenney, 19, of Elwell Avenue, Barwell, was acquitted at the hearing earlier today.

The youths will be sentenced on February 23

Studies Reveal Why Kids Get Bullied and Rejected

2010-02-03T09:40:00.000-08:00

What the studies obviously neglected to look for is that bullying is psychopathic and most bullies are 'little tyrants' (psychopaths). They are predators! I was a victim of bullying when I was a child (because I was fat and sensitive) and I was always blamed for the beatings, bruising, name calling, so forth. I get sick of it when a victim is blamed and bullies get away with their crimes against others!

http://www.livescience.com/culture/children-social-rejection-100202.html

Robin Nixon
LiveScience Contributor
LiveScience.com
Tue Feb 2, 2010

Kids who get bullied and snubbed by peers may be more likely to have problems in other parts of their lives, past studies have shown. And now researchers have found at least three factors in a child's behavior that can lead to social rejection.

The factors involve a child's inability to pick up on and respond to nonverbal cues from their pals.

In the United States, 10 to 13 percent of school-age kids experience some form of rejection by their peers. In addition to causing mental health problems, bullying and social isolation can increase the likelihood a child will get poor grades, drop out of school, or develop substance abuse problems, the researchers say.

"It really is an under-addressed public health issue," said lead researcher Clark McKown of the Rush Neurobehavioral Center in Chicago.

And the social skills children gain on the playground or elsewhere could show up later in life, according to Richard Lavoie, an expert in child social behavior who was not involved with the study. Unstructured playtime - that is, when children interact without the guidance of an authority figure - is when children experiment with the relationship styles they will have as adults, he said.

Underlying all of this: "The number one need of any human is to be liked by other humans," Lavoie told LiveScience. "But our kids are like strangers in their own land." They don't understand the basic rules of operating in society and their mistakes are usually unintentional, he said.

Social rejection
In two studies, McKown and colleagues had a total of 284 children, ages 4 to 16 years old, watch movie clips and look at photos before judging the emotions of the actors based on their facial expressions, tones of voice and body postures. Various social situations were also described and the children were questioned about appropriate responses.

The results were then compared to parent/teacher accounts of the participants' friendships and social behavior.

Kids who had social problems also had problems in at least one of three different areas of nonverbal communication: reading nonverbal cues; understanding their social meaning; and coming up with options for resolving a social conflict.

A child, for example, simply may not notice a person's scowl of impatience or understand what a tapped foot means. Or she may have trouble reconciling the desires of a friend with her own. "It is important to try to pinpoint the area or areas in a child's deficits and then build those up," McKown explained.

Ways to help
When children have prolonged struggles with socializing, "a vicious cycle begins," Lavoie said. Shunned children have few opportunities to practice social skills, while popular kids are busy perfecting theirs. However, having just one or two friends can be enough to give a child the social practice he or she needs, he said.

Parents, teachers and other adults in a child's life can help, too. Instead of reacting with anger or embarrassment to a child who, say, asks Aunt Mindy if her new hairdo was a mistake, parents should teach social skills with the same tone they use for teaching long division or proper hygiene. If presented as a learning opportunity, rather than a punishment, children usually appreciate the lesson.

"Most kids are so desperate to have friends, they just jump on board," Lavoie said.

To teach social skills, Lavoie advises a five-step approach in his book "It's So Much Work to Be Your Friend: Helping the Child with Learning Disabilities Find Social Success" (Touchstone, 2006). The process works for children with or without learning disabilities and is best conducted immediately after a transgression has been made.

1) Ask the child what happened and listen without judgment.
2) Ask the child to identify their mistake. (Often children only know that someone got upset, but don't understand their own role in the outcome.)
3) Help the child identify the cue they missed or mistake they made, by asking something like: "How would you feel if Emma was hogging the tire swing?" Instead of lecturing with the word "should," offer options the child "could" have taken in the moment, such as: "You could have asked Emma to join you or told her you would give her the swing after your turn."
4) Create an imaginary but similar scenario where the child can make the right choice. For example, you could say, "If you were playing with a shovel in the sand box and Aiden wanted to use it, what would you do?"
5) Lastly, give the child "social homework" by asking him to practice this new skill, saying: "Now that you know the importance of sharing, I want to hear about something you share tomorrow."
The studies are detailed in the current issue of the Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology. They were funded by the Dean and Rosemarie Buntrock Foundation and the William T. Grant Foundation.

Pathocracy: Brave New World or 1984?

2010-02-02T10:53:00.000-08:00

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202259-Pathocracy-Brave-New-World-or-1984-

Pathocracy: Brave New World or 1984?

Harrison Koehli
Sott.net
Thu, 28 Jan 2010 17:31 EST
© Sott.net

To those who have grown up in countries considered "free", the vision of George Orwell's 1984 strikes us as a threatening nightmare, a warning of a not-so-distant future where freedom is but a word. Like seed perpetually scorched before it even has a chance to take root, all that it means to be human is actively degraded, denied, and punished at even the smallest display.

The vision of the Party's rule, its inhumanity and utter ruthlessness and mendacity frighten us and we hope it will never come to pass here. But we have no clue how to prevent it, and just like the people in Orwell's fictional world, we are perpetually caught off guard when it comes to pass in our own lives. One day we wake up and realize we are living in a nightmare, and we have been for a long time. "It'll never happen here" and "We've taken every precaution" become "When did it happen" and "How did we get to this point?" This perennial sickness takes hold of a nation and we are at its mercy.

Like any good novelist, Orwell tells a story and he makes it real. For that sheltered portion of humankind who have had the fortune of growing up without the threat of being arrested and tortured for daring to disagree with their inept leaders, the book provides a vicarious experience without which we are left vulnerable to a disease we know nothing about. But while the creation of a literary world can teach us many things, it cannot provide a way out. For that we need accurate knowledge.

1984 is a fictionalized account of pathocracy, as defined in Political Ponerology, and the reason it scares us is because it is completely outside our normal frame of reference. We have the same reaction to news accounts of senseless violence. Parents murdered by their 14-year-old son because they asked him to do his chores, after which he played video games. An 18-year-old woman disappears and is later found dead, beaten to death and wrapped in plastic. A trucker and his son admit to torturing a 20-year-old man in their basement, suffocating him and wrapping wire around his neck. A young boy is kidnapped, tortured, executed, and his organs harvested by forces of occupation before his body is returned to his parents.

The common theme, of course, is psychopathy. Psychopaths lack conscience and hunger for the darkness. They are sadistic in a way which, for us, is near impossible to fathom. The evil which they bring is not unintended, as when we realize only after the fact that our actions have caused another harm. Instead, their lives are spent feeding on the misery that they inflict on others. Whether the sexual sadism of serial rapist-torturer, or the subtle draining of a "toxic co-worker" who uses you, abuses you, and wears you down until you lose all grip on reality. We may even ask in desperation, "Why are you doing this to me?" The psychopath simply smirks. And in a world ruled by psychopaths we ask, "Why are you doing this to us?"

1984 frightens us because psychopathy frightens us. The key feature of a pathocracy is that psychopaths influence the economic, military, political, and cultural agenda of a nation. Like chameleons, they mask themselves in the features of their surroundings. Within those parameters they stage dramas, creating a new reality according to their desires. And this reality is one of deception, terror, ruthless expansion and complete heartlessness.

In the corporate world a psychopath gets ahead by destroying the careers of those who stand in his way, exploiting the work of others, starting rumors, creating conflicts. He always benefits from these, of course. A competitor falls out of favor. The psychopath is credited with the work of another. The bosses take his word over another who sees that he is a snake. An "enemy" finds herself without a job, blamed for something she didn't do. All the while the psychopath stage-manages. The man behind the curtain.

In politics, the pawns are the people, the chessboard is the world stage. Strategic countries are invaded because of the "threat" they pose. This threat is 0f course created by the psychopaths in charge using the vast resources of intelligence services. "Terrorist threats" are fabricated. Atrocities are committed and then pinned on imaginary "terrorist groups". Orwell had it right. Emmanuel Goldstein was a creation of the Party. The bombings blamed on him and his followers were committed by the Party itself for the purpose of keeping the population afraid and compliant.

Today, torture photos are "leaked" not to expose State brutality, but to show the people what happens to those who oppose the system. After all, you're either "with us" or you're "with the terrorists". That's some option. Dissent is conflated with terrorism. Terrorists are tortured and assassinated. The President of the United States even sanctions the assassination of U.S. citizens labeled "terrorists". "They are part of they enemy", after all. Some respond with shock that a country could willingly kill its own citizens, as if killing another country's citizens is any more human. Of course, the two options are equally atrocious, but to a psychopath, what's the difference? If you have a conscience, you are a threat. Your leaders hold you in as much disdain as any other "bleeding heart".

So what can be done? The first step is awareness of the reality of what goes on behind the scenes of political power: the workings of intelligence agencies, counterterrorism, foreign policy groups, etc. This can only be understood by applying ponerology, which identifies the source of the problem, and the exact social and psychological processes which push along the global pathocratic agenda. Psychopaths have been running the show for a long time, and they've been doing so because we haven't known what to look for. Commies, terrorists, Nazis, anarchists... All red herrings.

The true enemy hides in plain sight.

Psychopathy Alert: Student Pranked by Philadelphia Airport TSA Worker

2010-01-28T11:53:00.000-08:00

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/201795-Psychopathy-Alert-Student-Pranked-by-Philadelphia-Airport-TSA-Worker

Associated Press
Mon, 25 Jan 2010 17:15 EST

A college student returning to school after the winter break fell victim to a prank at Philadelphia's airport by a Transportation Security Administration worker who pretended to plant a plastic bag of white powder in her carryon luggage.

The worker is no longer employed by the TSA after the incident this month, a spokeswoman said.

Rebecca Solomon, 22, a University of Michigan student, wrote in a column for her campus newspaper that she was having her bags screened on Jan. 5 before her flight to Detroit when the employee stopped her, reached into her laptop computer bag and pulled out the plastic bag, demanding to know where she had gotten the powder.

In the Jan. 10 column for The Michigan Daily, she recounted how she struggled to come up with an explanation, wondering if it was bomb-detonating material slipped in by a terrorist or drugs put there by a smuggler.

''He let me stutter through an explanation for the longest minute of my life,'' Solomon wrote. ''Tears streamed down my face as I pleaded with him to understand that I'd never seen this baggie before.''

A short time later, she said, the worker smiled and said it was his.

The worker ''waved the baggie at me and told me he was kidding, that I should've seen the look on my face,'' she said.

Solomon said she asked to speak to a supervisor and filled out a complaint, and during that process was told that the man was training TSA workers to detect contraband. Two days later, she said, she was told he had been disciplined.

''I had been terrified and disrespected by an airport employee,'' she said. ''He'd joked about the least funny thing in air travel.''

There was no answer Saturday at a telephone listing for Solomon at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. An e-mail message seeking comment from her was sent Saturday by The Associated Press, and a telephone message was left at her parents' home in suburban Philadelphia.

TSA spokeswoman Suzanne Trevino said late Saturday that the employee was no longer with the agency but did not say whether he had been fired or quit, referring only to ''disciplinary action'' taken by the TSA. She also declined to identify the worker or his job title, citing privacy laws. She said she did not know whether his actions would be subject to criminal charges.

''The behavior exhibited by this TSA employee was highly inappropriate and unprofessional,'' Trevino said in a statement.

Is UK child torture case a sign of social disintegration?

2010-01-25T10:26:00.000-08:00

When you read further into the article, you realize this is about psychopaths.

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=116960§ionid=351020601

Is UK child torture case a sign of social disintegration?
Sun, 24 Jan 2010 22:06:41 GMT

British child welfare activists have asked the attorney general to double the sentence of the two brothers convicted in the Edlington torture case, which was one of a number of incidents that have raised serious concerns about social and moral decay in the UK.

The 11- and 10-year-old brothers, whose names have not been disclosed for legal reasons, were handed down an indeterminate sentence on Friday for a prolonged "sadistic" attack on two innocent children in Edlington, near Doncaster, last April.

The horrific description of the case was published in a detailed report on the Persian service of BBC entitled “Where is the broken society in Britain leading to?”

According to the report, the two will face a minimum of five years in detention. However, they may never be released since they are regarded as a high risk to the public. One is believed to be in danger of becoming a psychopath.

One of the victims of the Edlington attack nearly died during the incident, but the two brothers have shown no remorse for what they did.

The savagery of the attack, which has been described as unprecedented in British history, has caused a great deal of public outrage.

Before handing down their sentences, the judge said that the attack was carried out with “chilling detachment” by the boys, whose tools of choice were “aggression, extreme violence and sexual degradation.”

The pair had pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to charges of committing intentional grievous bodily harm, robbery, and forcing a child to engage in a sexual act.

The court heard how they came across their two young victims at a playground and lured them to a secluded area with the promise of showing them a dead fox.

Once there, the brothers subjected them to a vicious 90-minute attack using branches, sharpened sticks, barbed wire, broken glass, rocks, and pieces of metal.

Both victims were repeatedly hit with tree branches and fists as they lay cowering on the ground, the court heard. Their faces were stamped on and heavy rocks were dropped on their heads.

At one point, the battered and bloodied victims were forced to take off their clothes and perform sexual acts together.

One of the victims eventually sustained a deep wound to his arm, into which a lit cigarette was placed by the older brother. When the terrified nine-year-old victim asked to use the toilet, he was forced to urinate on his friend's face.

The court heard that as the attack reached its climax, the younger victim was ordered to kill himself. He then placed a stick into his own mouth and shoved it into his throat.

The older victim was left for dead after a piece of a broken sink was dropped on his head. He could not be interviewed by police until 10 days after the assault due to the seriousness of his injuries.

According to the graphic BBC report, the court also heard details of a strikingly similar attack carried out by the brothers on a choirboy in Edlington a week earlier.

The court was told how he too was lured to a secluded spot, this time with the promise of observing a "massive toad," and how he was beaten and stamped on. The brothers have pleaded guilty to a charge of assault causing physical harm over the incident.

On that occasion, their 11-year-old victim was apparently saved from an even worse fate by the intervention of a passerby. However, the next time the two chose a far more secluded location for their plans.

A brief section of video footage shot by the older brother on a mobile phone stolen from the victims was a key part of the prosecution's evidence.

The Doncaster Children's Safeguarding Board, which conducted an independent investigation into the case, has spelled out a long list of failings by the South Yorkshire town's social services. However, only a summary of their findings has been released.

Although a serious case review found that agencies missed 31 opportunities to take action that would have prevented the crime, only one member of the staff has faced any disciplinary action.

The parents of the two assailants, whose "toxic" upbringing turned them into individuals who could commit such vicious acts, will also face prosecution for child neglect and abuse, police announced on Friday.

The BBC report contends that the Edlington brothers' case has raised debates over the status of families and childcare in Britain.

David Cameron used the case to back his contention that Britain is in danger of becoming an irresponsible society.

Within an hour after the court sentences were issued, the Tory leader claimed that the case was symptomatic of the levels of social breakdown.

Meanwhile, Labour MPs have criticized Cameron for linking the Edlington case to his campaign claim that Britain is a "broken" society.

Labour insists that, based on the statistics, crime rates are dropping in the country.

But every time there is a high-profile case, such as the shooting of a 10-year-old boy called Reece in Manchester, the murder of Jamie Bulger by two 10-year-olds, or the Baby Peter torture killing, political debates resume.

Constance Briscoe, who began working as a cleaner and dressmaker and went on to study law, becoming one of Britain's few Black judges, accuses the politicians of playing around with such issues.

She argues that British politicians do not recognize the problem, stressing that there are currently families in Britain which have not had an employed member in the past three generations.

Justice Briscoe believes that the political parties use these cases to undermine their rivals but never really do anything to address the heart of the problem.

The BBC report pointed out that crime rates vary in different British cities. For example, in the city of Manchester alone, seven armed assaults take place per day. In 1995, there were 2,743 armed assaults that were recorded by the police. That figure, however, reached 7,298 between 1995 and 1996.

Stabbing crimes, mostly common among teenagers, are a main problem in Britain, causing serious concern among British citizens.

Two thirds of the British people feel insecure and endangered, according to social statistics, the report said.

Sir Michael Caine, a well-known British actor who grew up poor, has warned about the ongoing situation and the promotion of a lazy society with the help of the government.

"It seems that no one seeks to find a solution… We have some 350,000 people addicted to heroin and crack at present. They do not work and live with the help of the government," he said.

Many sociologists in Britain believe that for young people, families are an important factor in the continuation or the end of a life of crime.

For example, in the Edlington attack, the elder brother, who was 11 years old, took drugs and drank when he was nine years old.

He had previously been sentenced in several criminal cases. The two boys watched pornographic and horror films at home from the time they were six and seven years old. Their father used to violently assault their mother.

Experience shows that most people with such backgrounds later enter the security or military services, the BBC report said.

It seems that it will be very difficult to resolve Britain's social problems.

The Archbishop of Canterbury has described Britain as a damaged country in moral terms.

Sociopaths - They Prey on All of Us

2010-01-23T09:43:00.000-08:00

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Sociopaths--They-Prey-on-by-Melinda-Pillsbury-100122-977.html

January 22, 2010
Sociopaths - They Prey on All of Us
By Melinda Pillsbury-Foster

He constantly asks for sympathy, takes risks, lies to you and when caught shows no remorse. It is unsettling, frightening. Somehow it is your own fault. But why would anyone do these things? There is an answer.

The terms, "psychopathy", "sociopath" and others refer to individuals who look human but, in elemental ways, are not. They harbor a condition which cuts them off from us. Their automatic emotional reactions, foundational to limiting wrong behavior, do not exist. These individuals emulate compassion, concern, affection, kindness and love only to further their purposes. They feel no compunction about stealing, lying, or committing crimes to achieve their goals. They consistently demand sympathy, knowing perfectly well they deserve none.

They do not want or need sympathy. But they do need you to feel sorry for them, to want to help them. It is all manipulation, emotions emulated to get what they want. They know we feel sorry for them and project the existence of emotions they never feel, just another lie.

People catching their eyes report feeling a chill of fear, as if looking into the eyes of a predator. Psychopaths are predators among us. The pain and suffering of those around them mean nothing, is pleasure to them. Their motivations seem inexplicable to the emotionally normal, who comprise 96% of the population.

Psychopaths have no conscience.

Where before little was written on the condition outside of professional journals, now much more is known. This is changing.

The evidence, now mounting, indicates the condition has a genetic element which becomes activated when combined with the conditions in the life of the individual. The last few years have taken understanding of the condition known as 'psychopathy' to new levels.

While only 4% of the population have the condition Martha Stout, PhD., points out in her book, The Sociopath Next Door, you are likely to have contact with psychopathic individuals on many occasions during your life time. You therefore need to understand the danger signs.

Experts in the field of psychology have been researching the problem since 1980. Much is now known.

In 1999 Robert D.Hare, Ph.D. published Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us. Today, thanks to RobertHare, DavidKosson, Pd.D, and others, the means exist to reliably diagnose the condition. The test, carried out by qualified professionals, allows us the tools needed to understand and to take steps to help victims. The test, known as Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) and the Hare Psychopathy Checklist, when used by qualified professionals, makes available the means to identify those with the condition. As with other tests it, presumably, will soon be commonly used in court proceedings.

Hare's new book, Snakes In Suits: When Psychopaths Go To Work, written with PaulBabiak, Ph.D., and published in 2006, opens the issue of the impact of the condition on the workplace, including large corporations.

Since psychopaths live and work in every part of our culture we must consider this issue. How many sociopaths have worked their way into the management structure of corporate America? Estimates vary widely and lacking documented evidence all numbers are open to question. However, the behaviors associated with psychopathy, lack of conscience, lack of concern for the well being of others, a pattern of blatant lies and others, strike many as strongly present in corporate culture today. Both the recent banking and mortgage implosions are evidence of this conclusion.

What if the present meltdown is partly due to a growing presence of psychopaths in upper management? Disturbingly, this may well also be true in higher levels of government given the massive cross which exists at the over the highest levels of each. Logic supports the theory.

The test originated by Robert Hare has proven to be a valuable tool both to help victims and, increasingly, to open the door for victims to find justice. The work of Hare and his associates may, possibly, be used to the benefit of business and politics as well.

Psychopaths can impact us from every direction. For individual victims there is also hope.

Through the Aftermath: Surviving Psychopathy website victims participate with clinicians, therapists and others to move on with understanding. The site provides a Forum for victims, clinicians and therapists for discussion and could well become the hub needed to generalize understanding of the condition in the general public.

Reading books on the subject, such as the excellent work by MarthaStout, Ph.D., The Sociopath Next Door, provides tools and tests which you can use personally. Dr.Stout, a practicing psychologist and clinical instructor in the department of psychiatry at HarvardMedicalSchool, warns the reader to beware of those who fail the simple tests she outlines. Three lies and you're out is one of simple suggestions she proposes.

In dealing with the overall problem Stout raises other questions which are profoundly on point for all of us today.
On the question of war: Should sociopaths be tolerated as useful in time of war? Are we intentionally allowing psychopaths into the military? Perhaps recruiting them?

Has our tolerance and ignorance smoothed the path for ugly behavior in other parts of our culture? What would a psychopath do if elected to office; if they were the determining factor in deciding what matters, their profit or your health?

Have we considered the dangers the unchallenged presence of psychopaths present when combined with the tendency in most of us to defer to authority?

If winning is the only thing that matters there is nothing a sociopath will not do. Recognizing no limits, psychopaths ignore the damage to others. As any small, determined group can change the world for the good, as MargaretMead said, so a small number of individuals could destroy it. We need, therefore, to limit the access of psychopaths to power while identifying them to the public.

A short tour through the books and the Aftermath: Surviving Psychopathy site raises questions which may well open up a new understanding of ourselves. As individuals, parents, activists and businesspersons, as well as Americans, we need to know.
This is the first in a series of articles by the author about psychopathy and how we can solve the problems it presents. Thanks to David Kosson, Ph.D., for his help in generously providing information and for his editing. - MP-F

Parents of Psychopathic Boy Torturers of Edlington Face Prosecution

2010-01-23T00:39:00.000-08:00

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article6999353.ece

Parents of Psychopathic Boy Torturers of Edlington Face Prosecution
Andrew Norfolk and Philip Webster
The Times
Sat, 23 Jan 2010

The parents of two brothers whose "toxic" upbringing led them to torture two innocent children face prosecution for neglect and child abuse, police revealed last night.

The brothers were given an indeterminate sentence and must be detained for a minimum of five years for the prolonged sadistic attack in Edlington, near Doncaster, last April. They are considered to pose such a high risk to the public that they may never be released. One is thought to be in danger of becoming a psychopath.

The judge said that the attack was carried out with "chilling detachment" by boys aged 10 and 11 whose tools of choice were "aggression, extreme violence and sexual degradation".

Doncaster Council issued an unqualified apology to the families of their victims - who are still traumatised and will be physically scarred for life - after a damning report revealed a litany of failings by its social services. A serious case review found that agencies missed 31 opportunities to take action that would have prevented the crime. Only one member of staff has faced any disciplinary action.

David Cameron used the case to back his contention that Britain is in danger of becoming an irresponsible society. Within an hour of the sentence being passed, the Tory leader claimed that the case was symptomatic of levels of social breakdown.

"I don't think it's right every time one of these events take place to say that it is just some isolated incident of evil that we should look away from," he said. "Are we going to do that every time there is a Jamie Bulger or a Baby Peter or a Ben Kinsella or a Gary Newlove? We shouldn't, we should ask what has gone wrong with our society and what we're going to do about it."

Ed Balls, the Children's Secretary, denied that the scandal reflected Britain's problems. He said that it was "hard to comprehend how children could do such terrible things to other innocent children".

Sheffield Crown Court heard that long before the Edlington attack the brothers, two of seven sons of a drug-addicted mother and a drunken, violent father, had carried out numerous attacks on both children and adults.

They were placed with foster parents in Edlington less than a month before they lured two friends, aged 9 and 11, to a secluded location and embarked on a 90-minute orgy of violence. They robbed the boys, told them they were going to kill them, stripped them naked and forced them to perform sex acts on each other. Giggling, they punched and kicked their victims, stamped on their heads and threw bricks and heavy stones at them before trying to strangle them with a metal noose and a clothes line.

A sharpened stick was driven into one boy's arm, penetrating to the bone; a lit cigarette was placed into the wound. The other boy had a ceramic sink dropped on his head. Blinded by blood, lying face down in mud, he eventually begged to be left to die.

Both children have made a remarkable physical recovery but have been left so scarred emotionally that they can barely look each other in the eyes.

Their attackers pleaded guilty to robbery, causing a child to engage in sexual activity and grievous bodily harm with intent and to assaulting a 12-year-old choirboy a week earlier.

Mr Justice Keith said: "This was prolonged, sadistic violence for no reason other than that you got a real kick out of hurting and humiliating them."

Psychiatric reports gave detailed accounts of the boys being physically abused by their father and watching him punch and kick their mother. From the age of 9, the elder boy smoked cannabis at home, drank alcohol and watched extremely violent and pornographic DVDs. Psychiatrists said that he appeared to be emotionally detached, desensitised and lacking in empathy towards his victims.

When the brothers were told to leave the court after sentencing, the mother of their younger victim erupted in anger, pounding her fist against the screen separating the public gallery from the boys. "Evil little bastards! You evil little bastards! I hope someone does that to you!" she screamed, before being led from the court.

America: the bullies now run the school

2010-01-22T15:27:00.001-08:00

http://www.opednews.com/articles/America-the-bullies-now-r-by-America-20xy-100120-474.html

January 22, 2010
America: the bullies now run the school
By America 20xy

I was watching a movie last night in which the main character gets detained by homeland security at the airport. In it the agents authoritatively ask him "Do you hate your country?"

It was a comedy movie with no real political message to it but it struck a nerve in me because of how many times that's been asked of me in the past, and how impossible it is to give an answer to such an unsophisticated question. The question itself demands simply a yes or no"that's why propagandists like the ones at Fox News revert to these kinds of conflict questions and give their guests very little time to answer when logical arguments back them into a corner.

Do I love the bill of rights and capitalism, and all the opportunities, products, entertainment, and creative people that those things have produced? Absolutely.

But in every society there is a sinister side. There is a class of people that want to rule over everyone else. The dark spiritual seeds that produce tyrannts are spread equally around the world without respect to borders. And as the sun shines more and the rain falls heavier in some lands than on others, some governmental systems make it more easy for these emperor wannabes to gain power over everyone else around them.

In other countries these tyrants are poor peasant kids kicked around throughout their childhoods who rose up to become dictators and blood thirsty generals through sheeranimal because where they"re from that"s just how business is done.

In the western world these people are the bullies on the playground with the same ambitions, who grew up. The ones who learned how to punch-out the weak while the teachers were not looking, and later how to usurp the system by wearing a badge or making lots of money and putting their minions in office.

The foundation of America created by our fathers was strong and their system of rule by law, not men, is why the ideals of this country's revolution have survived so long.

However, over the past 100 years it has slowly been overrun by the bullies, incrementally stabbing away the constitutional protections that once made it harder for them to impose their will on the world.

The story of America is not about whether it's good or bad. It's both things. Good and bad, people struggling for control over the national agenda and who has the power"the few or the many. The same could be said about the people of Europe, China, and Iran. It is more than one person and one action. It is about more than just who is in office and what the country did yesterday or 100 years ago.

Soon the president is going to give his state of the union address. No doubt it's going to be a bunch of phony pandering and applauding and pundits afterwards talking about his well crafted message, with a response from the fake political opposition added in, as if these so called leaders we see on TV really represent us anymore. The fact is, politicians don't help us, they "handle us" because in our system we the people are still an obstacle to their narcissistic ambitions and we still have to be appeased for them to stay in power.

But how strong is our union when the bullies attempts at appeasement are now so weak? When the promises are so blatantly insincere and the explanations so arrogantly and cynically delivered? When they run over the will of the people with patronizing explanations that it's "for their own good", and blissfully turn their back on those who once supported them because they naively believed there would be some kind of change and were ripe for the picking?

It's isn't about whether or not America is good or bad or if you hate it or not"it's about the fact that the bullies on the playground are now somehow the teachers, and the principal, the school nurse, the superintendant" and they don't steal your lunch money or make you do their homework in secret anymore. They're doing it right out in the open and hint that you might go to detention if you don't do what they say. Serving their own personal wants is now becoming more and more the school curriculum, but none of the students want to talk about it or stop it because to do so is "uncool". Plus they'd rather play kickball for the few minutes they're given as a release.

The state is our union is you. You are the power and you are the strength. And it's not because you're American, it's because you're alive and you have free will. You can continue to do what the bullies say and go along to get along because then you might get some, or you can stop worrying about being the cool kid and kick and scream and cry until the sounds get so loud that even the bullies have to cover their ears and retreat.

Once they realize that you don't care what they think of you, or what they might do to you anymore, and empower others to do the same, will they realize that you outnumber them and back down.

Then, once again, the state of our union will really be strong.

Ron Paul Powerful Speech

2010-01-22T15:16:00.000-08:00

What Paul talks about is psychopathy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vLV4jn8BMU

CORPORATE PSYCHOPATHS (05/05/2005)

2010-01-19T13:31:00.000-08:00

Couldn't get an embed code for the little movie so click the hot link below.

http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/s1360571.htm

CORPORATE PSYCHOPATHS (05/05/2005)
Topics: Others
12:56 mins - Windows media -
Reporter: Dr Jonica Newby
Producer: Louise Heywood
Researcher: Jonica Newby

Is your boss manipulative? Intimidating? Totally lacking in remorse? Yet superficially charming? Then you could be working with a workplace psychopath. The latest figures suggest one in ten managers are psychopaths, and this week Catalyst goes deep inside their minds - what makes them tick, how do you spot them; and how do you avoid being crushed by them. We’ll also run a handy test – tune in to find out if your boss is an office psychopath.

TRANSCRIPT
Narration: It begins as a phone call - and then a meeting - usually late at night.

A corporation has a problem and they need Dr John Clarke's help. They need a psychopath- buster.

Dr John Clarke: The common misconception with psychopaths is that they're all violent extreme kind of criminals. The majority of them are living and working around us in jobs psychologically destroying the people that they work with.

Narration: There's a growing realisation psychopaths are thriving in today's workplace. According to the textbooks, every large company has them.

Jonica Newby, reporter: This is where I work. It's the ABC building in Sydney. Now the figures are that 0.5% of women are psychopaths, and 2% are men. So that means there are up to 25 corporate psychopaths somewhere up there.

Narration: But who are they? What makes them tick? And how do you avoid being the next victim of the workplace psychopath.

Psychologist John Clarke started out profiling criminal psychopaths, but four years ago, he began to realise there was a much bigger problem.

Dr John Clarke: I was giving a lecture on criminal psychopaths and someone came down after that lecture and said that their boss had the same characteristics as what I'd just described for a criminal one.

Narration: "Annette" knows just what he's talking about. Like most victims we contacted, she would only tell her story anonymously.

She was a confident, career minded public servant when she first met her new boss.

Annette: I got a shock when he took me into his office and shut the door - he just exploded. It was sort of like well what do we want you for.
And then when he let me out again it was all smiles.

Dr John Clarke: There are 20 characteristics to define a psychopath. Really the fundamental factor is an absolute lack of remorse or guilt for their behaviour, pathological lying, manipulative, callous, egotistical, very kind of self centred individual, glib and superficial charm

Narration: The workplace psychopath's textbook strategies feature in a new David Williamson play, Operator.

Psychopath: Francine. They tell me that you're the person who really runs things here, so I thought I'd better say hello as quickly as possible.

Francine: Now you're just trying to flatter me.

Psychopath: Not at all. Three different people have told me that with your capabilities you could step straight out of a support role into top management.

David Williamson: They are so devious. They're so good at saying things you want to hear to your face at the same time they're knifing you in the back.

Psychopath: Could you do me a big favour?

Francine: What?

Psychopath: Write me an email that sort of recounts what happened here today.

Francine: I don't like putting things in writing.

Psychopath: I won't ever show it to anyone without getting your permission first.

I know I shouldn't be showing it to you ...

Dr John Clarke: They steal other people's work. They spread rumours about people, character assassination. A range of different strategies they will use to move up through the company.

David Williamson: They are worrying. I mean, if you strike one you may not realise it for quite a while until they do some devious act that stabs you in the back and can quite psychologically crush you.

Narration: Annette's boss was typical - charming his superiors and acolytes, while isolating and undermining his victims.

Annette: I wasn't allowed to have a phone when I was working, you know, my phone calls were monitored just this constant wearing down and harassment and you know, it was just awful.

Narration: By the time she complained, she'd been so discredited behind her back, no one would support her.

Annette: They didn't believe me. They're going, "He's such a funny guy, he's so nice"

In the end I had to go in and, and see him. And I was just crying my eyes out and I was just tears running down my face. And he walked me out through the chairs, through the desks, out through the long way through the office in case anyone had missed the spectacle of me just breaking down. I was devastated. I was just broken.

Narration: But how can someone act in such a seemingly inhuman way?

The truth is, psychopaths are fundamentally different to the rest of us.

Research is showing they're deficient in a crucial skill that evolved to ensure we don't abandon our friends and family - empathy.

Dr John Clarke: Empathy really is the ability to feel what another person is feeling. It's very very important in terms of survival of the human species because if nobody really cared or understood what other people were feeling it would just cause breakdown of society.

Narration: Empathy is not just an abstract idea ...

... it's something you can measure physiologically.

Jonica Newby, reporter: Well, I'm about to be tested for one of the key characteristics of a psychopath.

Dr John Clarke: Now I'm just going to show you some pictures. Sit back, relax, and we'll see what happens.

Narration: As I watch the pictures, probes are detecting whether I release minute traces of sweat - whether I have an emotional response - empathy.

Psychopaths generally don't react.

Jonica Newby, reporter: So how'd I go?

Dr John Clarke: Very well. What we can see as we scroll through is for the non-emotional pictures there is no response. And when we get to here with the pictures of people crying you can see an involuntary physical emotional response.

Jonica Newby, reporter: So I'm not a psychopath.

Dr John Clarke: Definitely not.

Narration: Psychopaths generally don't react.

This lack of emotional response extends deep into the brain.

When most of us see another persons distress, our emotional centre, the limbic system, is aroused. We feel a little of what others are feeling.

But a 2001 US study revealed the psychopath has very little limbic system response to emotional information.

John Clarke: And that's what allows them to manipulate and control other people because they're able to do that on a very rational logical level but at the same time they don't feel the emotion or empathy for the other person.

Narration: No one knows how much of this deficit is genetic, and how much shaped by childhood.

But by the time they are adults, psychopaths aren't simply uncaring. They are physically incapable of feeling other people's pain.

Annette: My hair was falling out, you know, and I uh.. you know, I had diarrhoea, I couldn't sleep, my life got that awful and black it seemed a better option to just be dead and stop it.

Man: Someone I like and respect a lot almost died last night.

Psychopath: Let's get real here. Melissa was reckless, incompetent and stuffed up in a big way. And when you stuff up big time you get depressed.

Man: She nearly died.

Psychopath: She's a loser. Who f...... cares?

Narration: But without a brain scan, how do we spot a psychopath before its too late? One answer seems to be; look up.

John Clarke suspects corporations today aren't just failing to screen for psychopaths, they're unwittingly selecting them.

Dr John Clarke: You see this advertisement here. "An ability to do whatever it takes to meet a deadline". So that would appeal to a psychopath because they are prepared to do whatever it takes whatever the cost. If we look at this one - "The opportunities are endless you just need to know how to win it" - well they know how to win everything pretty much.

David Williamson: They present very confidently. They are full of self-esteem. They have no doubts; no hesitations and so interviewing panels often find them very attractive.

That's what many corporations see as being a good executive.

Narration: But some corporations are now realising they have a problem. That's why they call secretly on criminal profiler, John Clarke.

Dr John Clarke: The companies don't like to admit they have a psychopath and so the first meeting, it's often on a Friday night or late at night after the employees have gone home.

Narration: Issues range from fraud, to broken promises, to losing staff.

Executive: I just can't seem to keep staff and it's all coming from his section.

Dr John Clarke: Which is costing you money.

Executive: Exactly.

Dr John Clarke: The first thing I do is really get an assessment from the people working below, at the same level and above the individual. And so if there are huge discrepancies in opinion that's reason to start delving deeper.

Narration: Dr Clarke then administers a standard psychopath assessment. Remember those questions you answered earlier? They're a modified, cut down version.

Here are the final two:

Is your boss opportunistic, ruthless, hating to lose and playing to win?

Does your boss consider people they've outsmarted as dumb or stupid?

If your boss scored 5 out of 6 or more, you could be working with a workplace psychopath.

Now for the bad news.

Dr John Clarke: It's almost impossible to rehabilitate the psychopath. In fact, there are studies in the United States, which suggest that rehabilitation in fact makes them worse because it teaches them new social skills they can use to manipulate the people around them more effectively.

Narration: Once identified, there are strategies to manage the psychopath or move them on.

But what if you're the victim, and the corporation backs your boss?

Stay too long, and you risk a severe psychological breakdown. That's what happened to Annette.

Annette: I loved my job but in the end I, I fell apart. I was just so, so broken and you know, I just walked out and there was no coming back.

I'm unemployable now, you know. I just, I can't take another knock like that,

Dr John Clarke: When I tell them that one of the options is to leave the company there's shock, and then they go on to how unfair it is but then there's devastation when they do realise that that might be the most appropriate option to take because the situation is not going to change.

Narration: Far from getting their comeuppance, in these days of short term goals and high staff turnover, psychopaths often rise to the top.

In making this story, we spoke to many victims, none who could be identified for fear of defamation or worse - all devastated - all with a similar message.

Annette: I think you should run, you should run. There are some bosses out there that are deadly.

Dr John Clarke: I want people to be aware that they're not going crazy. It's the workplace psychopath that's the problem, not them.

David Williamson: That's not to say that every manager is like that. But it's that one out of ten that has the potential to really wreck a company, wreck the coherence of a company and wreck lives.

STORY CONTACTS
Dr John Clarke
Psychologist / Criminal profiler
David Williamson
Playwright

Only Psychiatrists Can Explain Israel's Behavior

2010-01-12T16:56:00.000-08:00

Israel is a psychopathic country! That's because the behavior is psychopathic!

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/01/12-0

January 12, 2010 by Haaretz
Only Psychiatrists Can Explain Israel's Behavior
by Gideon Levy

Our wild world of crime has recently been sent for observation. From the bodyguard of the IDF Chief of Staff to the killers of their own children - all have been sent for observation. The time has come, as is the custom around here, to send the country for observation, too. Maybe with ongoing treatment from specialists, the diagnosis that will save us can be made.

There are numerous reasons for the observation. A long series of acts that have no rational explanation, or really any explanation whatsoever, raise the following suspicions: a loss of touch with reality; temporary or permanent insanity, paranoia, schizophrenia and megalomania; memory loss and loss of judgment. All of this must be examined, under careful observation.

The psychiatric specialists might be so kind as to try to explain how a country with leaders committed to a two-state solution continues to direct huge budgets toward building more settlements in territories it intends to vacate in the future. What explanation could there be, if not from the psychiatric realm, for a 10-month halt to residential construction in the settlements, to be immediately followed by more construction? How can a country be so tightfisted when it comes to healthcare spending on its citizens, whose poor are getting poorer - and yet when a portion of the roads in the West Bank are already deemed as dangerous, they build more and more roads there leading from nowhere to nowhere?

They should explain how the state prosecutor can announce his intention to expropriate more privately-owned Palestinian land at the settlement of Ofra - the "largest illegal settlement in the territories" (in the words of the defense minister's adviser on settlement issues) - when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in his address at Bar-Ilan University last year, explicitly committed not to do so, and President Shimon Peres did more of the same in a meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

They should explain what lies behind the decision to examine annexing Highway 443, which runs through the West Bank, as Israeli territory - as a way of defeating the recent High Court of Justice ruling opening it to Palestinian motorists. How can a country that preaches the rule of law dare outfox the High Court through "bypass" laws? And how have an insignificant minority - the settlers - sown fear and managed to extort the country for so many years?

Psychiatric specialists should make clear how a country that's been dealt a report as potentially disastrous for it as the Goldstone report can so adamantly and stubbornly refuse to convene the commission of inquiry the report provides as an escape clause. How can a nation that has so desperately fought for its international image and standing, and which is so dependent on the world's benevolence, appoint such a thuggish and violent figure as Avigdor Lieberman as its No. 1 diplomat? Half the world is closed to the foreign minister and we suffer the consequences.

Why didn't Israel consider presenting, even through some illusion, a nicer face to the world than Lieberman's threatening visage? Why doesn't a country so ostracized by so much of the world not ask itself, even for a moment, what part it played in shaping that position of isolation, from which it simply attacks and points fingers at its critics? How can a society which has already existed with a cruel occupation in its backyard for two generations refuse to deal with it, continue feeling so good about itself and evade any kind of self-examination or even an inkling of moral equivocation?

What kind of explanation can be given for the fact that a nation with a clear secular majority has no system for civil marriage, no buses or trains operating on Shabbat? How in such a country are wealthy municipal governments required to transfer funds to religious councils, of all places, rather than other needs? How can a country that has to deal with a domestic Arab minority which has maintained surprising loyalty to the country for more than 60 years do everything to put it down, humiliate and exclude it, treat it unfairly and engender a sense of frustration and hatred within it?

Can it be rationally explained how a country, to which all of the Arab nations have presented a historic peace proposal, refuses to even discuss this? It is a country that the president of Syria (whose major ally, Iran, is threatening Israel) is begging to come to a peace agreement with, yet it remains insistent in its refusal. Only psychiatric experts could possibly explain how the continued occupation of the Golan Heights and the missed opportunities for peace relate to security or logic. At the same time, they should try to explain the connection between the sanctity of historic sites and sovereignty over them. And above all, they should clarify how such a smart and talented society participates in this march of folly without anyone objecting.

True, it's a difficult case to figure out - all the more reason to recommend the country be sent for observation.

The Souless Psychopaths of Wall Street Will Be Back for More

2010-01-12T16:04:00.000-08:00

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/wall_street_will_be_back_for_more_20100110/

Chris Hedges
Truthdig
Sun, 10 Jan 2010 15:07 EST

Corporations, which control the levers of power in government and finance, promote and empower the psychologically maimed. Those who lack the capacity for empathy and who embrace the goals of the corporation - personal power and wealth - as the highest good succeed. Those who possess moral autonomy and individuality do not. And these corporate heads, isolated from the mass of Americans by insular corporate structures and vast personal fortunes, are no more attuned to the misery, rage and pain they cause than were the courtiers and perfumed fops who populated Versailles on the eve of the French Revolution. They play their games of high finance as if the rest of us do not exist. And it is a game that will kill us.

These companies exist in a pathological world where identity and personal worth are determined solely by the perverted code of the corporation. The corporation decides who has value and who does not, who advances and who is left behind. It rewards the most compliant, craven and manipulative, and discards the losers who can't play the game, those who do not accumulate wealth or status fast enough, or who fail to fully subsume their individuality into the corporate collective. It dominates the internal and external lives of its employees, leaving them without time for family or solitude - without time for self-reflection - and drives them into a state of perpetual nervous exhaustion. It breaks them down, especially in their early years in the firm, a period in which they are humiliated and pressured to work such long hours that many will sleep under their desks. This hazing process, one that is common at corporate newspapers where I worked, including The New York Times, eliminates from the system most of those with backbone, fortitude and dignity.

No one thinks in groups. And this is the point. The employees who advance are vacant and supine. They are skilled drones, often possessed of a peculiar kind of analytical intelligence and drive, but morally, emotionally and creatively crippled. Their intellect is narrow and inhibited. They rely on the corporation, as they once relied on their high-priced elite universities and their SAT scores, for validation. They demand that they not be treated as individuals but as members of the great collective of Goldman Sachs or AIG or Citibank. They talk together. They exchange information. They make deals. They compromise. They debate. But they do not think. They do not create. All capacity for intuition, for unstructured thought, for questions of meaning deemed impractical or frivolous by the firm, the qualities that always precede discovery and creation, are banished, as William H. Whyte observed in his book "The Organization Man." The iron goals of greater and greater profit, order and corporate conformity dominate their squalid belief systems. And by the time these corporate automatons are managing partners or government bureaucrats they cannot distinguish between right and wrong. They are deaf, dumb and blind to the common good.

These deeply stunted and maladjusted individuals, from Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to Robert Rubin to Lawrence Summers to the heads of Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan Chase and Bank of America, hold the fate of the nation in their hands. They have access to trillions of taxpayer dollars and are looting the U.S. Treasury to sustain reckless speculation. The financial and corporate system alone validates them. It defines them. It must be served. This is why e-mails from the New York Fed to AIG, telling the bailed-out insurer not to make public the overpaying of Wall Street firms with taxpayer money, were sent when Geithner was in charge of the government agency. These criminals sold the public investments they knew to be trash. They used campaign contributions and lobbyists to turn elected officials into stooges and gut oversight and regulation. They took over retirement savings and pensions and wiped them out. And then they seized some $13 trillion in taxpayer money so they could lend it to us with interest. It is circular theft. This is why we will endure another catastrophic financial collapse. This is why firms like Goldman Sachs are more dangerous to the nation than al-Qaida.

"The psychology is about winning, and winning is marked by the level of compensation and bonuses and the power you have within the firm," Nomi Prins, the author of It Takes a Pillage and a former managing director at Goldman Sachs, told me by phone from California. "Every investment bank is like a mini-country. The political maneuvering and the differences between individuals who run certain areas and move up the ladder of the company are not necessarily decided by a vote. They move up depending on how close they are to the person [above them]. If that person moves up they move up with them. A certain set of loyalties get created. It is an intense competition all the time. You have trading and doing deals with clients, but the result is to push people up the ladder and to make money."

How you make money and how you climb the ladder of the corporate structure are irrelevant. Success becomes its own morality. Those who do well in this environment possess the traits often exhibited by psychopaths - superficial charm, grandiosity and self-importance, a need for constant stimulation, a penchant for lying, deception and manipulation, and the incapacity for remorse or guilt. They, like competitors on a reality television program, lie, cheat and betray to climb over those around them and advance. These demented individuals are admired and envied within the firm. They achieve heroic status. The lower-ranking employees are supposed to emulate them. And this makes Goldman Sachs and other speculative financial firms upscale lunatic asylums where the inmates wear Brooks Brothers suits and drink expensive chardonnay. Our problem is that the lunatics have been let out of the asylum. They have been empowered to cannibalize the government on behalf of the corporations that spawned them like mutant carp.

These corporations don't make anything. They don't produce anything. They gamble and bet and speculate. And when they lose vast sums they raid the U.S. Treasury so they can go back and do it again. Never mind that $50 trillion in global wealth was erased between September 2007 and March 2009, including $7 trillion in the U.S. stock market and $6 trillion in the housing market. Never mind that the total amount of retirement and household wealth trashed was $7.5 trillion or that we saw $2 trillion in 401(k)s and individual retirement accounts evaporate. Never mind the $1.9 trillion in traditional defined-benefit plans and the $2.6 trillion in nonpension assets that went up in smoke. Never mind the job losses, the foreclosures and the 35 percent jump in personal and small-business bankruptcies. There are bundles of new money, taken again from us, to make deals and hand out outrageous bonuses. And when these trillions run out they will come back for more until our currency becomes junk. Not that any of these people have thought this through. They are too busy focused on the pathetic, little monuments they are building to themselves and the intricacies of court intrigue.

"There are always internal conversations about taking credit for certain trades and deals," Prins said of her time at Goldman Sachs. "It is childish, except there is so much money at stake and so much power within the firm at stake. Power in the firm allows you to make money, but it also provides a certain status that everyone looks up to and covets. There can be a period of a month or two at the end of the year where closed-door conversations occur between managers and people who work for them about compensation. In these conversations they go something like: 'My group did that trade.' 'I did that trade.' 'No, that was my money.' 'No, that was my profit and loss.' 'That's my client.' 'I know the other group said that it was their client but actually I had the relationship first.' A lot of these petty conversations go back and forth. All of it to attain money and acquire power and influence within the firm."

Those who advance in these institutions master the art of looking like they are doing more than they are actually doing. It does not matter who does the most. It matters who can take credit for doing the most. And that often means poaching someone else's work. Friendship becomes a meaningless word. So does compassion. So does honesty. So does truth. By any standard comprehensible within the tradition of Western civilization these people are illiterate. They cannot recognize the vital relationship between power and morality. They have forgotten, or never knew, that moral traditions are the product of civilization. Existence, for them, boils down to one overriding imperative - me, me, me.

"The people who get the higher bonuses are not getting them because they are quietly doing whatever work they are supposed to do," said Prins, who also ran the international analytics group at Bear Stearns in London. "They are getting that money because they are constantly able to promote themselves."

"The environment is very insular," Prins said. "It is all about what is happening in the firm. Who said what. Who is doing what. What did they say about you. How does it affect you. How does it affect your group. How does it affect the people above you and below you. It destroys individuality. You learn there is a certain way you are supposed to act to be successful. If you are not doing that, if you are fighting too hard to do something you believe is right, but your managers don't want to do, you defer. Or you fight and it gets marked as a stripe against you. You don't discuss interests that are counter to the firm's interests or the firm's positions."

"You are not thinking whether it is ethical to dump a bunch of loans into the street or repackage them and re-rate them better," she said. "You are only thinking about getting the deal done. You don't think about how issuing certain securities or structuring certain deals will impact people [around you]."

"When you are living, competing and winning in an environment where it is all about the money and the power, it creates a dividing line between you and the rest of the world," Prins said. "You do not bother to look over the dividing line. Your world is on your side of it and the rest of the world is on their side of it. You are not looking at people being kicked out of their homes and being foreclosed. You do not see the crying, the anger and the children in the street because [those in government] decided to give money to bail out Wall Street firms as opposed to renegotiate mortgage principals so people can continue to live their lives. You can be callous about it because it does not impact you. It is not something you notice. You might read about it. But you don't feel it, watch it or go through it. You are detached."

Banks are continuing to have hemorrhaging in consumer portfolios including mortgage loans, auto loans, credit card loans and other loans. Bankruptcies are endemic. Toxic assets if properly assessed would mean that many of our largest banks are insolvent. But the profits from the trading revenues and bonuses have climbed back to near-record highs. The sick mentality of the game, the one that created the first worldwide meltdown, dominates the nervous systems of our elite the way cravings overtake heroin addicts. They can't think of anything else. They do not know how. No one goes to Wall Street to further the common good. People go to make money. And money, like power, is a potent narcotic.

"You don't think you are doing anything wrong," Prins said. "You are working. You are making money. You are trying to have your bosses like you and pay you. You run things by legal [the company's legal department]. You run things by compliance. You don't believe you are committing a crime. You are just doing what you are doing."

"We will have another crisis," she lamented. "I don't know when, but it is brewing. If you don't fundamentally change the foundation of the banking system you are piling on capital and time into something that is faulty. This does not result in decades of stability. They are banking on trading. Nothing has changed. The rest of the consumer economy is continuing to deteriorate. These losses go into banks. You gain on trading and lose on more solid practices. The foundation has not changed. The regulations are bullshit. The old assets are still crap. The new assets created off the old assets are still crap. The banks are still levering them and still doing the same practices they did before. We will have another liquidity crunch. Banks will again stop trusting their assets and each other. ... The buying of complex assets will stop, although this time more quickly. People will remember what happened before. You will have a repeat of credit constricting between financial institutions. It is already constricted on the consumer side. The banking system will use up this federal capital and then go back for more."

Chris Hedges, a former Middle East bureau chief of The New York Times, shared the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Journalism. He has written nine books, including Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle (2009). His column appears on Truthdig every Monday.

Vulnerability and Other Prey of Psychopaths

2010-01-11T13:24:00.001-08:00

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/take-all-prisoners/201001/vulnerability-and-other-prey-psychopaths

Vulnerability and Other Prey of Psychopaths
Marisa Mauro, Psy.D.
Psychology Today
Sun, 10 Jan 2010 13:49 EST

Certain personality traits may create better perpetrators and, unfortunately certain cues may create better victims. In a study by Wheeler, Book and Costello of Brock University, individuals who self reported more traits associated with psychopathy were more apt to correctly identify individuals with a history of victimization.

In the study, male student participants examined video tapes of twelve individuals walking from behind and rated the ease at which each could be mugged. The men also completed the Self-Report Psychopathy Scale: Version III (Paulhus, Hemphill, & Hare, in press) which measures interpersonal and affective traits associated with psychopathy as well as intra-personal instability and antisocial traits. Finally, they were asked to provide verbal rational for their ratings. Overall results confirmed a strong positive correlation between psychopathy scores and accuracy of victim identification. This means that individuals that score higher for psycopathy are better at selecting victims. Statistically significant results for psychopathy traits including interpersonal manipulation, callous affect and antisocial bevavior were found.

Acknowledging that fault always lies with the perpetrator, this research may empower individuals with a history of or concerns about victimization. As for myself, a prison psychologist often dealing with career criminals and individuals with psychopathic traits, I am convinced, in the course of observation alone, that certain personal characteristics are associated with tendency to be on the receiving end of bullying such as harassment and manipulation. I have found that the demonstration of confidence through body language, speech and affective expression, for example, provides some protection. This sense was confirmed by Wheeler, Book and Costello, who found that increased fluidity projected through one's walking gait was associated with less reporting of victimization. With respect to gait, the authors provide five cues of vulnerability originally reported by Grayson and Stein (1981). They state, "potential victims had longer or shorter strides, had nonlateral weight shifts, had gestured versus postural movements and tended to lift their feet higher while walking."

Besides one's walk, individuals can purposefully project dominance thereby potentially decreasing perceived vulnerability by increasing eye contact, decreasing the use of small body movements of the hands and feet, and increasing large body movements or changes in postural positioning. Personally, I have also found that conscious control of changes in affective expression, particularly through control of fear, surprise and embarrassment, as well as the rate, tone and fluency of speech decreases one's likelihood of victimization or bullying. It is recommended that individuals maintain the general projection of confidence via dominant body language even in situations where they feel safe. Potential perpetrators may perceive changes in body language signaling vulnerability and act on this perception.

Wheeler, S., Book, A., & Costello, K. (2009). Psychopathic traits and perceptions of victim vulnerability. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 36(6), 635-648.

Here In The Long Solemn Dark: An Examination Of Global Elitism

2010-01-07T14:50:00.000-08:00

http://neithercorp.us/npress/?p=214
http://www.sott.net/articles/show/200545-Here-In-The-Long-Solemn-Dark-An-Examination-Of-Global-Elitism

Giordano Bruno
Neithercorp Press
Sat, 02 Jan 2010

Inherent in every human being lurk the qualities that make us capable of indelible and enduring good, or astounding and catastrophic evil. Many of us struggle with these natural inborn psychological dualities every day of our lives. With the help of conscience; the ever present voice of the unconscious which guides us towards balance, many of us survive the internal battle without inflicting too much damage on the innocent bystanders around us.

I used to believe that all people endured this same struggle equally, that everyone wanted to eventually achieve that ever elusive self awareness that cuts through the fog of life and makes us feel whole. I believed that all men who committed terrible crimes and injustices against others did so out of ignorance and blindness. Surely, they had lost their way, and did not fully understand the implications of their actions. This did not make them any less responsible, but could they not be redeemed? Had they not let their own shadows run wild in the daylight without knowing the consequences? Weren't all of us, even the worst of us, deep down still striving to do what was right?

In this belief I must now admit, if I am to remain true to my conscience, I was terribly mistaken...

What I did not comprehend when I was younger was that not all men struggle against the dark corners of their own hearts. Some men revel in them. Some men embrace their failings, their hatred and their envy, their vicious desire for control over their environment and those in it, and they do it deliberately, completely aware of the imbalance and pain they are inflicting on others. Where I see weakness of character, they see untapped strength; the strength of cold and unrestrained malevolence. They were not "victims" of their own ignorance. These men had traversed the River Styx and glimpsed the mythological gates of hell, the psychological barrier between saints and madmen. They stood at the edge of reason and truth, looked out into the nightmarish abyss at the back of their own psyches, and liked what they saw!

If there was ever anything closer to the definition of "evil," I have not heard of it.

This methodology, this philosophy of embracing one's darker nature, is ever present in an organized group of people we have come to label "Global Elites." They have existed in various forms for centuries but their goals have always been the same. In this article, we will examine some of the early influences that gave birth to the elitist philosophy, as well as some possible explanations as to why they do what they do.

Plato: Catalyst For Elitism

Elitism has existed perhaps as long as man has existed, but was not implemented on a broad social scale until the formation of empires such as Babylon. It later blossomed into a full fledged brand of "spiritualism" under the watchful eyes of the Greek aristocracy and the tutelage of Plato, or as elitists sometimes dub him, "The Divine Plato."

It is hard to say so many centuries later what the real intention of Plato's Dialogues were. Did he mean them to stand only as metaphorical sociological examinations, as questions designed to promote healthy debate? Or, did he write them as a blueprint for society expecting them to be translated literally and then implemented in the real world? Whatever he originally intended, his views on social structure became the underlying foundation for the monstrous organized brand of Global Elitism we now know today. These views are most prominent in Plato's "Republic," however, they are present in nearly all of his works.

Plato had a very low opinion of the majority of the human populace, often stating that the concept of Democracy; rule by the common man, was far less than ideal. In one of Plato's famous arguments, he proposes that it is better to be ruled by a bad tyrant, than be a part of a bad democracy, since in a bad democracy, all the people would be responsible for the terrible deeds of a nation, rather than one individual (of course, Plato fails to realize that by letting a "bad tyrant" come to power in the first place, the people are still ALL responsible for any terrible act that tyrant commits). Instead, he believed, there were several levels in which society could form itself, and he listed them in order of significance:

Aristocracy (rule by the best)
Timocracy (rule by the honorable)
Oligarchy (rule by the few)
Democracy (rule by the people)
Tyranny (rule by one person, rule by a tyrant)

Plato seems to see no threat in the idea of Aristocracy, and the possibility of a group of men labeled "best" reverting to tyranny appears to have never dawned on him. This is even more evident in his idea of the "Philosopher Kings"; a "guardian class" who are so steeped in knowledge and wisdom as to be nearly infallible and ideally suited to rule over the lives of others. The elites of today salivate over such concepts, because they provide an easy avenue for the justification of their own political ideals of feudal rulership. In fact, Plato and his Philosopher King scenario were often expounded by University of Chicago professor Leo Strauss. Strauss' teachings went on to become the political linchpin for what we now call "Neo-Conservatism:"

http://www.opendemocracy.net/faith-iraqwarphiloshophy/article_1542.jsp

http://www.jeetheer.com/politics/strauss.htm

Strauss promoted many of Plato's more questionable tenets, including the idea of the "Noble Lie." In his book "Persecution and the Art of Writing", Strauss outlines why secrecy is necessary. He argues that the wise must conceal their views for two reasons - to spare the people's feelings and to protect the elite from possible reprisals (reprisals they likely deserve). He also believed that the only true balance in human nature was the will of the strong; the idea that morality is built upon the views of those who are strongest. The weak had no choice but to adopt the implicit morality of the strong.

Strauss often talked of the need for a moral imperative and even a benevolent God, but interestingly, Strauss was not only an atheist (according to some of his own colleagues), but also a moral relativist. Young and naïve students of Neo-Conservatism often argue that Strauss was a promoter of high morals because he mentions them so often in his books, but they do not seem to understand the context in which he uses them. Strauss felt that a moral framework was a useful tool in manipulating the masses, and nothing more. He was in no way a man of conscience. Religion or any other system that focused on the development of conscience was meant for the lowly serfs, while the elite "Philosopher Kings" would rule with their own set of virtues, virtues to which the commoners were supposedly not equipped to mentally grasp.

What Plato accomplished, and Strauss later expanded on, was the mutation of elitism from a mere political movement with many undesirable consequences, into a full fledged philosophy bordering on cultism. Elitists were no longer simply an overprivileged class of tyrants and sadists making the lives of common men miserable, now, they were "necessary" to the very mechanics of society. They were "guardians" with the godlike responsibility of molding and directing the course of all humanity. Without them, we would be "lost."

The weaknesses of this methodology are numerous and obvious. It promotes the concept of "equality as illusion," which may have some legitimacy since all people are born with inherent and unique qualities. However, men like Strauss take this fact and twist it, claiming that because we are all different, this means that some of us must be naturally "better" than others, and therefore, elite. This is an extremely childish interpretation of inborn dynamics.

According to the archetypal discoveries of Carl Jung, we are all born with the same psychological constructs, however, each person has a unique relationship to these constructs, meaning, the way in which we embody the archetypes we are born with is particular to each individual. This means that while every person may develop a different brand of intelligence, unless there is a physical brain impairment, we are ALL capable of being intelligent. The elitist philosophy extolled by Plato and Strauss claims that some people are simply born far more intelligent than others, and that these people, being so naturally advanced, should be given free reign to make our decisions for us.

Who is qualified to categorize human beings into such narrow labels? Who decides what intelligence truly is? While one group may focus more on intellect and critical thought, prizing logic above all else, another may see intuition and emotional advancement as true brilliance. How can one determine if a person is hindered rationally and emotionally to the point of being incapable of progress? Does the theory of Plato not limit all men into static states of being? Have people not proven century after century, generation after generation, that we have the ability to change, adapt, and grow?

Some may argue that the lack of intelligence in the average man is blindingly apparent if one only looks around himself. But this way of thinking is based on an invalid assumption; the assumption that because a man acts unintelligent, he is therefore incapable of ever being intelligent. One contradiction I find most interesting about elitists is that they often preach about the natural stupidity of common people, yet, they place most of their massive resources into keeping the public unaware and "out of the loop." If the average man is so "naturally inept," then why have elitists put so much energy into trying to keep us stupid? Why do they keep information, data, the truth of the world, to themselves? Are we not so mentally handicapped that we would not understand the truth even if we knew it?

The fact is, they KNOW we are intelligent, why else would they feel the need for secrecy and lies?

While given the appearance or the dressings of wisdom, the elitist ideal is actually a mish-mash of highly flawed theories and biases flung together so that they may absolve themselves of their crimes against conscience and against mankind. By the standards of logic alone, they have proven themselves to be far less intelligent than they wish others to believe.

Machiavelli: The Methods Of Control

If any historical figure wholly embodies the elitist ethic, it would have to be Niccolo Machiavelli. Most famous for his political treatise entitled The Prince, Machiavelli was an aristocrat extraordinaire, counseling numerous monarchies on the best methods for controlling their respective populace. He was also a military advisor and writer of strategies on war, giving his ideas for social manipulation a cold and violent edge.

Some historians argue that Machiavelli's works on political subversion and tyranny are actually a form of satire, because no one would reveal his secrets of control in the way Machiavelli did unless he was trying to expose the horror of elitism. I find this theory highly unlikely. Machiavelli was an advisor to kings, not a revolutionary with any desire to rock the boat he had been sitting in his whole life. I think it much more likely that he was simply an egomaniac, perfectly willing to speak openly about his disdain for the masses, as many elites are.

The most important (and dangerous) philosophy Machiavelli put forward was his view on good results accomplished by evil deeds. Machiavelli lived at the edge of the Renaissance, and perhaps saw before many that the world was changing. In the past, elites could easily abuse the people through force of arms, and there was no need to paint a kinder picture on their own despotism. However, a sense of revolution, a hatred of monarchy was growing in the populace. The need to manipulate the public through rhetoric instead of only violence was becoming more evident. The people now had to be tricked into going along with their slavery, and Machiavelli was perfectly willing to devise strategies for this eventuality.

He did this by promoting the idea of "the end justifies the means." That is to say, if elites wanted to remain in control of the public, they had to convince the public that evil deeds were necessary in order to achieve a "greater good." This was the first truly cognizant formation of what would be later called "Moral Relativism," although, Machiavelli was more of the opinion that rather than being amoral, all men were inherently bad. Here are some quotes from Machiavelli on these points:
"Men never do good unless necessity drives them to it; but when they are free to choose and can do just as they please, confusion and disorder become rampant."
"As all those have shown who have discussed civil institutions, and as every history is full of examples, it is necessary to whoever arranges to found a Republic and establish laws in it, to presuppose that all men are bad and that they will use their malignity of mind every time they have the opportunity; and if such malignity is hidden for a time, it proceeds from the unknown reason that would not be known because the experience of the contrary had not been seen, but time, which is said to be the father of every truth, will cause it to be discovered."
"The people resemble a wild beast, which, naturally fierce and accustomed to live in the woods, has been brought up, as it were, in a prison and in servitude, and having by accident got its liberty, not being accustomed to search for its food, and not knowing where to conceal itself, easily becomes the prey of the first who seeks to incarcerate it again."
Among other things, Machiavelli taught that a tyrannical ruler must offer up a proxy, a sacrificial lamb to the public in order to maintain their complicity. In his time, rulers would execute former leaders, councilmen, advisors, and others who were expendable in order to satisfy the public's need for justice, while at the same time maintaining control over them. This strategy has been honed to perfection in the U.S. political system, in which the elites control both major parties. By sacrificing the public image of George W. Bush, the elites were able to stave off the growing discontent among Americans over the government. They then replaced him with Barack Obama, a man whose policies are nearly identical to Bush's. In this way, Machiavelli has influenced the cultures of today.

The problem with the "ends justify the means" argument is that it treats the "means" as a sine qua non.

Say my goal is world peace, but I use lies, war, genocide, and oppression to achieve it. Then, I make the claim afterwards that all this death and destruction is vindicated because world peace was in fact achieved. My assumption here is that world peace could not have been achieved without the destruction. What grounds do I have for this assumption? The answer is none, because no other method was attempted to achieve peace. I have also assumed that there are no new methods for achieving peace, methods which I had not thought of. Therefore, the "ends" DO NOT justify the "means," because there are many means to an end, some far more honorable than others.

So, what point of reference do we have to determine whether means are justifiable? The answer is conscience, something we will discuss greatly in the next section.

The Marquis de Sade: Do What Thou Wilt

Many people have a tendency to become preoccupied with the elements of sexual perversion when examining the work of the Marquis de Sade, but this is really a side note to the bigger issues at hand. The real root of the Marquis' message is one of corruption, dominance, and amorality. His sexual escapades were merely a means by which he expressed these "values." He said:

"There is nothing either fundamentally good, nor anything fundamentally evil; Everything is relative, relative to our point of view."

From this single rationalization, all the horrors of Global Elitism can be attributed. Through the philosophy of Moral Relativism, any crime, any injustice, any infliction of pain or death on others, can be easily placated as "natural" to the specific viewpoint or circumstance of the man committing the terrible act. The Marquis de Sade's nihilist worldview can be summed up as follows:

(1) God's nonexistence reduces the universe to a purely materialist Nature, a self-running mechanism; "the perpetual motion of matter explains everything."

(2) People are determinist machines, which annuls moral responsibility. You cannot help it, then, if you are sexually perverse or depraved.

(3) There is no afterlife, so your conduct does not matter.

(4) Merely the child of local custom, morality is relative to culture and geography, and therefore fictive.

(5) Nature is our only ethical guide; humans are no more significant to Nature than insects. And since Nature uses matter from dead life forms to create new ones, crime, destruction, and death are necessary and pleasing to her. Therefore murder is good, and the mass murderer is the highest human type.

(6) Born isolated, the individual is solely important, with obligations to nobody and only selfish motivations. Each individual is pitted against all others. His only maxim is to "Enjoy myself, at no matter whose expense."

(7) Man tends naturally to dominate others and inflict pain, which he enjoys.

(8) Ordinary people are utilitarian objects, the playthings of the wealthy, powerful and godlike libertines, who are utterly unloving.

(9) Beauty and innocence inspire only diabolical cruelty. Since materialism makes pleasure proportional to stimulus, the greater your cruelty, the greater your pleasure.

(10) Maximum selfishness and cruelty are therefore the proper course.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/1960890/The-Marquis-de-Sade

The key to the entirety of Moral Relativism is the belief that we are born as "blank slates," and therefore our belief in right and wrong is completely dependent upon our environment, meaning, morality is an empty product of cultural taboo. This is, of course, entirely false, and has been proven incorrect by numerous scientists and psychologists. Watch the film linked below for an in-depth analysis of the failings of Blank Slate Theory:

http://neithercorp.us/sdsl

Setting the debate over the existence of God aside, the psychological reality is, all human beings have an inherent archetypal sense of what we call good and evil, and this sense is common to every culture regardless of environmental conditions, proving The Marquis de Sade's conclusions false. Conscience is the messenger, or the interpreter if you will, of the archetypal sense of balance.

Although the Marquis' philosophy is logically impractical not to mention psychotic, it does illustrate very well the elitist mindset.

A rapist, for instance, often does not derive much pleasure from the sexual act itself, but the control involved over others. Thinking of elitists in such a way helps in understanding the warped reasoning behind their actions. Like the Marquis de Sade, elites are so possessed by their unlimited desire for power and control that they themselves fall into their own pattern of self created determinism. Finding that they will never have enough control to satiate their desires, and discovering that such power over the environment is unreachable, they turn towards thoughts of complete destruction. For them, destruction is the pinnacle of control.

What we also find is that the egotism of elites causes them to strive for what they feel is "true individualism." They see conscience as psychological bondage, a will imposed on them by society, or the universe itself. By breaking free of conscience, they believe they have achieved ultimate freedom, and elevated themselves to a plane beyond the common man. This is called "transcendence through evil."

But by disowning their inborn qualities, they have actually lost everything that gives them individuality, as well as humanity. They have essentially made themselves inwardly dead, soulless dolls driven by nothing but base desire. Instead of self-destructing under the weight of such ambition, they have focused it all into a single collective goal....

The New World Order: Destined For Failure

The New World Order which the Global Elites speak of so often is not just a political shift, or a social reformation; it is an attempt to subvert the human psyche. It is an attempt to defy nature. Controlling the lives of the masses is not enough. What they want most, is to transmute the human heart and bend it in any manner they wish until all traces of conscience and individualism have vanished from the species. Such an act could take centuries, perhaps millennia, and even then it may still be impossible.

When examining the shift towards the NWO, I often take into account the elitist fascination with the game of chess. Zbigniew Brzezinski makes this fascination laughably obvious in his book "The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy And Its Geostrategic Imperatives." I am an avid chess player myself, and I understand the game well.

In order to win consistently in chess, one must above all things become exceedingly ruthless. There can be no momentary lapses of compassion. This is something the elites strive for. You must also be willing to sacrifice any piece in order to meet the greater objective; another elitist trait.

In the game of chess, the greatest players do not win so much by attacking their opponent; they win by forcing their opponent to move in the way they want, until, in effect, the opponent defeats himself. This is a fulcrum point for the strategy of Globalism. They set the noose upon our necks, but it is our aimless struggling that tightens it until we suffocate.

The problem is, life is NOT a chess game. People do not follow straightforward patterns laid out beforehand. Some of us walk off the board entirely. Some of us make our own rules. Sometimes, the pawns change the entire dynamic of the game, and this is why the elites will fail. We aren't playing anymore.

The elites often boast of possessing an unparalleled wisdom, an awareness that supercedes all others. If they had attained any wisdom, however, they would have already realized the futility in attempting to control the destinies of other men. Such power is in itself an illusion, for the only power over us is that which we give away. Therefore, the elites only have power over us in so much as we give them explicit consent. All it takes is for one man to say "no," and the entire web begins to unravel. Control of the world is a fantasy, a cartoon, a cabaret, a childish whimsy that those with legitimate wisdom grow out of. The farce can only continue so long as everyone submits to deception.

Here humanity waits, standing still in the long solemn dark, poised to step from the cold cast shadow into daylight. The great threat to elitism has been and always will be the so called "common man." We are the honest and faithful explorers of the soul, unhindered by presumptions of superiority or fixations of malice. We are the antithesis, the counterweight, the opposing force, for we seek no power, no dominance, no control over the world; only understanding. We are the future, not the elites. Their time is nearly over, and with their passing, may we see all the horrors they have wrought undone, until life can be lived the way it desperately needs to be lived; with wide eyes, with honor, with sincerity.

Strength, real strength, comes not from the exile of conscience, or surrender to the murky waters of amorality; it comes from trust in one's own heart. It comes from that intuitive knowing, knowing without calculation or observation. It comes from the utter invincibility of truth; a force against which even the most depraved of elites cannot stand.

SOTT Comment: What the author is describing is the view of the psychopath, nihilist creatures with no conscience who seek only dominance and control over normal humans. For more information on psychopaths and how they rise to power read Political Ponerology by Andrew M. Lobaczewski.

The 'Israelification' of airports: Ruthless efficiency we can look forward to in a world run by psychopaths

2010-01-06T16:21:00.001-08:00

Systems can also be psychopathic!

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/744199--the-israelification-of-airports-high-security-little-bother

Toronto Star
Cathal Kelly
Wed, 30 Dec 2009 09:57 EST

While North America's airports groan under the weight of another sea-change in security protocols, one word keeps popping out of the mouths of experts: Israelification.

That is, how can we make our airports more like Israel's, which deal with far greater terror threat with far less inconvenience.

"It is mindboggling for us Israelis to look at what happens in North America, because we went through this 50 years ago," said Rafi Sela, the president of AR Challenges, a global transportation security consultancy. He's worked with the RCMP, the U.S. Navy Seals and airports around the world.

"Israelis, unlike Canadians and Americans, don't take s--- from anybody. When the security agency in Israel (the ISA) started to tighten security and we had to wait in line for - not for hours - but 30 or 40 minutes, all hell broke loose here. We said, 'We're not going to do this. You're going to find a way that will take care of security without touching the efficiency of the airport."

That, in a nutshell is "Israelification" - a system that protects life and limb without annoying you to death.

Despite facing dozens of potential threats each day, the security set-up at Israel's largest hub, Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport, has not been breached since 2002, when a passenger mistakenly carried a handgun onto a flight. How do they manage that?

"The first thing you do is to look at who is coming into your airport," said Sela.

The first layer of actual security that greets travellers at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion International Airport is a roadside check. All drivers are stopped and asked two questions: How are you? Where are you coming from?

"Two benign questions. The questions aren't important. The way people act when they answer them is," Sela said.

Officers are looking for nervousness or other signs of "distress" - behavioural profiling. Sela rejects the argument that profiling is discriminatory.

"The word 'profiling' is a political invention by people who don't want to do security," he said. "To us, it doesn't matter if he's black, white, young or old. It's just his behaviour. So what kind of privacy am I really stepping on when I'm doing this?"

Once you've parked your car or gotten off your bus, you pass through the second and third security perimeters.

Armed guards outside the terminal are trained to observe passengers as they move toward the doors, again looking for odd behaviour. At Ben Gurion's half-dozen entrances, another layer of security are watching. At this point, some travellers will be randomly taken aside, and their person and their luggage run through a magnometer.

"This is to see that you don't have heavy metals on you or something that looks suspicious," said Sela.

You are now in the terminal. As you approach your airline check-in desk, a trained interviewer takes your passport and ticket. They ask a series of questions: Who packed your luggage? Has it left your side?

"The whole time, they are looking into your eyes - which is very embarrassing. But this is one of the ways they figure out if you are suspicious or not. It takes 20, 25 seconds," said Sela.

Lines are staggered. People are not allowed to bunch up into inviting targets for a bomber who has gotten this far.

At the check-in desk, your luggage is scanned immediately in a purpose-built area. Sela plays devil's advocate - what if you have escaped the attention of the first four layers of security, and now try to pass a bag with a bomb in it?

"I once put this question to Jacques Duchesneau (the former head of the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority): say there is a bag with play-doh in it and two pens stuck in the play-doh. That is 'Bombs 101' to a screener. I asked Ducheneau, 'What would you do?' And he said, 'Evacuate the terminal.' And I said, 'Oh. My. God.'

"Take Pearson. Do you know how many people are in the terminal at all times? Many thousands. Let's say I'm (doing an evacuation) without panic - which will never happen. But let's say this is the case. How long will it take? Nobody thought about it. I said, 'Two days.'"

A screener at Ben-Gurion has a pair of better options.

First, the screening area is surrounded by contoured, blast-proof glass that can contain the detonation of up to 100 kilos of plastic explosive. Only the few dozen people within the screening area need be removed, and only to a point a few metres away.

Second, all the screening areas contain 'bomb boxes'. If a screener spots a suspect bag, he/she is trained to pick it up and place it in the box, which is blast proof. A bomb squad arrives shortly and wheels the box away for further investigation.

"This is a very small simple example of how we can simply stop a problem that would cripple one of your airports," Sela said.

Five security layers down: you now finally arrive at the only one which Ben-Gurion Airport shares with Pearson - the body and hand-luggage check.

"But here it is done completely, absolutely 180 degrees differently than it is done in North America," Sela said.

"First, it's fast - there's almost no line. That's because they're not looking for liquids, they're not looking at your shoes. They're not looking for everything they look for in North America. They just look at you," said Sela. "Even today with the heightened security in North America, they will check your items to death. But they will never look at you, at how you behave. They will never look into your eyes ... and that's how you figure out the bad guys from the good guys."

That's the process - six layers, four hard, two soft. The goal at Ben-Gurion is to move fliers from the parking lot to the airport lounge in a maximum of 25 minutes.

This doesn't begin to cover the off-site security net that failed so spectacularly in targeting would-be Flight 253 bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab - intelligence. In Israel, Sela said, a coordinated intelligence gathering operation produces a constantly evolving series of threat analyses and vulnerability studies.

"There is absolutely no intelligence and threat analysis done in Canada or the United States," Sela said. "Absolutely none."

But even without the intelligence, Sela maintains, Abdulmutallab would not have gotten past Ben Gurion Airport's behavioural profilers.

So. Eight years after 9/11, why are we still so reactive, so un-Israelified?

Working hard to dampen his outrage, Sela first blames our leaders, and then ourselves.

"We have a saying in Hebrew that it's much easier to look for a lost key under the light, than to look for the key where you actually lost it, because it's dark over there. That's exactly how (North American airport security officials) act," Sela said. "You can easily do what we do. You don't have to replace anything. You have to add just a little bit - technology, training. But you have to completely change the way you go about doing airport security. And that is something that the bureaucrats have a problem with. They are very well enclosed in their own concept."

And rather than fear, he suggests that outrage would be a far more powerful spur to provoking that change.

"Do you know why Israelis are so calm? We have brutal terror attacks on our civilians and still, life in Israel is pretty good. The reason is that people trust their defence forces, their police, their response teams and the security agencies. They know they're doing a good job. You can't say the same thing about Americans and Canadians. They don't trust anybody," Sela said. "But they say, 'So far, so good'. Then if something happens, all hell breaks loose and you've spent eight hours in an airport. Which is ridiculous. Not justifiable.

"But, what can you do? Americans and Canadians are nice people and they will do anything because they were told to do so and because they don't know any different."

Actor who stomped cat to death to perform 500 hours of community service

2009-12-18T09:42:00.000-08:00

This is an act of a psychopath!

http://www.silive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/12/actor_who_stomped_cat_to_death.html

By Associated Press
December 18, 2009, 12:09PM

NEW YORK -- An actor and former minor league baseball player who stomped his girlfriend's cat to death has resolved his case with 500 hours of volunteering.

This undated photo provided by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals shows Lisa Altobelli's orange tabby Norman. A New York City prosecutor says Altobelli's former boyfriend, baseball player-turned-actor Joseph Petcka, brutally killed the cat during a jealous rage.

Joseph Petcka will work at a New York City soup kitchen and other organizations.

His case was conditionally discharged Friday. That means it's expected to be closed without jail time or probation.

A judge also let Petcka reduce his guilty plea to attempted aggravated animal cruelty, a misdemeanor.

The 39-year-old Petcka initially pleaded guilty last year to a felony charge for killing the cat in March 2007.

Prosecutors said he attacked the 8-pound cat in a drunken, jealous rage. Petcka said he overreacted after being bitten by the tabby, named Norman.

Predator Class Warfare

2009-12-17T06:39:00.000-08:00

http://www.loansafe.org/predator-class-warfare

Predator Class Warfare
Posted by Moe Bedard on December 16, 2009

It is not just BIG government that I am deathly afraid of. It is also the masses of unmanned predator drones who now rule the earth in every which way. And I am not talking about planes folks.

From programed Global Warming fanatics shouting for population control in Copenhagen, to what seems like cute little UFC loving teenagers who beat people up for fun to only laugh with their other psychopathic friends as they watch it on You Tube.

This is what the good, ethical and moral people who believe in our constitution are up against. Most of these people do not even know what a constitution is or what really causes global warming, but they sure know Polar Bears can’t swim.

Just FYI ice huggers, they can swim. I saw them at SeaWorld and they swam really good as a matter a fact. Polar bears are strong swimmers; they swim across bays or wide leads without hesitation. They can swim for several hours at a time over long distances. They’ve been tracked swimming continuously for 100 km (62 mi.) (Stirling, 1988).

This is the ignorant people that we are up against folks. The same people who’s fearless leader invented the internet. Scary, isn’t it?

You can forget about drone planes flying in over Los Angeles and taking your patriotic butt out. Your local neighborhood unmanned drones that are called citizens by our government will gladly snuff you out for a paycheck and a badge. You better believe it folks and these times are unfolding right before our eyes.

As Gerald Celente says, “When people are desprate they do desperate things.” I agree with that statement, but I think it is much worse than his trends forecast predicts. Actually I’ll take this one step further, “When brain dead people loose it all, they prey on each other to survive. ” Let me explain.

This is a term that I actually picked up listening to the great Alan Watt of CuttingThroughtheMatrix.com. A label that once I heard it, I has an Ah-Ha moment and instantly realized that this was now a new class in our society. One that people are members of and they have no idea. A class of people that I now use to label those who are now part of the evil regime. A term not too long ago was called the lower and middle classes. These people that are still operating in fantasy land are being forced into poverty by design in order to create a new physcopathic class that was only reserved in the upper echelons of Wall Street and government.

It is called the “Predator Class.”

Let me tell you something people, I am now deathly afraid of these predators that have been scientifically created through propaganda and they are now our next door neighbors.

My attempts to get educated on the reality in which we live has taken me down a path of darkness that I could never comprehend till now. A darkness that I only thought existed in Hollywood movies, I have now discovered is really the world in which we dwell. It is a world that is utterly evil and where life is considered parasitic. A world where people walk around like zombies as they loose their homes, jobs and then get sprayed by chemicals and they stand in food lines to eat more poison. A world where humans must drink and eat poison to escape their hellish lives to turn on a box in their living room that lets corporate predators feed on their kids as their brains also quickly turn to jelly.

As Alex Jones would say, “How bout them Cowboys?” Yes, those sport loving, beer drinking dudes are who will slit your throat when ordered to.

These people who are losing it all have morphed into the perfect predator. One that will eat you alive. A predator that gets its information from a box in their living room and only knows of the dollar and paychecks as their only way to survive. One that would never know how to live without the paper money and idols on TV that they worship. A predator who now is getting desprate to pay the bills or feed their sick addictions.

Once ethical salesman are now financial predators and once God fearing Pastors are government operatives. Soon all it will take is a paycheck from a psychopathic corporation or from our military to make these predators do just about anything. Just as the Nazi’s took ordinary man and made them into killers within weeks during the Holocaust. (pg. 11)

It could be your 17 year old son, Cowboy loving brother, climate loving neighbor who worships grass more than human lives or your new military meter lady who puts a gun to your patriotic head to drag you to an internment camp for reprogramming or to never come back.

They will then laugh at the video on You Tube as their new form of entertainment.

In my ignorant attempts to get educated and research history, I soon discovered many writing from our country’s founding fathers that I had never seen before. Blogging from my mountain top I quoted Thomas Jefferson on many occasion:
“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.” Thomas Jefferson, Letter to the Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin (1802)

Only was is it later that I found out that for quoting a President, I may now be considered a terrorist by our Federal government. Let me tell you folks, that was a real eye opener for me to find out that for loving my country and fighting for my constitution, I am considered a threat to National Security. It really woke me up to the world in which “we live.” Things have never looked the same for me.

It’s as if you open one door, and then one more opens and before you know it your in the Pandora box with no way out, but what appears may be death.

Any true red blooded human being who has any of their original mind left understands exactly what I am talking about.

Whether you are in the US or the UK, our forefathers warned us long ago of what is happening today. But I feel many patriots in their respected countries think as I do about the tyranny that once hid in the shadows and now spits in our face and laughs.
We can’t even believe it, but in reality we can. But at the same time we are paralyzed by, “What can we do as we drive down the street and see the prisons on the left, cops with bigger guns than us on the right and aircraft flying over head spraying chemicals on us?”

These patriots are men and women of strength and honor, but they certainly are not idiots. They most definitely understand the harsh reality of what we face. They don’t know what to do, but they know they need to do something and we MUST.
They have managed to fool our society of non-thinkers in labeling the true Americans the highly propagandized word that strikes fear in all brain dead Americans, “terrorists!” A word that strikes paralysing fear in the masses. All these brain washed people have to do is hear the word and they will burn whoever it is labeled this at the stake in a heart beat. Including their father or only son.

I see this word “terrorist” as the new “propaganda tool” by media and the ruling class to strike fear in all of the weak humans who vastly out number the live humans beings who are fully aware of current reality. A word that all of a sudden groups anyone accused of it with the likes of Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. But it is thrown around in our society now like anyone who disagrees with the world in which we live or our almighty government is now a terrorist and should be tortured and locked in Guantanamo Bay.

Simply put, their scientific plan has worked perfectly and that is what scares me.

To be honest, I am not afraid of my government because they don’t have to do much these days in order to force population control on citizens. We are sadly killing ourselves or one another and it will only get worse as the Great Depression worsens and the brain dead predators get more desperate. I am trying to wake them up via my independent blogs but it is so hard to awaken the zombies when they listen Faux News as blood laced saliva drips down from their fangs.

Soon, instead of Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban, we will have Hannity and Beck calling for their killer puppets to seek and destroy Alex Jones and his followers. The FEMA camps that were once taboo will now be where everyone gets a job and we will be the product that feels these facilities and keeps the brain dead employed.

Picking the flesh out of their teeth with our dead bones as they drive their hybrid cars to the next FEMA facility. All the while they listen to their climate Gods spewing their new evil religion on AM radio since all the pariots are long gone.

We are all guilty of building our own massive control grids that we now call the our world. Living prisons that we built ourselves in pursuit of the phony American or UK Dream that was sold to us all and we bought, hook , line and sinker. Maybe other patriots realize like me that we have been asleep for over 150 years as us slaves were propagandized into building weapons, prisons and the biggest government that the world has ever seen. The same weapons and camps that will take us all out or imprison us if we step out of line.

The perfect “Predator Class” is waiting to man the FEMA camps and weapons that will kill your constitutional butt the minute you stand up against this tyranny. People who will prey on other people for their gain is now the landscape of where we live. A world where a paycheck will make most kill and become tyrants themselves.

Yes, beware of Big Government, but be very aware of Big UFC loving Johnny next door.

How bout them Cowboys?

Breaking the Population for Psychopaths and Their Psychopathic Dreams of Control of the World

2009-12-13T17:29:00.000-08:00

It's the psychopaths in power and their system that has done this to the population.

Are Americans a Broken People? Why We've Stopped Fighting Back Against the Forces of Oppression
By Bruce E. Levine, AlterNet
December 13, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/144529/

Can people become so broken that truths of how they are being screwed do not "set them free" but instead further demoralize them? Has such a demoralization happened in the United States?

Do some totalitarians actually want us to hear how we have been screwed because they know that humiliating passivity in the face of obvious oppression will demoralize us even further?

What forces have created a demoralized, passive, dis-couraged U.S. population?

Can anything be done to turn this around?

Can people become so broken that truths of how they are being screwed do not "set them free" but instead further demoralize them?

Yes. It is called the "abuse syndrome." How do abusive pimps, spouses, bosses, corporations, and governments stay in control? They shove lies, emotional and physical abuses, and injustices in their victims' faces, and when victims are afraid to exit from these relationships, they get weaker. So the abuser then makes their victims eat even more lies, abuses, and injustices, resulting in victims even weaker as they remain in these relationships.

Does knowing the truth of their abuse set people free when they are deep in these abuse syndromes?

No. For victims of the abuse syndrome, the truth of their passive submission to humiliating oppression is more than embarrassing; it can feel shameful -- and there is nothing more painful than shame. When one already feels beaten down and demoralized, the likely response to the pain of shame is not constructive action, but more attempts to shut down or divert oneself from this pain. It is not likely that the truth of one's humiliating oppression is going to energize one to constructive actions.

Has such a demoralization happened in the U.S.?

In the United States, 47 million people are without health insurance, and many millions more are underinsured or a job layoff away from losing their coverage. But despite the current sellout by their elected officials to the insurance industry, there is no outpouring of millions of U.S. citizens on the streets of Washington, D.C., protesting this betrayal.

Polls show that the majority of Americans oppose U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as the taxpayer bailout of the financial industry, yet only a handful of U.S. citizens have protested these circumstances.

Remember the 2000 U.S. presidential election? That's the one in which Al Gore received 500,000 more votes than George W. Bush. That's also the one that the Florida Supreme Court's order for a recount of the disputed Florida vote was overruled by the U.S. Supreme Court in a politicized 5-4 decision, of which dissenting Justice John Paul Stevens remarked: "Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year's presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the nation's confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law." Yet, even this provoked few demonstrators.

When people become broken, they cannot act on truths of injustice. Furthermore, when people have become broken, more truths about how they have been victimized can lead to shame about how they have allowed it. And shame, like fear, is one more way we become even more psychologically broken.

U.S. citizens do not actively protest obvious injustices for the same reasons that people cannot leave their abusive spouses: They feel helpless to effect change. The more we don't act, the weaker we get. And ultimately to deal with the painful humiliation over inaction in the face of an oppressor, we move to shut-down mode and use escape strategies such as depression, substance abuse, and other diversions, which further keep us from acting. This is the vicious cycle of all abuse syndromes.

Do some totalitarians actually want us to hear how we have been screwed because they know that humiliating passivity in the face of obvious oppression will demoralize us even further?

Maybe.

Shortly before the 2000 U.S. presidential election, millions of Americans saw a clip of George W. Bush joking to a wealthy group of people, "What a crowd tonight: the haves and the haves-more. Some people call you the elite; I call you my base." Yet, even with these kind of inflammatory remarks, the tens of millions of U.S. citizens who had come to despise Bush and his arrogance remained passive in the face of the 2000 non-democratic presidential elections.

Perhaps the "political genius" of the Bush-Cheney regime was in their full realization that Americans were so broken that the regime could get away with damn near anything. And the more people did nothing about the boot slamming on their faces, the weaker people became.

What forces have created a demoralized, passive, dis-couraged U.S. population?

The U.S. government-corporate partnership has used its share of guns and terror to break Native Americans, labor union organizers, and other dissidents and activists. But today, most U.S. citizens are broken by financial fears. There is potential legal debt if we speak out against a powerful authority, and all kinds of other debt if we do not comply on the job. Young people are broken by college-loan debts and fear of having no health insurance.

The U.S. population is increasingly broken by the social isolation created by corporate-governmental policies. A 2006 American Sociological Review study ("Social Isolation in America: Changes in Core Discussion Networks over Two Decades") reported that, in 2004, 25 percent of Americans did not have a single confidant. (In 1985, 10 percent of Americans reported not having a single confidant.) Sociologist Robert Putnam, in his 2000 book, Bowling Alone, describes how social connectedness is disappearing in virtually every aspect of U.S. life. For example, there has been a significant decrease in face-to-face contact with neighbors and friends due to suburbanization, commuting, electronic entertainment, time and money pressures and other variables created by governmental-corporate policies. And union activities and other formal or informal ways that people give each other the support necessary to resist oppression have also decreased.

We are also broken by a corporate-government partnership that has rendered most of us out of control when it comes to the basic necessities of life, including our food supply. And we, like many other people in the world, are broken by socializing institutions that alienate us from our basic humanity. A few examples:

Schools and Universities: Do most schools teach young people to be action-oriented -- or to be passive? Do most schools teach young people that they can affect their surroundings -- or not to bother? Do schools provide examples of democratic institutions -- or examples of authoritarian ones?

A long list of school critics from Henry David Thoreau to John Dewey, John Holt, Paul Goodman, Jonathan Kozol, Alfie Kohn, Ivan Illich, and John Taylor Gatto have pointed out that a school is nothing less than a miniature society: what young people experience in schools is the chief means of creating our future society. Schools are routinely places where kids -- through fear -- learn to comply to authorities for whom they often have no respect, and to regurgitate material they often find meaningless. These are great ways of breaking someone.

Today, U.S. colleges and universities have increasingly become places where young people are merely acquiring degree credentials -- badges of compliance for corporate employers -- in exchange for learning to accept bureaucratic domination and enslaving debt.

Mental Health Institutions: Aldous Huxley predicted today's pharmaceutical societyl "[I]t seems to me perfectly in the cards," he said, "that there will be within the next generation or so a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude."

Today, increasing numbers of people in the U.S. who do not comply with authority are being diagnosed with mental illnesses and medicated with psychiatric drugs that make them less pained about their boredom, resentments, and other negative emotions, thus rendering them more compliant and manageable.

Oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) is an increasingly popular diagnosis for children and teenagers. The official symptoms of ODD include, "often actively defies or refuses to comply with adult requests or rules," and "often argues with adults." An even more common reaction to oppressive authorities than the overt defiance of ODD is some type of passive defiance -- for example, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Studies show that virtually all children diagnosed with ADHD will pay attention to activities that they actually enjoy or that they have chosen. In other words, when ADHD-labeled kids are having a good time and in control, the "disease" goes away.

When human beings feel too terrified and broken to actively protest, they may stage a "passive-aggressive revolution" by simply getting depressed, staying drunk, and not doing anything -- this is one reason why the Soviet empire crumbled. However, the diseasing/medicalizing of rebellion and drug "treatments" have weakened the power of even this passive-aggressive revolution.

Television: In his book Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television (1978), Jerry Mander (after reviewing totalitarian critics such as George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, Jacques Ellul, and Ivan Illich) compiled a list of the "Eight Ideal Conditions for the Flowering of Autocracy."

Mander claimed that television helps create all eight conditions for breaking a population. Television, he explained, (1) occupies people so that they don't know themselves -- and what a human being is; (2) separates people from one another; (3) creates sensory deprivation; (4) occupies the mind and fills the brain with prearranged experience and thought; (5) encourages drug use to dampen dissatisfaction (while TV itself produces a drug-like effect, this was compounded in 1997 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration relaxing the rules of prescription-drug advertising); (6) centralizes knowledge and information; (7) eliminates or "museumize" other cultures to eliminate comparisons; and (8) redefines happiness and the meaning of life.

Commericalism of Damn Near Everything: While spirituality, music, and cinema can be revolutionary forces, the gross commercialization of all of these has deadened their capacity to energize rebellion. So now, damn near everything – not just organized religion -- has become "opiates of the masses."

The primary societal role of U.S. citizens is no longer that of "citizen" but that of "consumer." While citizens know that buying and selling within community strengthens that community and that this strengthens democracy, consumers care only about the best deal. While citizens understand that dependency on an impersonal creditor is a kind of slavery, consumers get excited with credit cards that offer a temporarily low APR.

Consumerism breaks people by devaluing human connectedness, socializing self-absorption, obliterating self-reliance, alienating people from normal human emotional reactions, and by selling the idea that purchased products -- not themselves and their community -- are their salvation.

Can anything be done to turn this around?

When people get caught up in humiliating abuse syndromes, more truths about their oppressive humiliations don't set them free. What sets them free is morale.

What gives people morale? Encouragement. Small victories. Models of courageous behaviors. And anything that helps them break out of the vicious cycle of pain, shut down, immobilization, shame over immobilization, more pain, and more shut down.

The last people I would turn to for help in remobilizing a demoralized population are mental health professionals -- at least those who have not rebelled against their professional socialization. Much of the craft of relighting the pilot light requires talents that mental health professionals simply are not selected for nor are they trained in. Specifically, the talents required are a fearlessness around image, spontaneity, and definitely anti-authoritarianism. But these are not the traits that medical schools or graduate schools select for or encourage.

Mental health professionals' focus on symptoms and feelings often create patients who take themselves and their moods far too seriously. In contrast, people talented in the craft of maintaining morale resist this kind of self-absorption. For example, in the question-and-answer session that followed a Noam Chomsky talk (reported in Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky, 2002), a somewhat demoralized man in the audience asked Chomsky if he too ever went through a phase of hopelessness. Chomsky responded, "Yeah, every evening . . ."

If you want to feel hopeless, there are a lot of things you could feel hopeless about. If you want to sort of work out objectively what's the chance that the human species will survive for another century, probably not very high. But I mean, what's the point? . . . First of all, those predictions don't mean anything -- they're more just a reflection of your mood or your personality than anything else. And if you act on that assumption, then you're guaranteeing that'll happen. If you act on the assumption that things can change, well, maybe they will. Okay, the only rational choice, given those alternatives, is to forget pessimism."

A major component of the craft of maintaining morale is not taking the advertised reality too seriously. In the early 1960s, when the overwhelming majority in the U.S. supported military intervention in Vietnam, Chomsky was one of a minority of U.S. citizens actively opposing it. Looking back at this era, Chomsky reflected, "When I got involved in the anti-Vietnam War movement, it seemed to me impossible that we would ever have any effect. . . So looking back, I think my evaluation of the 'hope' was much too pessimistic: it was based on a complete misunderstanding. I was sort of believing what I read."

An elitist assumption is that people don't change because they are either ignorant of their problems or ignorant of solutions. Elitist "helpers" think they have done something useful by informing overweight people that they are obese and that they must reduce their caloric intake and increase exercise. An elitist who has never been broken by his or her circumstances does not know that people who have become demoralized do not need analyses and pontifications. Rather the immobilized need a shot of morale.

100-year-old N.Y. child molester to be freed

2009-12-13T11:52:00.000-08:00

Snake people never change! They aways remain evil!

http://news.mobile.msn.com/en-us/articles.aspx?afid=1&aid=34368560

100-year-old N.Y. child molester to be freed
The Associated Press
4:45 PM EST December 10, 2009

Theodore Sypnier, 100, is New York's oldest registered sex offender.

Everything that pedophile Theodore Sypnier has to show for his 100 years on Earth is packed in a single duffel bag as he prepares to begin a new chapter in life: freedom.

It's a chapter that prosecutors, judges and others who know him never wanted - or expected - to see written.

New York's oldest registered sex offender is scheduled to move by week's end out of a Buffalo halfway house for released inmates and into a place of his own, after completing his latest term in state prison for molesting little girls.

The judge who sentenced him said at the time that she expected him to die behind bars.

'Unrepentant heart'
But 10 years after his last arrest, as Sypnier prepared to shed the closely monitored lifestyle of the halfway house, its director warned that the spry and active Sypnier has not changed from the manipulator who used his grandfatherly charm to snare and rape victims as young as 4.

"Whether he's 100 or 101 or 105, the same person that was committing these crimes 10, 25, 30 years ago still exists today and has an unrepentant heart," said the Rev. Terry King, director of Grace House, which has twice taken Sypnier in from prison. "He is someone that we as parents, as members of the community, any community, really need to fear."

Six months after marking his 100th birthday in the Groveland Correctional Facility - becoming the first New York inmate to reach the milestone while incarcerated - the retired telephone company worker now says he wants to get to know the youngest members of a family that has disowned him.

"I'll tell them I never harmed any children," the father, grandfather and great-grandfather told his hometown newspaper, The Buffalo News.

A former daughter-in-law said he is not likely to get the chance.

"No one from the family plans to have any contact with him," Diane Sypnier said before ending a brief phone interview.

Kids called him 'Grandpa'

Being grandfatherly was how the 5-foot-5, 150-pound Sypnier found his victims, authorities say. After his most recent arrest at age 90 on charges of raping and sodomizing a 4-year-old girl and her 7-year-old sister, his neighbors in the suburb of Tonawanda recalled what appeared to be a kindly Sypnier offering rides to adults, handing out money to children so they could buy candy, and baby-sitting.

The victimized sisters called him "Grandpa," their mother said at the time, adding that it "was a total shock" when police showed her sexually explicit pictures of her girls found in Sypnier's apartment.

Sypnier's convictions date to 1987, when he was given three years' probation for sex abuse. He spent a year in prison for sexually abusing a minor in 1994. His neighbors in Tonawanda never knew of Sypnier's background because he was convicted before the adoption of laws requiring sex offenders to register with police.

A relative once came forward and said Sypnier had molested her while she was growing up, former Erie County prosecutor Frank Clark told the News. Authorities wonder what else might lie in Sypnier's past.

"People don't start to become pedophiles at 78," Erie County District Attorney Frank Sedita told the AP. "I call them vampires. ... This is something that's deep inside of them, and they won't want to stop doing this until they're dead."

'Scary proposition'
But Sypnier says he is the victim of a miscarriage of justice, despite twice pleading guilty in the case involving the sisters.

"Those children crawled into bed with me because they were frightened, but there was never any sexual hanky-panky," Sypnier told the News.

Sypnier initially pleaded guilty in 2000 to two counts of rape, 15 counts of sodomy and endangering the welfare of a child for molesting the Tonawanda girls, as well as three in Buffalo. An appeals court threw out the conviction in 2002 after Sypnier claimed he was confused at the time, leading to another plea the following year to a lesser charge.

In sentencing Sypnier to as many as 10 years in prison, state Supreme Court Justice Penny Wolfgang told him she expected he would spend the rest of his life behind bars.

"The sheer notion of him wandering the streets unattended or unsupervised is a scary proposition," King said.

Sypnier was released on parole in 2007, only to be returned to prison in 2008 after failing to attend sex-offender counseling. He completed his term in November and will be on parole through 2012. Until then, he's forbidden from using e-mail, chat rooms or social networking sites, hanging around playgrounds or schools, or spending time in bars.

Instead, he spends his days watching television, cooking, socializing in the halfway house and attending programming, King said.

Sypnier's new address has not been disclosed, but the law requires him to enter it in the state's sex offender registry.

Although his age makes him New York's oldest registered sex offender, there is at least one older offender elsewhere. Bert Jackson of Utah is 103 and living under home confinement.

New Jersey woman admits rape lie that sent man to prison

2009-12-10T09:58:00.000-08:00

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/198613-New-Jersey-woman-admits-rape-lie-that-sent-man-to-prison

Associated Press
Tue, 08 Dec 2009 02:47 EST

New York - A New Jersey woman whose false story about a gang rape sent an innocent man to prison has pleaded guilty to perjury.

Biurny Peguero (BEE'-ur-nee pay-GEHR'-oh) told police she was kidnapped and raped at knifepoint in 2005 by three men, including William McCaffrey.

McCaffrey was convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison. He served three years before Peguero admitted this spring she had lied. New tests showed DNA from a bite on her arm wasn't from McCaffrey, and he was released in August.

Peguero pleaded guilty Monday in state Supreme Court in Manhattan. The married mother of two from Union City, N.J., faces a maximum seven years in prison when she's sentenced in February.

She told authorities she lied because her friends weren't sympathetic after her encounter with men who had frightened but not attacked her.

Why do some people want to hurt children?

2009-12-09T16:34:00.001-08:00

Those who want to hurt children are called psychopaths! They are demons in skin who were created by the demon god setan!

http://www.viewzone.com/pedocrime.html

Crimes Against Children
Why do some people want to hurt children?
By Dan Eden for viewzone.com

WARNING
This article deals with child predators and pornography. Although the examples shown in this article are legal, they may be offensive to some viewers. We show them only to make a point of the type of content currently allowed on the internet. Thanks for understanding our motives.

In late March of 2009 a beautiful little 8 year old girl was missing from her home in Tracy, California. Reports stated that she left her home to play at a friends home, then was returning home -- but never arrived. Surveillance cameras at the trailer park where she lived showed the petite child skipping happily in front of her home just hours before she apparently vanished.

In the age of television, little Sandra Cantu was featured nightly on Headline News (CNN) with an assortment of family photos and videos. America watched as her distraught mother begged for her return as speculation mounted that she had likely been abducted.

Interviews with police and FBI agents revealed that, if an abducted child is not found within the first several hours after being reported missing, the child is almost always found dead.

True to the profiles of abduction, little Sandra's body was found in a suitcase, thrown in to a nearby farm aquaduct, on April 6th. Autopsy reports indicated that she had been "raped" with a foreign object. Eventually, to everyone's surprise, the alleged perpetrator was not a man but a 28 year old woman -- a Sunday school teacher -- who lived just doors away from Sandra's home. The murder was a shock to everyone but it reminded me that we need to know more about the kind of person or persons that can commit such an act of pure evil.

Who could do this?

Criminal profilers tell us that the people who harm and kill children are suffering from what psychologists call pedophilia. The primary motive of these attackers is sexual and the subsequent murder usually results from fear of being "revealed" by the victim. One might think that the attacker would know that molesting or raping a child will result in severe criminal penalties before they commit the crime, but often the attackers claim that murder was an "after-thought" which they did not initially intend to do. Psychologists explain that the sexual urges of pedophiles are so strong that the consequences of their actions are not thought out until their urges are gratified -- when it is unfortunately too late. So this brings us to ask, what is a pedophile?

According to wikipedia:

The term pedophilia or paedophilia has a range of definitions as found in psychology, law enforcement, and the vernacular. As a medical diagnosis, it is defined as a psychological disorder in which an adult experiences a sexual preference for prepubescent children. According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), pedophilia is specified as a form of paraphilia in which a person either has acted on intense sexual urges towards children, or experiences recurrent sexual urges towards and fantasies about children that cause distress or interpersonal difficulty. The disorder is frequently a feature of persons who commit child sexual abuse; however, some offenders do not meet the clinical diagnosis standards for pedophilia. In strictly behavioral contexts, the word "pedophilia" has been used to refer to child sexual abuse itself, also called "pedophilic behavior".

What makes a person a pedophile?

Most human adults have a psychological preference for the opposite sex of child-bearing age. This would appear to be "hard wired" in the brain for the continuation of the species. Any deviation from this norm is viewed as "unnatural," since sexual intercourse between a man and pre-pubescent child results in no offspring.

Most psychologists had, until the last decade, traditionally grouped homosexuality with pedophilia as a form of pathology. Both are still considered "evil" by many church goers and moralist and who believe these sexual orientations to be matters of "choice." Why anyone would choose to become a homosexual, with all of the social condemnation, has always been a mystery and this concept has recently been seriously challenged.

With regards to homosexuality, it has been proven that brains have gender. As many scientists suspected, homosexuals appear to have aquired specific parts of their brain -- specifically the hypothalamus -- with traits of the opposite sex. In simple terms, male homosexuals can have a male body, but the part of their brains responsible for sexual preference is female. The opposite appears true for lesbians.

In the case of homosexuality, the abnormality seems linked to maternal stress during the first trimester of pregnancy. Stress produces androstendione in the shared placental blood of the mother and child. Androstendione strongly resembles testosterone and interferes with the early development of the hypothalamus and causes this part of the brain to develop characteristics of the opposite sex responsible for sexual preference.

So it's not a choice.

I wrote about this a few years ago and I was tempted to describe this as a "birth defect." I received hundreds of e-mails from homosexual men and women who resented this lable. I understand this and so I have been resigned call it "natural." But what can one say about pedophilia?

What causes pedophilia?

In a Dutch book about treatment, written by Bernard ten Hag, a psychologist, he argues that pedophilia is a matter of choice:

"Pedophilia: A word that better may replaced by pedosexuality, because what offenders do with children is contrary to what most people understand as love. Pedophilia is not on the same level as homophilia or heterophilia, because pedophilia is not a preference but a choice." (Hag 2004)
Is pedophilia a choice?

There is remarkably little that is known about this condition. Most of what psychologists know is based on statistics and family histories obtained during therapy of criminal offenders. While this is helpful, it really only profiles those who act on their impulses and does not describe covert pedophiles who harbor these feelings but never allow them to be expressed -- except in fantasies.

Here's what we know:

Having a powerful or controlling mother has been shown to be a dominant factor. In theory, the male pedophile develops an aversion to adult women and their percieved power and focuses on younger, more passive females as the object of sexual preference. Some regard pedophilia as the result of a distorted need to dominate a sexual partner. Since children are smaller and usually weaker than adults, they may be regarded as nonthreatening potential partners. This drive for domination is sometimes thought to explain why most pedophiles are males. In one blog, a convicted child sex offender wrote:

"From my experience of being mothered - I hate mothers. Even now typing the word on my keypad makes me feel like wretching. But I know that my experience is not the same as everyone else, I cannot generalise form my particular experience."
Next up is a history of sexual abuse as a child. Statistically, one third of pedophiles say that they were abused growing up (Cloud, April 2002). Some researchers attribute pedophilia to arrested emotional development from the trauma of abuse; that is, the pedophile is attracted to children because he or she has never matured psychologically.

The most frequently assessed neuropsychological characteristic has been general intelligence or IQ. Some investigators have compared sex offenders against children with noncriminal community control groups, finding the sex offenders to score lower in intelligence (Langevin et al., 1985). Other investigators have compared sex offenders against children with men convicted of nonsexual crimes, thus controlling for their status in the legal system and any antisociality. The offenders against children again scored lower (Hambridge, 1994)

Most experts regard pedophilia as resulting from psychosocial factors rather than biological characteristics. But this assumption has some flaws.

Pedophilia is one of the more common sexual pathologies; the large worldwide market for child pornography suggests that it is more frequent in the general population than prison statistics would indicate. Together with voyeurism and exhibitionism, pedophilia is one of the three pathologies most commonly leading to arrest by the police.

The onset of pedophilia usually occurs during adolescence. Occasional pedophiles begin their activities during middle age but this late onset is uncommon. In the United States, about 50% of men arrested for pedophilia are married.

The frequency of behavior associated with pedophilia varies with psychosocial stress. As the pedophile's stress levels increase, the frequency of his or her acting out generally rises also.

Pedophilia is more common among males than among females (about 10%). In addition, the rate of recidivism for persons with a pedophilic preference for males is approximately twice that of pedophiles who prefer females.

Little is known about the incidence of pedophilia in different racial or ethnic groups.

Despite all the efforts to treat pedophilia, the brain mechanisms that cause this disorder still remains a mystery. A new study published in Biological Psychiatry demonstrated how pedophilic patients responded to functional brain imaging.

During the test, the screening showed that brain area hypothalamus responsible for regulating of sexual arousal and hormone release was reduced in pedophilic patients. The activation of this brain region in individuals who are not pedophilic would normally be heightened when they look at sexually arousing pictures of adults.It means that pedophilic patients have little response in pleasure areas of the brain when they view sexually arousing pictures of adults, thus it may predispose them to change their sexual interest. John H. Krystal, M.D., Editor of Biological Psychiatry says that understanding the neurobiological peculiarities of this disorder should be taken into account to find a treatment.

Canadian researchers discovered that men with a primary sexual attraction to children have a much higher likelihood of being left handed than the general population. This research suggests that there is a neurological component to pedophilia, since left-handedness appears to be biologic. Some scientists speculate that it might be a case of right-hemisphere dominance more than a particular region, such as the hypothalamus, that provides a predisposition to pedophilia.

Right-hemisphere dominance might also be the result of faulty connections in the brain. If the brain can not integrate input from both hemispheres, as a normal brain does, perhaps this problem with connectivity allows one hemisphere to dominate control of the mind. According to new research released by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), a study utilizing MRIs and a sophisticated computer analysis technique compared a group of pedophiles with a group of non-sexual criminals. The pedophiles had significantly less of a substance called "white matter" which is responsible for wiring the different parts of the brain together.

In my previous article of left-right brain activity I showed the unique characteristics of each human brain's left and right hemisphere. I will list these again here.

One interesting theory suggests that right-brained individuals are more child-like and so tend to be adolescent or even pre-adolescent in their thinking. While these traits are considered positive in creative writing, the arts and tasks involving fantasy, they might also lead one to have an affinity for children who utilize these same traits. It has also been suggested that being left-handed creates stress and trauma at an early age -- living in a world of right-handed people -- and that this can also contribute to the previously described "arrested emotional development."

How common is pedophilia?

Pedophilia is running rampant, not only in the US but all over the world. Children are being sexually exploited by a pedophile at the rate of 1 out of 6 boys before the age of 16 and 1 out of 3 girls before the age of 18 (1 out of 4 before the age of 14). As a result, some psychologists are attempting to describe pedophilia as a valid sexual orientation.

Dr. Fred S. Berlin asserts that, "It is likely that no one would choose voluntarily to develop a pedophilic sexual orientation. Those with such an orientation have no more decided to have it than have any of us decided as children to be either heterosexual or homosexual." Berlin also defends the classification of pedophilia as a mental disorder, stating, "In our society, to have a pedophilic sexual orientation can create both psychological burdens and impairments."

Richard Green was involved in the removal of homosexuality from the DSM list of mental disorders and is now actively trying to have pedophilia removed as well (Gieles, 2002). Green believes that pedophilic feelings are normal.

One quarter of "normal" people are said to feel attracted towards children and more than twenty five percent react with penile erection to pedophilic stimuli. Green also states that one can not reasonably argue that one quarter of the population is mentally ill (Gieles, 2002). Considering these statistics it seems sensical to conclude that pedophilia is not a mental disorder. However, the one quarter of the population that react to pedophilic stimuli do not necessarily act on their urges.

Child pornography

The huge amount of child pornography on the internet speaks volumes about the popularity and frequency of pedophilia. Although so-called hard core pronography is aggressively combatted by the governments and police of most countries, a suprisingly large amount of "soft pronography" (non-nude) remains accessible to the public and claims to be protected under the articles of free speech.

While I am not stupid enough to download any "hard core" pornography depicting children, I did use a simple google search (try "preteen" and "models") to locate sites such as the one pictured below.

This site, depicting girls as young as 5 or 6 in their underpants, in supposedly erotic poses, was just one of hundreds -- perhaps thousands -- of web sites in which parents apparently sell images of their scantily clad children to anyone with a MasterCard or PayPal account.

A button named "links" brought me the page below. Once again a reminder, this material is declared "legal"! The site contains the following "legal notice":

Site contains works of Art that demonstrate admiration and appreciation of beauty and style. All content submitted on this site was prepared and belongs to Model Agency. Given material - images of outstanding models dressed in fashionable and exclusive clothing - was produced in compliance with norms of Law and Morality.

If you come across any web sites like this I suggest that you write down the URL -- the web site address (beginning with "www...") and use one of the following links to report this. Remember, these people believe this is "legal" and claim these are "modeling" web sites. By complaining you will help to shut them down and stop feeding these desires:

www.usdoj.gov/criminal/ceos/childporn.html
www.antichildporn.org

Elsewhere, I noticed an article in alternet.org recently which described the "in vogue" phenomenon where adult women are now pandering to the desires of men by having their pubic hair removed (the so-called "Brazillian" look) and their vaginal labia surgically reduced to resemble pre-pubescent girls. Apparently the whole world is harboring pedophilic fantasies!

Remember when girls worried about having hairy underarms? It looks like those girls might be part of a bigger trend. The New York Times reports on Nair's new endeavor: Marketing a new product line to 10- to 15-year-olds.
Intended for middle-schoolers, Nair Pretty is a chemical hair remover that comes in kiwi and peach scents. The packaging features illustrations of teenage girls, and along those lines, the print advertisements target the girls directly. "I am a citizen of the world," they read. "I am a dreamer. I am fresh. I am so not going to have stubs sticking out of my legs." (Heaven forbid a 10-year-old girl might have hair on her legs.)

Australians pushing "Brazilians" on Pre-teen!

Things are getting kinda hairy Down Under. Parents are extremely ticked off because a website is promoting Brazilian waxes -- for preteen girls. Girl.com.au, whose slogan is "Girl Power -- Empowering Girls Worldwide," is a girl-centric website that usually covers things like Nancy Drew online games and PG movies. But along with this kid-friendly fare, there's a primer on Brazilian waxing that includes this gem:

"Nobody really likes hair in their private regions and it has a childlike appeal. Men love it, and are eternally curious about it."
The article also tells girls what to expect during a wax, claiming that the procedure is "surprisingly not as painful as you might think."

So why do some pedophiles hurt children?

After all, this is the reason for writing this article. But the answer is still illusive for me. I can only be reminded of something I read years ago when studying the great philosopher, Plotinus. Though he was not describing pedophilia, he made an observation of evil that seems to make sense.

The soul forgets its value and learns to dispise itself. The one consists in showing her the low value of all the things she [the soul] at present esteems. The other consists in instructing and reminding her of her nature and worth. The second argument preceeds the first and once it has been made clear will support the first." -- Enneads VI -- Chain of Realities, Book 2 Plotinus.
In other words, the pedophile has to repress the strong desire to fantasize about children as a valid sexual object. This desire can never be socially accepted and so continues to cause psychological (and perhaps even spiritual) conflicts that are resolved by diminishing the value of the desired object -- in this case the child -- allowing the opposite feelings to be expressed. Love turns to hate. Gentle affection turns to violence. The internal war of morality and ideology becomes expressed as action.

Indeed, as was the case of Sandra's murderer, subsequent acts often allow the perpetrator to be caught, as if they wanted to finally rid themselves of the guilt.

The more our culture sexualizes children with things like Barbie and Bratz dolls, inappropriate "lolita" web sites, fashions hyping sexuality, and allows such things as "sexting" (sending pornographic images of teens and pre-teens over cell phones) the more we feed this apparently innate sexual fantasy of children in a large chunk of the human population. We set a double standard. While the fantasy of children as sexual objects is being encouraged and the expression of the resulting desires is simultaneously being repressed we may unfortunately expect to see more cases such as little Sandra Cantu in the news.

What do you think about this?

*See Biol Psychiatry. 2007 Sep 15;62(6):698-701. Epub 2007 Apr 2. Pedophilia is linked to reduced activation in hypothalamus and lateral prefrontal cortex during visual erotic stimulation.

Orthodox Jewish Community Struggles With Abuse Allegations
Alleged Victims and Advocates Say Sex Abuse Common, Rarely Discussed

By SCOTT MICHELS

May 5, 2009

When Joel Engelman was 8 years old, he says, he was called from his Hebrew class to the principal's office at his Brooklyn yeshiva, a Jewish religious school. His parents had recently told Rabbi Avrohom Reichman that their son had been abused by an older boy at the school, he says.

Joel Engelman, pictured as a child, and Tamir Weissberg said they were victims of sexual abuse by members of the Orthodox Jewish community. They said they were told not to discuss the alleged abuse. (Courtesy Joel Engelman and Tamir Weissberg)But he says the rabbi was not offering to help that day.

When Engelman arrived at the principal's office, he says, Reichman told him to close the door. He told the boy to sit on his lap and began swiveling his chair back and forth, Engelman says. Reichman then touched him, moving from his shoulders down, Engelman claims.

The same kind of abuse went on twice a week for several months before he left the school, Engelman claims in a civil lawsuit filed against the yeshiva, the United Talmudical Academy.

For more than 10 years, Engelman, now 23, kept what he says happened to himself. He left the orthodox community and found new friends. It wasn't until about two years ago, when he says he heard that other boys allegedly had been abused by Reichman, that he tried to do something about it.

But Engelman says the response from religious leaders has been just as disturbing as the alleged abuse. He claims the school's religious leaders told him not to go to the police, and promised to remove Reichman from the school, which they did for a few months.

"They kept telling me, 'Don't go to the police, don't do anything. We've dealt with this before,'" with other teachers, he said. "It really shocked me."

A few days after the statute of limitations for Engelman to file a civil or criminal case against Reichman for abuse passed, the school reinstated the rabbi, the lawsuit claims.

Engelman's is among a handful of publicized cases of alleged abuse within the insular Orthodox Jewish community. But alleged victims and their advocates say it is far from an isolated instance.

The Brooklyn district attorney's office, which last month announced a hotline for alleged Orthodox sex abuse victims, says it has 19 active cases of alleged sex abuse in the borough's Orthodox Jewish community. And advocates say the problem extends beyond Brooklyn.

"If you're a pedophile, just go to one of the orthodox communities. You're probably safest there," said New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind, himself an Orthodox Jew. "It's sad for me to say that, but it's true."

Are power and compassion mutually exclusive?

2009-11-26T14:13:00.000-08:00

http://esciencenews.com/articles/2008/12/17/are.power.and.compassion.mutually.exclusive

Are power and compassion mutually exclusive?
e!Science News
Wed, 17 Dec 2008 09:23 CST

The fact that many cultures emphasize the concept of "noblesse oblige" (the idea that with great power and prestige come responsibilities) suggests that power may diminish a tendency to help others. Psychologist Gerben A. van Kleef (University of Amsterdam) and his colleagues from University of California, Berkeley, examined how power influences emotional reactions to the suffering of others. A group of undergraduates completed questionnaires about their personal sense of power, which identified them to the researchers as either being high-power or low-power. The students were then randomly paired up and had to tell their partner about an event which had caused them emotional suffering and pain. Their partners then rated their emotions after hearing the story. In addition, the researchers were interested in seeing if there were physical differences in the way high-power people and low-power people responded to others' suffering; specifically they wanted to test if high-powered individuals would exhibit greater autonomic emotion regulation [or respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) reactivity]. When we are faced with psychological stress, our RSA reactivity increases, resulting in a lower heart rate and a calmed, relaxed feeling. To measure RSA reactivity and heart rates, all of the participants were connected to electrocardiogram (ECG) machines during the experiment.

The results, reported in the December issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, reveal that individuals with a higher sense of power experienced less compassion and distress when confronted with another's suffering, compared to low-power individuals. In addition, high-power individuals' RSA reactivity increased (as indicated by lower heart rate) as they listened to the painful stories; that is, high power participants showed more autonomic emotion regulation, which buffered against their partner's distress.

Analysis of the participants' final surveys (where they rated their thoughts about their partners) revealed that high-power individuals reported a weaker desire to get to know and establish a friendship with their partner. In other words, powerful people were not motivated to establish a relationship with distressed individuals. This idea is supported by the fact that the distressed participants reported less of a social connection with high-power partners compared to low-power partners. The authors suggest that powerful people's tendency to show less compassion and distress towards others reinforces their social power.

These results do not just apply to how powerful people react to strangers; the authors note that this study "suggests that high-power individuals may suffer in interpersonal relationships because of their diminished capacity for compassion and empathy. The many benefits enjoyed by people with power may not translate to the interpersonal realm."

How to Tell When Someone is Lying

2009-11-24T16:37:00.000-08:00

http://socyberty.com/people/how-to-tell-when-someone-is-lying/

How to Tell When Someone is Lying
by Marcus Edward John Cross
August 19, 2008

Find out how to spot the tell-tale signs that a person isn’t telling you the truth.

When a person lies, they unconsciously do certain things which they would not do if they were being sincere. Here is a comprehensive list of the signs to look out for that the person you are talking to is lying.

Body Language & Facial Expressions

If a person is telling the truth, when they smile it will involve the whole face, including the eyes. If a person is lying, when they smile it will only involve the mouth. Look at the eyes; they are always a give-away.

A liar’s physical expression will appear stiff and limited, with a lack hand and arm actions. Any limb movements will tend to be near their own body, so that they take up less space.

Touching the throat, ear, nose, mouth, and also the face in general, are all signs of lying

A liar will tend to avoid eye contact

Contradiction & Emotional Gestures

Delay between verbal expressions and facial expressions. For example, if person receives a gift they didn’t really want, they will say “I love it!” but there will be a pause before they smile.

Verbal statements and gesture/expressions don’t match. For example, if someone says “I love you” whilst frowning.

Reactions & Interactions

If challenged, a guilty person will become defensive, whereas an innocent person will usually become offensive.

Someone who is lying will find it difficult to face their accuser, so may turn away

They may unconsciously place objects between themselves and you (e.g. tea cup, book, etc.).

Using the same words as you to answer your question, for example, if asked, “Did you steal my pen?” they will respond with, “No, I did not steal your pen.”.

Statements which contain contractions are more likely to be truthful, for example, “I didn’t do it” as opposed to “I did not do it”

A liar may imply things rather than make direct statements

They may over-explain themselves, giving too many reasons and adding too many unnecessary details to try to convince you

They may leave out pronouns and speak in a more monotonous tone of voice

Sentences may be confused, garbled and spoken quietly, with poor grammar and syntax

Other Signs of Lying:

If you suspect someone is being untruthful, then alter topic of a discussion swiftly. A liar will follow along gladly and become more relaxed. A guilty person will want the subject to be changed, whereas an innocent person may become confused by the change of topic.

Avoidance of the subject by means of humour or sarcasm

Profile of the Sociopath

2009-11-24T16:29:00.000-08:00

http://www.mcafee.cc/Bin/sb.html

Profile of the Sociopath

This website summarizes some of the common features of descriptions of the behavior of sociopaths.

Glibness and Superficial Charm

Manipulative and Conning
They never recognize the rights of others and see their self-serving behaviors as permissible. They appear to be charming, yet are covertly hostile and domineering, seeing their victim as merely an instrument to be used. They may dominate and humiliate their victims.

Grandiose Sense of Self
Feels entitled to certain things as "their right."

Pathological Lying
Has no problem lying coolly and easily and it is almost impossible for them to be truthful on a consistent basis. Can create, and get caught up in, a complex belief about their own powers and abilities. Extremely convincing and even able to pass lie detector tests.

Lack of Remorse, Shame or Guilt
A deep seated rage, which is split off and repressed, is at their core. Does not see others around them as people, but only as targets and opportunities. Instead of friends, they have victims and accomplices who end up as victims. The end always justifies the means and they let nothing stand in their way.

Shallow Emotions
When they show what seems to be warmth, joy, love and compassion it is more feigned than experienced and serves an ulterior motive. Outraged by insignificant matters, yet remaining unmoved and cold by what would upset a normal person. Since they are not genuine, neither are their promises.

Incapacity for Love

Need for Stimulation
Living on the edge. Verbal outbursts and physical punishments are normal. Promiscuity and gambling are common.

Callousness/Lack of Empathy
Unable to empathize with the pain of their victims, having only contempt for others' feelings of distress and readily taking advantage of them.

Poor Behavioral Controls/Impulsive Nature
Rage and abuse, alternating with small expressions of love and approval produce an addictive cycle for abuser and abused, as well as creating hopelessness in the victim. Believe they are all-powerful, all-knowing, entitled to every wish, no sense of personal boundaries, no concern for their impact on others.

Early Behavior Problems/Juvenile Delinquency
Usually has a history of behavioral and academic difficulties, yet "gets by" by conning others. Problems in making and keeping friends; aberrant behaviors such as cruelty to people or animals, stealing, etc.

Irresponsibility/Unreliability
Not concerned about wrecking others' lives and dreams. Oblivious or indifferent to the devastation they cause. Does not accept blame themselves, but blames others, even for acts they obviously committed.

Promiscuous Sexual Behavior/Infidelity
Promiscuity, child sexual abuse, rape and sexual acting out of all sorts.

Lack of Realistic Life Plan/Parasitic Lifestyle
Tends to move around a lot or makes all encompassing promises for the future, poor work ethic but exploits others effectively.

Criminal or Entrepreneurial Versatility
Changes their image as needed to avoid prosecution. Changes life story readily.
Other Related Qualities:

Contemptuous of those who seek to understand them
Does not perceive that anything is wrong with them
Authoritarian
Secretive
Paranoid
Only rarely in difficulty with the law, but seeks out situations where their tyrannical behavior will be tolerated, condoned, or admired
Conventional appearance
Goal of enslavement of their victim(s)
Exercises despotic control over every aspect of the victim's life
Has an emotional need to justify their crimes and therefore needs their victim's affirmation (respect, gratitude and love)
Ultimate goal is the creation of a willing victim
Incapable of real human attachment to another
Unable to feel remorse or guilt
Extreme narcissism and grandiose
May state readily that their goal is to rule the world

(The above traits are based on the psychopathy checklists of H. Cleckley and R. Hare.)

NOTE: In the 1830's this disorder was called "moral insanity." By 1900 it was changed to "psychopathic personality." More recently it has been termed "antisocial personality disorder" in the DSM-III and DSM-IV. Some critics have complained that, in the attempt to rely only on 'objective' criteria, the DSM has broadened the concept to include too many individuals. The APD category includes people who commit illegal, immoral or self-serving acts for a variety of reasons and are not necessarily psychopaths.

DSM-IV Definition

Antisocial personality disorder is characterized by a lack of regard for the moral or legal standards in the local culture. There is a marked inability to get along with others or abide by societal rules. Individuals with this disorder are sometimes called psychopaths or sociopaths.

Diagnostic Criteria (DSM-IV)

1. Since the age of fifteen there has been a disregard for and violation of the right's of others, those right's considered normal by the local culture, as indicated by at least three of the following:
A. Repeated acts that could lead to arrest.
B. Conning for pleasure or profit, repeated lying, or the use of aliases.
C. Failure to plan ahead or being impulsive.
D. Repeated assaults on others.
E. Reckless when it comes to their or others safety.
F. Poor work behavior or failure to honor financial obligations.
G. Rationalizing the pain they inflict on others.

2. At least eighteen years in age.

3. Evidence of a Conduct Disorder, with its onset before the age of fifteen.

4. Symptoms not due to another mental disorder.

Antisocial Personality Disorder Overview (Written by Derek Wood, RN, BSN, PhD Candidate)

Antisocial Personality Disorder results in what is commonly known as a Sociopath. The criteria for this disorder require an ongoing disregard for the rights of others, since the age of 15 years. Some examples of this disregard are reckless disregard for the safety of themselves or others, failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors, deceitfulness such as repeated lying or deceit for personal profit or pleasure, and lack of remorse for actions that hurt other people in any way. Additionally, they must have evidenced a Conduct Disorder before the age of 15 years, and must be at least 18 years old to receive this diagnosis.

People with this disorder appear to be charming at times, and make relationships, but to them, these are relationships in name only. They are ended whenever necessary or when it suits them, and the relationships are without depth or meaning, including marriages. They seem to have an innate ability to find the weakness in people, and are ready to use these weaknesses to their own ends through deceit, manipulation, or intimidation, and gain pleasure from doing so.

They appear to be incapable of any true emotions, from love to shame to guilt. They are quick to anger, but just as quick to let it go, without holding grudges. No matter what emotion they state they have, it has no bearing on their future actions or attitudes.

They rarely are able to have jobs that last for any length of time, as they become easily bored, instead needing constant change. They live for the moment, forgetting the past, and not planning the future, not thinking ahead what consequences their actions will have. They want immediate rewards and gratification. There currently is no form of psychotherapy that works with those with antisocial personality disorder, as those with this disorder have no desire to change themselves, which is a prerequisite. No medication is available either. The only treatment is the prevention of the disorder in the early stages, when a child first begins to show the symptoms of conduct disorder.

THE PSYCHOPATH NEXT DOOR (Source: http://chericola57.tripod.com/infinite.html)

Psychopath. We hear the word and images of Bernardo, Manson and Dahmer pop into our heads; no doubt Ted Bundy too. But they're the bottom of the barrel -- most of the two million psychopaths in North America aren't murderers. They're our friends, lovers and co-workers. They're outgoing and persuasive, dazzling you with charm and flattery. Often you aren't even aware they've taken you for a ride -- until it's too late.

Psychopaths exhibit a Jekyll and Hyde personality. "They play a part so they can get what they want," says Dr. Sheila Willson, a Toronto psychologist who has helped victims of psychopaths. The guy who showers a woman with excessive attention is much more capable of getting her to lend him money, and to put up with him when he strays. The new employee who gains her co-workers' trust has more access to their chequebooks. And so on. Psychopaths have no conscience and their only goal is self-gratification. Many of us have been their victims -- at work, through friendships or relationships -- and not one of us can say, "a psychopath could never fool me."

Think you can spot one? Think again. In general, psychopaths aren't the product of broken homes or the casualties of a materialistic society. Rather they come from all walks of life and there is little evidence that their upbringing affects them. Elements of a psychopath's personality first become evident at a very early age, due to biological or genetic factors. Explains Michael Seto, a psychologist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental health in Toronto, by the time that a person hits their late teens, the disorder is almost certainly permanent. Although many clinicians use the terms psychopath and sociopath interchangeably, writes psychopath expert Robert Hare on his book 'Without Conscience', a sociopath's criminal behavior is shaped by social forces and is the result of a dysfunctional environment.

Psychopaths have only a shallow range of emotions and lack guilt, says Hare. They often see themselves as victims, and lack remorse or the ability to empathize with others. "Psychopaths play on the fact that most of us are trusting and forgiving people," adds Seto. The warning signs are always there; it's just difficult to see them because once we trust someone, the friendship becomes a blinder.

Even lovers get taken for a ride by psychopaths. For a psychopath, a romantic relationship is just another opportunity to find a trusting partner who will buy into the lies. It's primarily why a psychopath rarely stays in a relationship for the long term, and often is involved with three or four partners at once, says Willson. To a psychopath, everything about a relationship is a game. Willson refers to the movie 'Sliding Doors' to illustrate her point. In the film, the main character comes home early after just having been fired from her job. Only moments ago, her boyfriend has let another woman out the front door. But in a matter of minutes he is the attentive and concerned boyfriend, taking her out to dinner and devoting the entire night to comforting her. All the while he's planning to leave the next day on a trip with the other woman.

The boyfriend displays typical psychopathic characteristics because he falsely displays deep emotion toward the relationship, says Willson. In reality, he's less concerned with his girlfriend's depression than with making sure she's clueless about the other woman's existence. In the romance department, psychopaths have an ability to gain your affection quickly, disarming you with words, intriguing you with grandiose plans. If they cheat you'll forgive them, and one day when they've gone too far, they'll leave you with a broken heart (and an empty wallet). By then they'll have a new player for their game.

The problem with their game is that we don't often play by their rules. Where we might occasionally tell a white lie, a psychopath's lying is compulsive. Most of us experience some degree of guilt about lying, preventing us from exhibiting such behavior on a regular basis. "Psychopaths don't discriminate who it is they lie to or cheat," says Seto. "There's no distinction between friend, family and sucker."

No one wants to be the sucker, so how do we prevent ourselves from becoming close friends or getting into a relationship with a psychopath? It's really almost impossible, say Seto and Willson. Unfortunately, laments Seto, one way is to become more suspicious and less trusting of others. Our tendency is to forgive when we catch a loved one in a lie. "Psychopaths play on this fact," he says. "However, I'm certainly not advocating a world where if someone lies once or twice, you never speak to them again." What you can do is look at how often someone lies and how they react when caught. Psychopaths will lie over and over again, and where other people would sincerely apologize, a psychopath may apologize but won't stop.

Psychopaths also tend to switch jobs as frequently as they switch partners, mainly because they don't have the qualities to maintain a job for the long haul. Their performance is generally erratic, with chronic absences, misuse of company resources and failed commitments. Often they aren't even qualified for the job and use fake credentials to get it. Seto talks of a patient who would get marketing jobs based on his image; he was a presentable and charming man who layered his conversations with educational and occupational references. But it became evident that the man hadn't a clue what he was talking about, and was unable to hold down a job.

How do you make sure you don't get fooled when you're hiring someone to baby-sit your child or for any other job? Hire based on reputation and not image, says Willson. Check references thoroughly. Psychopaths tend to give vague and inconsistent replies. Of course the best way to solve this problem would be to cure psychopaths of their 'illness.' But there's no recipe for treating them, say psychiatrists. Today's traditional methods of psychotherapy (psychoanalysis, group and one-on-one therapy) and drug treatments have failed. Therapy is more likely to work when an individual admits there's a problem and wants to change. The common problem with psychopaths, says Sets, "Is they don't see a problem with their behavior."

Psychopaths don't seek therapy willingly, says Seto. Rather, they're pushed into it by a desperate relative or by a court order. To a psychopath, a therapist is just one more person who must be conned, and the psychopath plays the part right until the therapist is convinced of his or her 'rehabilitation.'

Even though we can't treat psychopaths effectively with therapy, it doesn't mean we can't protect ourselves, writes Hare. Willson agrees, citing the most important factor in keeping psychopaths at bay is to know your vulnerabilities. We need to "realize our own potential and maximize our strengths" so that our insecurities don't overcome us. Because, she says, a psychopath is a chameleon who becomes "an image of what you haven't done for yourself." Over time, she says, "their appearance of perfection will begin to crack," but by that time you will have been emotionally and perhaps financially scathed. There comes a time when you realize there's no point in searching for answers; the only thing is to move on.

Taken in part from MW -- By Caroline Konrad -- September 1999

THE MALIGNANT PERSONALITY:

These people are mentally ill and extremely dangerous! The following precautions will help to protect you from the destructive acts of which they are capable.

First, to recognize them, keep the following guidelines in mind.

(1) They are habitual liars. They seem incapable of either knowing or telling the truth about anything.

(2) They are egotistical to the point of narcissism. They really believe they are set apart from the rest of humanity by some special grace.

(3) They scapegoat; they are incapable of either having the insight or willingness to accept responsibility for anything they do. Whatever the problem, it is always someone else's fault.

(4) They are remorselessly vindictive when thwarted or exposed.

(5) Genuine religious, moral, or other values play no part in their lives. They have no empathy for others and are capable of violence. Under older psychological terminology, they fall into the category of psychopath or sociopath, but unlike the typical psychopath, their behavior is masked by a superficial social facade.

If you have come into conflict with such a person or persons, do the following immediately!

(1) Notify your friends and relatives of what has happened.

Do not be vague. Name names, and specify dates and circumstances. Identify witnesses if possible and provide supporting documentation if any is available.

(2) Inform the police. The police will do nothing with this information except to keep it on file, since they are powerless to act until a crime has been committed. Unfortunately, that often is usually too late for the victim. Nevertheless, place the information in their hands.

Obviously, if you are assaulted or threatened before witnesses, you can get a restraining order, but those are palliative at best.

(3) Local law enforcement agencies are usually under pressure if wealthy or politically powerful individuals are involved, so include state and federal agencies as well and tell the locals that you have. In my own experience, one agency that can help in a pinch is the Criminal Investigation Division of the Internal Revenue Service or (in Canada) Victims Services at your local police unit. It is not easy to think of the IRS as a potential friend, but a Swedish study showed that malignant types (the Swedes called them bullies) usually commit some felony or other by the age of twenty. If the family is wealthy, the fact may never come to light, but many felonies involve tax evasion, and in such cases, the IRS is interested indeed. If large amounts of money are involved, the IRS may solve all your problems for you. For obvious reasons the Drug Enforcement Agency may also be an appropriate agency to approach. The FBI is an important agency to contact, because although the FBI does not have jurisdiction over murder or assault, if informed, they do have an active interest in any other law enforcement agencies that do not follow through with an honest investigation and prosecution should a murder occur. Civil rights are involved at that point. No local crooked lawyer, judge, or corrupt police official wants to be within a country mile if that comes to light! It is in such cases that wealthy psychopaths discover just how firm the "friends" they count on to cover up for them really are! Even some of the drug cartel biggies will scuttle for cover if someone picks up the brick their thugs hide under. Exposure is bad for business.

(4) Make sure that several of your friends have the information in the event something happens to you. That way, an appropriate investigation will follow if you are harmed. Don't tell other people who has the information, because then something bad could happen to them as well. Instruct friends to take such an incident to the newspapers and other media.

If you are dealing with someone who has considerable money, you must realize that they probably won't try to harm you themselves, they will contract with someone to make the hit. The malignant type is a coward and will not expose himself or herself to personal danger if he or she can avoid it.

The Stare Of The Psychopath - What Lies Behind Those Eyes?

2009-11-24T16:19:00.000-08:00

http://masksofsanity.blogspot.com/2009/02/stare-of-psychopath-whats-beneath-it.html

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 2009

The Stare Of The Psychopath - What Lies Behind Those Eyes?

Are the eyes "Windows to the soul?" many people believe they are. Although the eyes are in fact highly fallible indicators of the inner world of others, they are not entirely devoid of information, particularly when the message they convey to others appears inconsistent with the individual's facial expressions and verbal behaviour.

When the eyes say one thing, and the tongue another, a practiced man relies on the language of the first" is but one of scores of maxims that could be cited.

A lot of women and men have noted the particular stare of the psychopath - some have even said there is an “almost animalistic attraction” to him.

It is an intense, relentless gaze that seems to preclude his destruction of his victim or target. Women, in particular, have reported this stare, which is related to the "predatorial" (reptilian) gaze; it is as if the psychopath is directing all of his intensity toward you through his eyes, a sensation that one woman reported as a feeling of "being eaten." They tend to invade peoples' space either by their sudden intrusions or intimidating look-overs (which some women confuse for sexuality.)

The Psychopaths stare is very effective during the luring and "honeymoon" phases. Women often mistake it as "being sexy" and for "Sexual Attraction" eye gazing occurs in copious amounts during the "Luring and honeymoon stage" at the beginning of the relationship.

Robert Hare refers to the Psychopath's gaze as "Intense eye contact and piercing eyes" and even suggested people avoid consistant eye contact with them.

"She cries that he hurt her and he literally doesn’t understand her. The psychopath’s blank-faced stare is an indication that the emotional content of her pain has not registered with him"

Cool under pressure with an adroit use of charm and charisma, they intimidate and control others. There is often an intrusion of space and the predatory 'stare'. They have a natural ability to lie and deceive, and have an impressive use of jargon. They are naturals at undermining and pushing the buttons of others.

Trance, Suggestibility & Hypnosis

Trance & hypnosis also factor into the psychopaths modus operandi. You have seen hypnotists on television saying "stare into my eyes"

Trance is associated with "focused Attention"

The Psychopath, like anyone else, can induce trance in others. Just surf the net under “Seduction Techniques” and you will see a hundred web sites teaching men how to use covert hypnotic and Neuro Linguistic Programming techniques to bypass a woman’s cognitive resistance to being “picked up” or “seduced.” If they didn’t work, there wouldn’t be so many men using these techniques. However, psychopath’s are different from these mere seduction students because most psychopaths don’t have to be taught how to use trance states, hypnosis, and suggestion. They are natural’s at these.

Remember going for a ride in the car and how after a while of staring out the window you suddenly arrive at your destination and can't remember the time passing? - That's another example of "trance states"

The psychopath is able to put a woman in a trance state without her realizing it, getting someone focused, or staring into the Psychopaths eyes will do the job easily.

Pacing, rapport, mirroring, speed seduction , hypnotic commands, sleight of mouth expressions, subliminal arousal techniques , and sensual domination as well as allure are all used by the psychopath to induce trance , hypnosis and suggestibility (NLP) to get what they want.

Sandra L. Brown states in her book Women Who Love Psychopaths that the Psychopath is motivated by the "Central Three - Power, Status and Dominance"

Psychopaths will use Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) and Hypnotic Suggestion to bypass a woman's cognitive resistance in order to "pick them up" or " Seduce them".

The Rule Of Three. The Assessment Phase, The Manipulation Phase & The Abandonment Phase

The psychopathic approach includes three phases: the assessment phase, the manipulation phase and the abandonment phase.

Psychopaths are often voluble and verbally facile. They can be amusing and entertaining conversationalists, ready with a clever comeback, and are able to tell unlikely but convincing stories that cast themselves in a good light. They can be very effective in presenting themselves well and are often very likable and charming.

Some psychopaths are opportunistic, aggressive predators who will take advantage of almost anyone they meet, while others are more patient, waiting for the perfect, innocent victim to cross their path. In each case, the psychopath is constantly sizing up the potential usefulness of an individual as a source of money, power, sex or influence.

Once the psychopath has identified a victim, the manipulation phase begins. During the manipulation phase, a psychopath may create a persona or mask, specifically designed to ‘work’ for his or her target. A psychopath will lie to gain the trust of their victim. A psychopath’s lack of empathy and guilt allows them to lie with ease - “they don’t see the value of telling the truth unless it will help get them what they want

As interaction with you proceeds, the psychopath carefully assesses your persona. Your persona gives the psychopath a picture of the traits and characteristics you value in yourself. Your persona may also reveal, to an astute observer, insecurities or weaknesses you wish to minimize or hide from view. As an ardent student of human behavior, the psychopath will then gently test the inner strengths and needs that are part of your private self and eventually build a personal relationship with you by communicating (through words and deeds)

To further "seal the deal" the psychopath instigates the luring stage, he uses his best listening and communication skills. He wears his "respectful mask" his "loving mask" his "Listening mask" and so on.

You feel he is bonding with you. The attraction and chemistry blows you away , he is paying you so much attention and you feel that you "Seem to connect" this is not because the psychopath wants to bond with you. The psychopath is hoovering information from you in order to further seduce you into believing "He is the one for you" and so he can use the information gleaned from you to use it against you in the future.

Manipulation is the key to the psychopath's conquests. Initially, the psychopath will feign false emotions to create empathy, and many of them study the tricks that can be employed by the empathy technique. Psychopaths are often able to incite pity from people because they seem like "lost souls" as Guggenbuhl-Craig writes. So the pity factor is one reason why victims often fall for these "poor" people.

Psychopaths Attachment

The Psychopathic bond can take place very quickly, sometimes within hours. That means it could happen over coffee, drinks, in a business meeting etc.

The psychopath does NOT bond to his victim emotionally , he doesn't in fact bond at all, but he does "attach" himself to his victim pretty much the way a leech attaches to a body to suck the life blood from them. He is an emotional vampire. He views any social exchange as a "feeding opportunity," a contest or a test of wills in which there can be only one winner. His motives are to manipulate and take, ruthlessly and without remorse.

One psychopath interviewed by Dr Robert Hare's team said quite frankly: "The first thing I do is I size you up. I look for an angle, an edge, figure out what you need and give it to you. Then it's pay-back time, with interest. I tighten the screws."

Another psychopath admitted that he never targeted attractive women - he was only interested in those who were insecure and lonely. He claimed he could smell a needy person "the way a pig smells truffles."

They are masters of recognizing "hang-ups" and self-doubts that most people have, and they will brazenly pander to them to gain a follower to use later.

The Psychopath attaches himself only for the desire to be around a "special person" he is "seeking proximity" to be around the woman he desires to control and dominate. It is only through attachments that the psychopath can avoid boredom and gain "The Central Three: Power, Status & Dominance."

As Sandra L. Brown says in her book Women Who Love Psychopaths "If psychopaths didn't attach, they also wouldn't stalk which we know they often do"

Another extremely interesting study had to do with the way psychopaths move their hands when they speak. Hand movement can tell researchers a lot about what are called "thought units." The studies indicate that psychopaths' thoughts and ideas are organized into small mental packages. This is handy for lying, but makes dealing with an overall, coherent, integrated complex of deep thoughts virtually impossible.

Getting Past The Surface Of Things

It is not easy to get beyond the winning smile, the captivating body language, the fast talk of the typical psychopath, all of which blind us to his or her real intentions. Many people find it difficult to deal with the intense, "predatory state" of the psychopath. The fixated stare, is more a prelude to self-gratification and the exercise of power rather than simple interest or empathic caring and women seem to mistake this predatory stare for "sexuality"

I remember being stared down in a pub by a male friend, I felt uncomfortable, and mistook that sign for "sexuality" and "attraction"

Try not to be influenced by "props" it is not easy to get beyond the winning smile, the captivating body lanuage, and the fast talk of the psychopath, all of which blinds us to his or her real intentions.

Some people respond to the emotionless stare of the psychopath with considerable discomfort, almost as if they feel like potential prey in the presence of the predator. Others may be completely overwhelmed and intimidated, perhaps even controlled, with little insight into what is happening to them.

Whatever the psychological meaning of their gaze, it is clear that intense eye contact is an important factor in the ability of some psychopath to manipulate and dominate others.

One of the most effective skills psychopaths use to get the trust of people is their ability to charm them. Some psychopaths lay the charm on too thick, coming across as glib, superficial, and unconvincing. However, the truly talented ones have raised their ability to charm people to that of an art, priding themselves on their ability to present a fictional self to others that is convincing, taken at face value, and difficult to penetrate”. One must always keep in mind that the charm, like manipulation, can be very subtle.

The next time you find yourself dealing with an individual who nonverbal mannerism or gimmicks - riveting eye contact, dramatic hand movements, "stage scenery" , and so on tend to overwhelm you, close your eyes or look away and carefully listen to what the person is saying because the chances are you are talking to a "wolf in sheep's clothing"

Psychopathy in action: Accusers, defenders paint contrasting portraits of family in child-sex case

2009-11-24T12:32:00.000-08:00

Psychopaths always blame others for their evil deeds when they're busted!

http://www.kansascity.com/105/story/1585282.html

Psychopathy in action: Accusers, defenders paint contrasting portraits of family in child-sex case

Judy L. Thomas, Donald Bradley and Brian Burnes
Kansas City Star
Mon, 23 Nov 2009 13:55 CST

Last June, 76-year-old Burrell E. Mohler Sr. seemed a perfectly reasonable choice to give the Father's Day sermon at his tiny Bates City Community of Christ Church.

After all, he was a family man. Proud of his four sons. Loved all those grandchildren.

A churchgoer who was present that day believes Mohler's message followed the lectionary Scripture suggested by the mother church: the Gospel of Mark 4:35, the story of Jesus quieting the storm at sea.

Fortunate, perhaps, that he did not speak on Mark 10:14: "Suffer the little children to come unto me."

Because months later, Mohler's reputation as the strict but good patriarch would come crashing down.

He's in jail now, after allegations from at least three grandchildren that "sleepovers" on his farm at 3067 Old Concord Road often meant incestuous rape, and that when granddaddy sang "Itsy-Bitsy Spider" his hands ended up in wrong places.

After allegations that their uncles wedded and bedded first-graders in a chicken coop and that their father did unspeakable things to them less than a mile from that little white church.

Once the charges - 42 so far - were filed, it seemed the Mohler family was shattered as irreparably as the bad-memory jars the little girls purportedly buried and authorities earlier this month hoped to dig up.

It's a dark and ugly family portrait, causing dismay and disbelief among relatives and friends. They paint a starkly different picture - one of people who took joy in their children, their churches and friendships.

Time in court will tell which is the correct one.

Many stand fiercely by Mohler and his four sons, Ed, David, Roland and Jared, as well as his brother, Darrel - all in jail.

Gina Fauth, a good friend who sang church duets with Burrell Mohler Sr.'s wife, doesn't buy any of the allegations.

"He's a very respectable man," Fauth said. "I have no reason to not trust him. It's mind-boggling. I'm just sick over it."

What about the prosecutor's relentlessly recounted atrocities against girls as young as 5?

"I don't believe it, and we go back to 1951," said Ron Gamble, a brother-in-law of the senior Mohler.

Yet all or nearly all six children of Burrell "Ed" Mohler Jr. - including one who is a police officer in a Kansas City suburb - gave credence to the tales of twisted family relationships, according to court documents.

Nor did it help the senior Mohler's legal defense or public image as a grandfather when police hauled incest porn out of his current Independence home.

While some question the validity of the accusations, others may ask why authorities did not investigate earlier.

In the 1980s or early '90s, at least some of the grandchildren reportedly went to their mother about the abuse, according to police documents. Instead of going to law enforcement, she told the head of her Mormon church. And nothing happened.

An Overland Park man, who once shared custody of his 7-year-old son with an ex-wife who married into the Mohler family, said he tried to alert the Lafayette County sheriff, the Missouri Division of Family Services and a court-appointed guardian to what he feared was happening at the Mohler place.

"I notified everybody I could notify in February 2000 about this." Then, three months ago, an Independence police detective told the man there were multiple victims, "and my son was on the list."

"I said: 'You mean it took them nine years to figure this out?' "

- - -

As a boy, Burrell Mohler Sr. lived near Monroe, Iowa.

He met his wife-to-be, Alice Elefson, at what then was Graceland College in Lamoni, Iowa. She had grown up on a farm near Butler, Mo.

Early in his career, Mohler built electronics for weather balloons. He later settled in the Bates City area, working as a manufacturers sales representative.

Alice taught preschool until starting a machine quilting business in Bates City. She was known for her quilts and gardens, family said.

Their first son was born in February 1956. They named him after his father, but he would be known as Ed, from his middle name.

David arrived the next year. Seasons passed before Jared was born in early 1961, and then quickly the year after, Roland.

In 1974, Burrell Mohler Sr. bought the house on Old Concord Road. The 55 acres and the country setting seemed a good place to live and keep an eye on his fast-growing sons, then 18, 16, 13 and 11.

"I've known those boys since they were born," said Gamble, of Independence. "They've all been responsible citizens. They've all had respectable jobs. They've been active in church. I've never known any of them to smoke or to drink or to carouse around or gamble - any of the vices that you could think of."

Like their parents, the sons attended Graceland. David later got a job at the southwest Iowa institution. Ed became a fireman, and Roland became a paramedic. Jared worked as a data administrator at a private firm.

All but Jared married, and as early as 1978, granddaughters were wandering the house and grounds on Old Concord Road. Ed would have five girls and a son. Roland and David would add five more grandkids.

Alice was a devout follower of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, now known as the Community of Christ. Her strong faith is a key reason why some scoff at the charges.

"Alice had such deep moral strength and integrity," said her sister, Kathryn Sacry, who came from Montana for last week's hearing for her relatives. "The very thought of what was happening now would break her heart."

Family members note that Alice died of cancer at age 59 in 1991, and the accusers allege some of the crimes happened in the '80s. "She would have been on top of it," Gamble said, "and would not have permitted such a thing."

Many remember how the family children once looked forward to what they called "cousins camp" every summer, a happy and normal gathering of the young in the tribe.

"I just cannot wrap my head around it," said Erin Hill, who went to school with David and Roland's children - who are not mentioned in any of the court documents.

Hill considers herself a good friend of the senior Mohler, who used to drive her to the Bates City church and who once came to her house to pray for her after she accidentally super-glued shut an eye.

"Those three men I know personally are probably the nicest men alive," she said. "If you can't trust them, then you can't trust anybody."

Less than a year after Alice died, the senior Mohler married a woman who worked at the Community of Christ Temple in Independence.

They resided in a small, white bungalow on a corner lot in Independence - him in the basement lately since she found a porn trove above the ceiling tiles.

Police took incest mags titled Family Taboo and Best of Family Secrets, along with hand-labeled videotapes, guns, computers and sex toys.

The porn find was unfortunate, said Alice's cousin, Bob Bruch. "But it doesn't convict him."

Bruch hired Burrell Mohler Sr. when Bruch ran maintenance at the Community of Christ Auditorium. "He was a good employee. Did what he was told, knew what he was doing and didn't complain."

Bruch, who once worshipped with Mohler in Bates City, said he had no doubts about Mohler's commitment to Christ.

Gamble told of how he might have been with Mohler at month's end. "Usually we get together at Thanksgiving, so we see each other then."

He had to settle for a courtroom in Lexington, Mo., on Tuesday.

- - -

That wounded children might bury bad-memory jars caught the nation's attention. Early accounts said the sisters were trying to exorcize their demons. One, however, called it a childish attempt to record the crimes against them.

Although machinery rooted through the topsoil for two days searching for those jars, search-warrant affidavits indicate only pieces of glass were found, nothing about notes in children's handwriting. If those condemning words can't be found, however, the Lafayette County Courthouse now holds thousands more that could be more damning.

The allegations run from about 1986 to 1995, a period when the senior Mohler would have been in his 50s and his sons in their early 30s or late 20s. David and Roland were fathers themselves by the time.

The charges paint the grandfather as both key player and cheerleader in the sexual games.

"That's my boy," the senior Mohler allegedly said, encouraging a son's rape of a granddaughter. "You all have fun," he said another time. This story avoids naming alleged victims, some whom live in the area. Others have moved a thousand miles away.

The facts supporting the charges in the court documents are briefly these:

To Ed's children, a "sleepover" meant something different than for most children. Unlike most kids their age, they dreaded summers. It meant spending more time at grandfather's farm. Some of the girls said that after Alice died, when they spent the night, it meant taking turns sleeping with their grandfather.

One, now 26 and living in a Western state, first came to police in August to allege she was raped in his bed at least three times. She recounted mock marriages - complete with white dresses and flowers in her hair - consummated with two uncles, Jared and David Mohler.

In one of 14 counts, she alleged being subjected to bestiality.

A sister, three years older, said the crimes began when she was 6. She accused her grandfather of three rapes, twice in an abandoned house nearby.

Court papers state that at age 7, she was in bed with a slightly younger sister when her father entered the room and raped them both. Her allegations add up to 17 counts.

Eleven more counts involved a third sister, now 28. She told police of her grandfather remarrying her sister and an uncle in the little Bates City church - while her father, Ed Mohler, allegedly raped her in a pew.

She also recounted running away with her sisters, but they didn't get far. Their punishment, she alleged, was Dad making them watch as he sodomized a sibling.

The allegations go on and on, also involving a great-uncle, Darrel Mohler. He is being held in a Florida jail, waiting to be sent to Lexington for an unhappy family reunion.

Lafayette County Prosecutor Kellie Ritchie said she probably will not file any more charges, though more could come from other jurisdictions.

Legal representation for most of the men may be public defenders. Jared, who has pleaded not guilty, is the only one to have an attorney so far.

- - -

"She has suppressed many of the memories of abuse and is very fearful of her grandfather, father and uncles," court documents said of the 26-year-old accuser.

The statute of limitations for such forcible rape and sodomy charges generally extends to 20 years after an accuser turns 18.

The Mohlers' defenders insist the tales must arise from dark fantasies or misplaced bitterness. Suppressed memories are controversial, in some cases successfully challenged as unreliable or untrue.

Indeed, it was learned last week that the digging for bodies on the former Mohler place arose from strange allegations - little girls helping to stab a man to death and seeing a woman - who apparently was also sexually abused - held captive so long that the girls thought she was a sister they had not known.

The unidentified woman - who claimed to have been kept in a crawl space and held long enough to see at least one of her babies buried in the basement at the Old Concord Road property - came forward to the police with her own accusations, according to court documents.

Police have offered little information on what was found and none about the woman, who is said to be unrelated to the Mohlers.

For Gamble, it just stretched the accusers' credibility anew.

"A lot of smoke and mirrors," he said. "Children's minds are very malleable, and people can really be sincerely honest in thinking that this did happen."

Fauth agreed: "What kind of emotional condition are they in? Are they stable?"

Police and prosecutors apparently are satisfied with what they have heard.

Many of the allegations directed at the Mohlers defy what experts encounter in sex-abuse situations - group encounters involving children within the same family are rare, primarily because they are less apt to be kept secret.

Still, there are cases of incest being so ingrained in a household that, for some families, "the act becomes normalized ... a family value, as common as Sunday dinners or watching football on TV," said Joseph Beck, a therapy director at Spofford Home, a Kansas City nonprofit that treats children with severe emotional problems.

"Although it's abnormal, it becomes, 'This is how we do things,' " Beck said, adding that victims can be trained early in life not to trust the outside world.

Despite common assumptions, adults who sexually abuse children are not likely to have been molested themselves.

"That connection has been way overblown," said Mark Chaffin, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center.

According to a British study of 224 men sexually abused as boys, only about one in 10 later committed offenses of their own.

Clinicians widely believe that child molestation, especially within a household, is driven more by urges to be violent and exert power than act out instilled sexual practices.

"It's not about sex. It's about power and control," said Judith Ann Cohen, who specializes in child-rape cases at Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh. "A man who feels he is king of his castle gets to abuse his children because, well, you can if you're king of your castle."

Beck agreed. "Usually it revolves around a single patriarch of a family, the man in power."

- - -

In 1995, the farm property shifted to Ed Mohler, who rose to the rank of captain in his 24 years with the Independence Fire Department. He left the firehouse on North Spring Street five years ago.

His 1978 marriage to Jeanette lasted two decades, the time in which all the alleged abuses occurred.

"Where was she through this whole thing?" Fauth asked.

Records, however, indicate that the children told their mother: "At the time, complaints by the mother were taken to the head of the church rather than law enforcement. No official investigation was completed."

Paul Tonga, a former bishop of the family's Latter Day Saints or Mormon church, recalled Jeanette Mohler coming to him back then. He said he asked Ed Mohler about the accusations, but he denied them, so Tonga did not pursue the matter further.

A statement released Friday by the LDS church - which noted that Ed Mohler was excommunicated in 2007 for personal conduct unrelated to child sexual abuse - acknowledged that Tonga should have consulted with church leaders. If he had, the statement said, "he would have been told to ensure the proper authorities were notified."

Ed and Jeanette Mohler's divorce was finalized in early 1998. She could not be located for comment.

Kelly Halford, who was a court-appointed advocate for the Mohlers' children in the divorce case, said her client-attorney relationship kept her from answering questions about the divorce case. "You can see that in the judgment of dissolution, I believe the father was given supervised visitation. Other than that, I can't comment any further."

Mohler remarried in 1998, again in 2001 and finally just last June.

Court documents show Jeanette is cooperating with police.

In 2000, she warned that a 7-year-old was in danger at the farm, said the father, who now lives in Overland Park. His son was with an ex-wife who married Ed Mohler.

The father had become alarmed that the boy was missing a lot of school, and he contacted Jeanette for information.

"She had a court order saying she had to let (Ed) have her children on the weekends, so her children knew my son. She told me that one of their daughters said that Ed was quite fond of my son and likes to sleep with him."

The Overland Park man was shocked. "She poured her heart out ... crying hysterically and (saying) her children had been molested by Ed and his father for years. It was hard for me to comprehend."

He said he related the information to child-welfare officials in Clay County, where he then lived, but he was accused of trying to cause trouble.

At one point, the Mohlers tried to get an order of protection against the man.

A spokeswoman for the Missouri Department of Social Services said no comment could be offered. A Lafayette County sheriff's deputy did check on the Mohler place, and the boy began attending school more regularly.

The Overland Park man collected a thick stack of records - now in police hands. The records showed he and his family were sent to a court-appointed psychiatrist, who recommended that he get immediate custody, which he soon did.

The man on Friday told The Kansas City Star that his son, now 17, denied any abuse occurred, but said authorities told him again last week that his son was a possible victim. The man does not speak to his ex-wife, who could not be reached for this story.

He expressed anger at those who defend the accused Mohlers: "Now is the time to speak up. Those who have feared the Mohlers don't have to now."

- - -

Like Burrell Mohler Sr., his sons were churchgoing.

David attended the Community of Christ Church in Lamoni, where he was a lay deacon. Jared was a deacon in a Columbia congregation. The church headquarters said their licenses were suspended soon after the arrests. They also revealed that Ed and Jeanette petitioned to leave the church in 1982 and joined the LDS.

Roland was active in the Restoration Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which splintered off when the Community of Christ began ordaining women.

David ended up working for Graceland University. He and his wife, whom he met when they were students, have longtime friends there, including Bob and Jerie Gail Ramsey.

A retired Graceland professor, Ramsey knows the Mohler patriarch and several of his sons and grandchildren. His wife played piano at two Mohler weddings.

Count them among the ones who don't believe the charges. David Mohler recently offered to help them clean out their garage.

"We're not as young as we used to be," Jerie Gail Ramsey said. "He said, 'When you're ready to do it, give me a call.' He's that kind of a person."

The Ramseys called David a "fairly strict but good" father to his two daughters and a man who ensured everybody was greeted and felt welcome at his church.

Roland Mohler owns a house not far from Old Concord Road. He and his wife have three children.

Jared Mohler is a database administrator for Carfax in Columbia. The search warrant for his home indicated police were looking for evidence of child porn.

The accusers alleged that they had been taken to various locations where they were posed in sexually provocative ways and that pictures were taken as naked men climbed on the bed. What police found on videotapes at Jared Mohler's home is unknown.

- - -

The farm has changed hands once again, and no Mohlers live there today.

The machine-torn ground where their children once played will heal in a season or two, but the wounds said to have been inflicted on the children themselves are more difficult to soothe.

Some wonder whether those buried jars with the painful stories bottled inside could still turn up.

More likely, they are broken into shards, just like a family.

COUNTS AGAINST THE DEFENDANTS

Class A felonies can mean 10 to 30 years in prison or life imprisonment; B, 5 to 15 years; C, up to seven years; D, up to four years.

Burrell E. Mohler Sr.

One A: Forcible rape

11 B: Forcible rape, sodomy

Seven C: Use of child in sexual performance

One D: Sexual contact

Burrell E. Mohler Jr.

Four B: Forcible rape, sodomy

Three C: Use of child in sexual performance

Jared Mohler

Four B: Forcible rape

Three C: Use of child in sexual performance

Roland Mohler

Two B: Forcible rape, sodomy

One C: Use of child in sexual performance

David Mohler

Two B: Forcible rape

Darrel Mohler

Two B: Forcible rape

Courtroom First: Brain Scan Used in Murder Sentencing

2009-11-24T09:29:00.000-08:00

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/11/brain-scan-murder-sentencing/

Courtroom First: Brain Scan Used in Murder Sentencing
By Alexis Madrigal November 23, 2009

A defendant’s fMRI brain scan has been used in court for what is believed to be the first time.

Brain scan evidence that the defense claimed shows the defendant’s brain was psychopathic was allowed into the sentencing portion of a murder trial in Chicago, Science reported Monday. Brian Dugan, who had been convicted of the rape and murder of a 10-year old, was sentenced to death, despite the fMRI scans.

“I don’t know of any other cases where fMRI was used in that context,” Stanford professor Hank Greely told Science.

While the possibility of using fMRI data in a variety of contexts, particularly lie detection, has bounced around the margins of the legal system for years, there are almost no documented cases of its actual use. In the 2005 case Roper v. Simmons, the Supreme Court allowed brain scans to be entered as evidence to show that adolescent brains work differently than adult brains.

That’s a far cry, though, from using fMRI to establish the truth of testimony or that specific structures within an individual defendant’s brain are legally relevant.

It’s difficult to tell whether the Dugan case will be a watershed moment in the use of brain scan evidence in court, or if the evidence impacted the decision in this case.

“The penalty phase of a capital case … is a special situation where the law bends over backwards to allow the convicted man to introduce just about any mitigating evidence,” Greely noted.

Earlier this year, Wired.com reported on another attempt to use fMRI evidence in which Greely’s MacArthur Foundation Law and Neuroscience Project was involved. In that case, fMRI evidence was entered into a juvenile sexual abuse case in San Diego, but was withdrawn without being admitted.

The debate over whether or not to use fMRI evidence has several dimensions. The first is whether reliable evidence can be obtained. On that score, fMRI appears to perform well. In a very small number of studies, researchers have identified lying in study subjects with accuracy ranging from 76 percent to over 90 percent (pdf). The real doubts begin to surface about whether the data will be good outside the laboratory in real settings.

“When you build a model based on people in the laboratory, it may or may not be that applicable to someone who has practiced their lie over and over, or someone who has been accused of something,” Elizabeth Phelps, a neuroscientist at New York University told Wired.com in March. “I don’t think that we have any standard of evidence that this data is going to be reliable in the way that the courts should be admitting.”

Even if the data isn’t perfect, some law theorists say it might be on par with traditional lie-detection carried out by human beings, if not better.

“It’s not clear whether or not a somewhat reliable but foolproof fMRI machine is any worse than having a jury look at a witness,” Brooklyn Law School’s Edward Cheng said. “It’s always important to think about what the baseline is. If you want the status quo, fine, but in this case, the status quo might not be all that good.”

Others like Greely argue that until studies are conducted under realistic settings, the technology should stay out of the courtroom.

One thing seems clear: If brain scan data has even a remote change of helping a defendant’s case, defense lawyers will keep to try to enter the evidence into court.

15-year-old Killer Alyssa Bustamante Confounds Missouri Justice System

2009-11-23T15:50:00.000-08:00

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2009/11/23/2009-11-23_alleged_15yearold_killer_alyssa_bustamante_confounds_missouri_justice_system.html

15-year-old Killer Alyssa Bustamante Confounds Missouri Justice System
Soraya Roberts
NYDailyNews.com
Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:55 CST

This picture provided on Wednesday, Nov. 18, 2009 by the Cole County Sheriff's Department shows Alyssa Bustamante.

What do you do with a teenage girl who stabs and cuts the throat of a 9-year-old?

Beats me, says Missouri's juvenile justice system according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

The case involves Jefferson City's Alyssa Bustamante, 15, who's in jail awaiting trial for allegedly murdering her neighbor, Elizabeth Kay Olten, 9, on Oct. 21.

It was ruled on Wednesday that Bustamante will be tried as an adult and that the prosecutor will be seeking life in prison without parole.

Missouri's justice system is trying to determine whether to send Bustamante to youth services for mental health rehabilitation or to adult prison where her attorney thinks she will be unable to survive.

But an added complication was introduced Wednesday when it was revealed that the state's juvenile justice system does not have a secure place for a teen girl accused of a violent crime.

"This is real different for all of us," says Bill Heberle, deputy director of the Division of Youth Services. He says that the state does have a secure facility with fences and locked gates, but only for boys.

"We simply don't receive that many young girls that are committed to us for a heinous crime," Heberle responded. "Our girls tend to be more violent toward themselves."

It turns out Bustamante fits into this category as well. She was placed in a mental hospital two years ago after a suicide attempt in which she cut herself with her fingernails. Court testimony has revealed she tried to kill herself a second time after her arrest. She is allegedly still battling depression, despite having been through therapy and taking Prozac.

However, Bustamante's Internet personality appears to project violence outward rather than at herself.

She used her recently disabled YouTube page to talk about her hobbies - "killing people" and "cutting." One video shows her touching an electric fence just to see what it feels like.

An investigator testified that Bustamante dug two graves and killed her 9-year-old neighbor for the same reason.

"She wanted to know what it felt like," said Missouri Highway Patrol Sgt. David Rice.

If Bustamante is convicted of first-degree murder, that does not mean she will not end up with youth services.

Missouri is one of 22 states with a "dual jurisdiction" system. That means a judge could decide to keep her in the juvenile system until she turns 21. At that point, another hearing would decide if Bustamante would be released or sent to adult prison.

Heberle said the Division of Youth Services would make appropriate changes if Bustamante ends up in their care.

"If it's the wishes of the court to commit this girl to us, we would make whatever modifications necessary," he says. "It's a very difficult and stressful case. If I could have magically said in court that I had a 10-bed secure facility for girls, I still don't know whether he would have committed her to us."

Bustamante is not the only one in her family behind bars, her father is also in jail in Missouri on an assault conviction.

Her next court date is Dec. 7.

Psychopathy in women

2009-11-23T09:33:00.000-08:00

http://www.lovefraud.com/blog/2009/05/02/sssp-meeting-highlights-psychopathy-in-women/

SSSP meeting highlights: Psychopathy in women

Saturday, 2 May 2009 @ 9:06am • My Weblog

The Society for the Scientific Study of Psychopathy met in New Orleans, LA April 16-18, 2009. There were several hot topics discussed at the meeting including how psychopathy might be different in men and women. The general consensus seemed to be that psychopathy is under-diagnosed in women because in women the symptoms are different.

Dr. Edelyn Verona is a, leader in the Society. Her group presented, “An Examination of Borderline Personality Disorder and Secondary Psychopathy Across Genders.” To understand these research findings look at the list of traits below:

Factor 1 Traits (Primary Psychopathy)
• Glib and superficial
• Egocentric and grandiose
• Lack of remorse or guilt
• Lack of empathy
• Deceitful and manipulative
• Shallow emotions

Factor 2 Traits (Secondary Psychopathy)
• Impulsive
• Poor behavior controls
• Need for excitement
• Lack of responsibility
• Early behavior problems
• Adult antisocial behavior

Dr. Verona’s group looked at the relationship between borderline personality (BPD) traits Factor 1 and Factor 2 in women. They stated, “We hypothesized that gender would moderate the relationship between secondary psychopathic characteristics and features, such that Factor 2 would correlate more strongly with BPD in women than in men. We further expected that primary psychopathic characteristics would be negatively related to BPD.”

The first part of their hypothesis turned out to be supported, that is Factor 2 was associated with BPD in both men and women but more so women.

More important though, is that the second part of their hypothesis was not supported. Primary psychopathic features were positively related to BPD and “F2 was significantly more predictive of BPD in high F1 women relative to low F1 women.”

The authors concluded, “In particular, the combination of F1 and F2 seems predictive of BPD in women, but not men. This suggests that psychopathy (which is typically defined as being high on both F1 and F2) is manifested as BPD in women.”
Their conclusions are supported by other studies showing a positive correlation between psychopathy and BPD scores.

I spoke with Dr. Verona about their findings, commenting that many psychiatrists consider BPD to be a mood or anxiety disorder. She answered that the criteria for BPD are not precise enough. A woman with PTSD and/or mood symptoms can be diagnosed with BPD if she is also impulsive. It does not seem fitting to group these women together with psychopathic women, especially since the treatment may be different for those who have mood/anxiety disorders.

What does this all mean for you who have family members or co-workers with BPD? My advice is consider the degree of harm done by the person in the context of Factor 1 and Factor 2 traits. The more a woman or man has BOTH sets of traits, the more dangerous she/he is likely to be.

The Psychopathy Continuum

2009-11-23T09:17:00.000-08:00

http://www.patbrownprofiling.com/classes/continium.pdf

INTRODUCTION: THE PSYCHOPATHY CONTINUUM

First, let's define the term psychopath! This is a toughie because psychologists have spenta lot of time over defining every personality disorder one can conjure into existence. This is why there is a 943 page book called the DSM-IV: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual ofDisorders that classifies so many variations of dementedness one wonders if the writersthemselves don't have some kind of multiple personality disorder. Human beings,especially those with research grants, feel a need to dissect and label every noted humancondition to the point of pointlessness. So we have one definition for psychopath and onedefinition for sociopath and yet another definition for borderline personality disorder andI get asked all the time what the difference is between all of those and quite frankly Idon't know and I don't give a damn. I will make it simple and just use "Psychopath" because it sounds good. My Definition: Psychopaths are simply people who care only about themselves.

Other people are either useful or they are in the way. Because they don't care about otherpeople, they lie to them, steal from them, abuse them, rape them, and kill them. At notime do they love them. If they say they do, they are lying. If they get upset thatsomething has happened to someone, it is only because that person had been useful andnow he can not use them anymore. The choice each psychopath makes as to how he willmake use of people depends on what cheap thrill it gives him and what he can get awaywith. Doesn't is seem like these people should be a cinch to recognize? They would be exceptfor four factors that interfere with our radar. 1) Psychopaths are very good actors. 2) We are suckers. We tend to believe what people tell us. 3) We want to be nice. We hate passing judgment on others. We want to giveeveryone a chance, even if they screw up badly. 4) We need something from that psychopath badly enough to ignore all his badbehaviors. We can't do much about factor number one but —e CAN do something about the otherthree because we are in control of our own thinking and behavior. DEFENSE TACTIC #1: DON'T BELIEVE EVERYTHING SOMEONE 'TELLS YOU! Let's start with recognizing the basic traits of the psychopath Robert Hare put together a pretty decent list of behaviors that identify the psychopathicpersonality. It is called Hare's Psychopathy Checklist. The traits of a psychopath are: Glib and superficialEgocentric and grandiose

Lack of remorse or guilt
Lack of empathy
Deceitful and manipulative
Shallow emotions Impulsive
Poor behavior controls
Need for excitement
Lack of responsibility
Early behavior problems

There is a long version of the actual psychopathy test that psychiatrists use that will givea score and identify how psychopathic a person is. This leads the lay person to question how you can be only a partial psychopath? Well, the answer is, you can't be. You either ARE a psychopath or you ARE NOT a psychopath. BUT, I do myself use what I call the Psychopathy Continuum where one sort of rates oneself (or someone else) as to how psychopathic one is. At this point, you are thinking, "Didn't you just contradict yourself?" Yeah, well, sorta. Let me try to help you make some sense of this (and get myself out of this pickle at the same time). Here is the problem: Human behaviors are not totally this or that. We can try to define them but it gets difficult and we sometimes even disagree with what they are.

For example, suppose we call someone lazy. What does lazy mean? To one person itmeans her husband didn't work forty hours, do twenty hours overtime, paint the house, mow the lawn, and do all the shopping in one week! To another person, if her husband gets his butt off the couch to get his own beer, he is NOT lazy even though he hasn't held a job in ten years! This kind of eye-of-the-beholder problem lends to difficulty indefining something absolutely. My way of solving this problem is to recognize, yes, there is a continuum of behavior. Atone end, we have people who NEVER exhibit a behavior (as best we can define thatbehavior), in the middle we have the average person who exhibits it sometimes, and thenwe have the psychopath end, in which the person ALWAYS exhibits that behavior. The psychopath is over the top on the behavior and there is really no question as to how much he exhibits it. Also, the behavior won't be relative. Everyone exhibits a behavior sometimes because of a situation, but a psychopath will exhibit the behavior on all occasions without exception. It is also important to know that a psychopath doesn't just have ONE bad behavior on thelist; he has them all. He also doesn't have a behavior exist just in certain situations. THIS is important! He has EACH and EVERY one of them, hands down, no question. ALL psychopaths exhibit ALL of the behaviors at ALL times and in ALL situations. The onlyproblem you will have is that since they are actors, sometimes you will be fooled into believing they are not exhibiting the behavior. For example, a man jumps in the river tosave a young child from drowning. Gosh, isn't that wonderful? Since psychopaths don't care about anyone else, this must mean this man is not a psychopath. Well, no,unfortunately, that doesn't prove anything. He might only be saving the child to make himself look good.

He does not really care about that child. On the way home from thatscene, he might decide to rape and murder another child. Both events would serve hispurposes, but since we are unaware of the second event, we might believe he is a niceguy for saving the first kid's life. There is only one way to know if a person exhibits ALL of the behaviors at ALL timesand in ALL situations; history. Although psychopaths are good actors, they can only actfor short periods of time consistently. Give them a day or a month, and their true behaviorwill show up. Knowing a person's history of behavior will help you identify a psychopathbefore you get involved in any kind of emotional, legal, or business transaction and willsave you a whole lot of misery. Of course, if you have to make a snap decision about a person, history won't help. Inthese cases, at least you can be aware and cynical and take action to protect yourself asmuch as possible from any unfortunate consequences in crossing his path. This ability isuseful in protecting oneself against date rapists and stalkers. I will discuss this in laterchapters. Lastly, it is possible that you will be totally unaware that the psychopath is about to makeyou his victim. This is the case with serial rapists and killers. In these cases, you have toprevent the event from happening by keeping yourself off their victim list and notcompleting the "Triangle of Victimization" which I will address toward the end of thebook. Now, let's go to the Hare's Psychopathy Checklist with my answers which show thepsychopath continuum. Take the test yourself and see if you come up with A's and B'sfor your answers. If you come up with all C's on the test, chances are you aren't going toread the rest of the book and you aren't going to let anyone in your family read it either. GLIB AND SUPERFICIAL: Saint: I love wines. I am fonder of white wines than reds. My favorite white wine wouldhave to be Sauvignon Blanc. I love the crispness. The best vineyards for those seem to bethe New Zealand Vineyards in Marlborough. I am trying to build and excellent winecollection and I now have a pretty good selection. I go to wine tastings and that has reallytaught me a lot about my likes and dislikes. Average Person: I like wine but I can't afford to get into it like a connoisseur. I reallyalso don't have the patience. I like good wines but, to tell you the truth, I can drink thosebox wines that make wine lovers shudder. I guess I have beer tastes which match my beer budget.

Psychopath: I can tell a $40 bottle of wine from a $100 bottle of wine. I just don't feel like wine right now. I'll have a Miller Lite. EGOCENTRIC AND GRANDIOSE: Saint: Oh, I haven't done anything that noteworthy. I just do the best I can to help people. Average Person: I was town councilman for four years. It was an interesting experience. Ifeel like I did a pretty good job but I got tired of the politics. Psychopath: I served in Desert Storm and Iraq. In between, I have been on specialmissions with the CIA. I also was in the FBI. LACK OF REMORSE OR GUILT: Saint: I feel just AWFUL about causing that car accident. My insurance is covering thedamage but that poor woman is in the hospital. I think I will go and visit her. Maybe I canhelp the family as well while she is in there. I should make some dinners for them. Average Person: I can't believe I didn't see the stop sign. Gosh, I hope that woman willbe okay. Thank God I have insurance. Psychopath: The woman hit me and the police are lying. LACK OF EMPATHY: Saint: World hunger is a terrible problem. I have been involved for the last ten yearsworking with changing the water systems in drought stricken areas so that villages cangrow more food themselves and not have to rely on the government to assist them. Average Person: Gosh, I always feel bad when I see those commercials on TV for Save the Children.

I should send some money, but I already give to other charities. I can't helpevery cause. Gee, now I sound like a bum. World hunger is such an overwhelmingproblem. I can't figure out how we could even begin to solve it. Psychopath: Yeah, well, so some people starve. You gotta die of something. DECEITFUL AND MANIPULATIVE: Saint: I am sorry I am late for work sir. I stayed up too late last night and overslept myalarm. I'm sorry. Average Person: I am sorry I am late for work. There was really bad traffic this morning. Psychopath: Sorry I'm late. I saw an accident on the side of the road and I had to call thepolice; then I took the guy to the hospital.

SHALLOW EMOTIONS: Saint: My girlfriend is pregnant. It is my fault. We are going to get together and discusshaving the baby or not. I will go with her final decision since I could never force awoman to get an abortion against her will. If she wants to have the baby, well, then I willbe the best father possible. Average Person: Damn! My girlfriend is pregnant. I should have used a condom, but Ithought she was using the pill. I don't know what to do. I will pay for the abortion. I hopeshe doesn't want to have a kid now. I am not ready. But, I guess if she does, bjnrnm.Jguess I will have to deal with it. Psychopath: My girlfriend is pregnant. The bitch lied to me about being on birth control.I'll do the abortion myself. IMPULSIVE: Saint: I don't really have the money to buy a car now. If I do, I will have difficultymeeting the bills. I will wait until I have saved up enough money to buy one outright Average Person: I really don't have enough money to buy a used car and pay my billsthis month. But, if I get a good deal on a new car, the payments shouldn't be that bad andI can cut down on my entertainment expenses. I really need to get around. Psychopath: I am going to buy that car with the money I have. The landlord can't throw me out for a couple of months.

NEED FOR EXCITEMENT: Saint: I get enough excitement achieving my goals. It is great to see progress being madeand finally arriving at the conclusion of the project. Average Person: Sometimes I get bored with just work, work, work. I need to dosomething neat like hiking or going to the amusement park. I love roller coasters. Psychopath: I think I'll call in a bomb threat on my job and watch the action. POOR BEHAVIOR CONTROLS: Saint: I have never, ever cheated on my wife. Average Person: Well, I have to admit, when I was away in the service for two years, Islept with a girl for a month. Then I felt guilty and stopped seeing her.

Psychopath: Women are always coming on to me. I don't see why I shouldn't sleep withthem if they want it. My wife isn't going to find out if I don't tell her. LACK OF RESPONSIBILITY: Saint: My bills have gotten totally out of control. I am hugely in debt. I will call eachcompany and set up a payment plan and take on a second job until I pay everyone off. Average Person: I am going to have to declare bankruptcy. There is no way I will ever beable to pay these bills. Psychopath: I don't owe these bills. The companies overcharged me. When I move, theywon't be able to find me. EARLY BEHAVIOR PROBLEMS: Said of the Saint: He was the most wonderful boy. He got great grades in school, wasalways volunteering his time, and was a marvelous role model for the children of theneighborhood. I hear he is now studying psychology and is a counselor for disturbedchildren. Said of the Average Person: He was a good kid. I was always happy to have him comeplay with my kids when he was growing up. He loved animals. He was always bringing home a stray kitten or turtle. I know he smoked a little dope when he was in high school, but he kept his grades up, and he did well enough to go on to veterinary school. Said of the Psychopath: We knew something was wrong with him early on. He was alittle liar when he was a kid. He would steal stuff, small stuff from family members but never admitted it. I always wondered if he was responsible for those arsons in the neighborhood. He had trouble dating in high school and was angry that the girls didn'tseem to like him. He said he was going to go to college, but I have never seen any real interest. He keeps changing jobs. He says his employers are out to get him. Are you still with me? That is nice to know! Most of us will have pretty solid B answersbecause we are just normal folks. Sometimes we will have an A in a category or two andit we shouldn't have the any of the kind of C's in the example answers. But, you mayhave noted, as you were doing the test, that your mind wandered to someone you knowwho seems to match all the C answers. You are now on your way to recognizingpsychopaths. Now, to make recognizing the traits of a psychopath even easier in your daily life (and soyou don't have to try to remember so much, I have revised and reduced the psychopathy checklist to just four basic traits. Within these four traits you will see the C answers fromabove embedded within them.

1) PATHOLOGICAL LIAR - He is simply put, a lying dog. You will notice thatin many the answers in the checklist, the psychopath lies in order to cover forhimself or make himself look good or get away with something. Although we willall lie on occasion like telling the "bad traffic" lie we to the boss or agreeing witha woman that her dress is lovely when it looks like she sewed it herself from theliving room curtains, we don't lie constantly. A psychopath does just that. Hebreathes - he lies. He lies not only FOR a reason, but for no apparent reason;sometimes it just humors him. A psychopath also always knows he is telling a lie.He is not a psychotic who is confused about reality. He knows he is lying and hewill change his story if it doesn't work. Then he will come up with another lieabout why he lied. Looking back at my answers to Hare's Checklist, our psychopath has lied about thefollowing things: That he knows his wines, that he was in well-known battles and theCIA and FBI, that a lady hit his car and the police lied when they said he caused theaccident, that he was late to work because he was being a good citizen and helping anaccident victim, that his girlfriend didn't use birth control, that there is a bomb in thebuilding, that he isn't cheating on her (when his wife asks), and he doesn't owe the billsbecause the companies are crooked. Whew! 2)

MANIPULATIVE - A psychopath has practiced this for a lifetime. He usespeople. If folks don't serve a purpose to, he will ignore them, avoid them, dumpthem, or kill them. He could care less about other people. The only one in theuniverse of importance to a psychopath is himself. On my answers Hare's Checklist, the manipulative actions were lying to just abouteveryone in order to either impress them, get out of trouble, or cause trouble. The lyingand the manipulation go hand in hand because he is doing one in order to accomplish theother. While nonpsychopaths may manipulate through clever argument or bribery,psychopaths don't like to waste the time. They find lying easier and more successful.Besides, a psychopath isn't trying to convince or coerce you; he is just trying to cheatyou. 3)

NO CONSCIENCE - He simply doesn't feel bad about anything. No guilt, noremorse. Nothing. You will notice in the answers to Hare's Checklist answers the psychopath doesn't caremuch about people's suffering whether it is his pregnant girlfriend or starving children orthe lady he put in the hospital. 4) A SENSE OF

ENTITLEMENT - He should have it. You shouldn't. He isalways right. You are always wrong. It is never his fault. Going through the answers to Hare's Checklist one more time, we will find that everyoneis lying on him and doing him wrong. We also see that he thinks he has the right to not pay the bills he owes, not pay rent, his girlfriend is wrong for getting pregnant, and thecompanies were wrong for billing him. Put these four traits together and you have a MANIPULATIVE, PATHOLOCIALLIAR THAT THINKS HE SHOULD GET EVERYTHING AND DOESN"T CAREWHAT HAPPENS TO ANYONE ELSE. But, now, how do you know an individualhas traits like these? HISTORY! History includes his behavior, his accomplishments (or his lack thereof), and hisrelationships (or lack thereof) over time; this is how you know if these four simple traitsare not some figment of your imagination. If you look back in time, you will find it hardto even see a starting point. These behaviors were probably noticeable (or memorable) atLEAST from nine years old on. Hare's Checklist doesn't explain what is meant by "early behavior problems", but you can see that in my answers. I have extended the "behaviorproblems" all the way up into adulthood. Why? Because we shouldn't jump toconclusions just because someone had a few childhood missteps, he is a psychopath. You will notice, though, in the "Said of the Psychopath" answer, the problems started early onand never abated. He was a liar, a thief, and maybe an arsonist; he couldn't get along with women, couldn't get along with his bosses, and was generally a loser who wasn't particularly likeable. His behavior was bad, he didn't accomplish much in life, and he hadtrouble with relationships. His "early behaviors" became "teenage behaviors" and then went on to become "adult behaviors".

Let's take the four traits and describe that psychopath again in just one sentence: A PSYCHOPATH IS SOMEONE WHO HAS A HISTORY OF PATHOLOGICAL LYING AND MANIPULATING BECAUSE HE HAS NO CONCIENCE AND THINKS HE IS ENTITLED TO EVERYTHING DEFENSE TACTIC #2; LOOK FOR A MANIPULATIVE, ARROGANT, LYING S.O.B. WHO IS TRYING TO SNOW In the next chapter, we will see how this psychopathic behavior is VERY identifiable ifyou know what to look for.

Bonaparte Blair & Co: Follow the Blood Trail

2009-11-21T01:57:00.000-08:00

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article23870.htm

Gilad Atzmon
Information Clearing House
Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:47 EST

Gordon Brown urged European Socialist leaders last week to appoint Tony Blair as the European President. "Get real", he told them, "This is a unique opportunity to get a strong progressive politician to be the president."

Brown is obviously correct, nothing could be more refreshing, innovative 'real' and 'progressive' than assigning the job to a man who has more blood on his hands than any other person in Europe. It may also be right to argue that there is just one living person on this planet with more blood on his hands than Blair. That man dwells in Texas, his name is George and actually unlike our Bonaparte figure, he keeps relatively quiet. Unlike George, our Boney is craving for recognition, he cannot live without a crown or an official title. Someone should remind Boney that he already made it into history, he can really take a break. With more than one million fatalities in Iraq, he is not far behind Hitler and Stalin.

Murderers are, no doubt, a unique bunch of people, some criminologists insists that they are no less than psychopaths for psychopaths are people who disregard ethical principles. Psychopaths also lack any sense of conscience or compassion. Mass murderers are even more special, for they manage to evade, not just a couple of eyes, but rather very many. They even mange to turn deaf to public criticism and resentment towards their acts. Our Boney, is extraordinary by every possible means. Not only does he dismiss the pain he brought on millions, not only did he fail to show regret, he actually constantly demands our recognition of his imaginary greatness. He seems to lack any awareness or self-consciousness whatsoever.

While the majority of Europeans would prefer to see Boney schlepped to The Hague, face justice and hopefully locked up for life, he himself must be convinced that he possesses the necessary qualities for the European Presidency. From a united European perspective he was a light disaster. He managed to keep Britain out of the Euro, he also didn't follow the Schengen open borders agreement. From a British perspective Boney was a total disaster. Together with his 'best Treasurer ever' he succeeded in ruining the Britain economy. He smashed the last pockets of British industry to infinitesimal pieces and on top of all that, he has managed to get all of us implicated in a war crime of a colossal magnitude. This was probably enough to make European leaders think again, They have now decided to restrain Boney's self centric enthusiasm and relentless will to power..

However, Blair is not alone. As much as recent polls suggest that the vast majority of Brits find him unsuitable to the European presidency, in his rapidly disintegrating Nuevo Labour, he actually has some dedicated followers supporters and allies.

According to the British press he asked Lord Mandelson to act as his 'chef de cabinet'. In the last decade alone, Mandelson has had to resign more than once for his misconduct. Mandelson has also recently been exposed as having close ties with one of Russia's leading Oligarchs. A person of such a low ethical reputation at the hub of the European Union may well be a danger for the entire continent.

Another of Blair's close allies and supporters is Foreign Secretary David Miliband who launched Boney's campaign for presidency with the extraordinary claim that only Boney could 'stop the traffic' when he goes to foreign Capitals.

Like Boney, Miliband is rather enthusiastic about interventionism and 'spreading democracy'. It is hard to believe but in Britain in 2009, the Wolfowitz doctrine is still making headlines especially amongst the so called 'progressive' politicians. I have learnt in recent days that Miliband is himself a leading candidate for the European Foreign office. I urge every European leader to look into Miliband's Neoconservative ideology and amend their choice before it is too late.

Until recently Miliband managed to keep his Judeo-centric tribal affiliation to himself. This is not the case anymore. Facing an inevitable colossal electoral defeat for Labour, Miliband just couldn't hold back. A few weeks ago he decided to pull the Jewish rabbit out of the of the Nuevo Labour sack. In a desperate and crude attempt to evoke public pity and empathy, he warned the British public that the coming Tory leadership is affiliated with notorious 'Anti Semites and Neo Nazis'. Miliband has managed to drag Poland's chief Rabbi into the British political discourse. From Miliband's tribal perspective, it is down to a Polish rabbi to suggest to the British people who is kosher enough to vote for. At least Miliband's philosophy of mutual intervention is consistent: As much as we, the Brits, should tell the world who is moral and what is wrong, it is down to a Polish Rabbi to tell us who to vote for.

Peculiarly enough, The Polish Rabbi has now changed his spots. He admitted that the leader of the Polish Law and Justice party, Michal Kaminski, is actually "against Anti Semitism". Nevertheless, Miliband is yet to apologize for implying that the Tory leaders are Anti Semitic. Like his mentor Boney, Miliband seems to lack the elementary capacity of ethical judgment or conduct. Bearing in mind Miliband's recent Judeo-centric assault, his enthusiasm for interventionism together with his ethical deficiency, we are entitled to regard the man as a danger to peace. Once in possession of power and influence we may end up being complicit again in a new genocide in the name of one liberal slogan or another ('democracy', 'atheism', 'women's rights', 'gay freedom' etc')

But the paddling in pseudo liberal Nuevo Labour chicken soup may not end just there. It would be intriguing to find out what kind of a job Boney has assigned to his Number 1 Lord Cashpoint Levy. I would also like to know whether 'Liberal' Jack Straw, the man who insisted to strip Muslim women of their Veil, had any potential assignment in Blair's presidential administration. At the end of the day, Straw could extend and expand his dismissal of others to the entire continent.

Blair was sure that he had the presidency 'in his pocket'. He was wrong, it is now rather clear that European leaders have woken up. The horrifying dream may be over. I guess that the idea they would have to stop the traffic in their Capitals just to let the convoy of a vile war criminal pass through was too much for them to cope with.

Blair as a European president could be a total farce, almost as sickening as him being 'Peace Envoy'. I assume that all we have to do now is to pursue immediately the necessary action that would lead this criminal to face justice and to bear the consequences of his illegal war.

Nobel Laureate Slams the Bible, Calls It "A Catalogue of Cruelties"

2009-11-19T12:04:00.000-08:00

Cruelty belongs in the arena of psychopathy. I've said it over and over that the bible in general is psychopathic and written for a basically psychopathic god!

By Mario de Queiroz, IPS News
November 19, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/143685/

LISBON, Oct 21 (IPS) - After a nearly two-decade truce, Portuguese Nobel literature laureate José Saramago has returned to the charge against the Catholic Church. This time his target is the Bible itself, which he describes as "a manual of bad morals," and a "catalogue of cruelties and of the worst of human nature."

"About the holy book, I tend to say: read the Bible and you'll lose your faith," said the first, and so far only, Portuguese-language writer to receive the Nobel Literature Prize, which he won in 1998.

In a meeting with the press Wednesday, Saramago repeated the ideas he expressed at an event Sunday in the northern Portuguese town of Penafiel, held to launch his latest book, "Cain", which retells the story of Adam and Eve's first-born son in a light-hearted, irreverent tone.

According to Saramago, there is nothing "divine" in the Bible. And although "Cain" has offended the Church, it won't offend Catholics, he said, because "they don't read the Bible."

It took "a thousand years and dozens of generations" to write the Bible, which depicts a "cruel, spiteful, vengeful, jealous and unbearable God," said the writer, who recommended people not to trust "the God depicted in the Bible."

He said he would not have to settle accounts with God, because "the human brain is a great creator of absurd notions, and God is the most absurd one of all."

Catholic Church officials lashed out at the writer's statements, especially when he said that "without the Bible, we would be different, probably better, people," and that he could not understand how the Bible became a "spiritual guide, when it's so full of horrors, incest, betrayals and slaughter."

"I'm not looking for controversy, but I have a few convictions and I say certain things. None of this is free: Cain has kept me company for many years," Saramago responded to a question from IPS.

Writing this book "was an exercise in freedom for me," said the polemical, provocative writer, who at the age of 86 maintains his rebelliousness intact – the same rebelliousness he showed when he joined the Communist Party, which was driven underground by Portugal's 1926-1974 dictatorship, in 1969.

Saramago has ruffled many feathers over the years. He made Israel furious when he compared the Israeli military campaign in the besieged Palestinian West Bank to Auschwitz, and irritated Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi when he described him as "this thing, this illness, this virus (that) threatens to become the cause of the moral death of the country of Verdi" and could "end up corroding the veins and destroying the heart of one of Europe’s richest cultures."

He also had a few choice words for Pope Benedict XVI, saying "Ratzinger has the nerve to invoke God to reinforce his universal neo-medievalism."

In addition, he distanced himself from the Communists when he said Cuba "has lost my confidence, damaged my hopes, cheated my dreams."

Another of his provocative ideas, expressed in one of his books, is that Portugal and Spain will one day merge into a united Iberia.

The 181-page Cain, which he wrote in four months and which hit the bookshelves simultaneously in Portuguese, Spanish and Catalonian on Monday, is according to Saramago, "an insurrection, an exhortation for everyone to dare to look for what is on the other side of things," aimed at getting readers to think and reflect, because "we are manipulated all the time. We have to fight against that."

His latest work also aims subtle barbs at contemporary issues, like the global economic crisis and its effect on unemployment, the rights of gays and lesbians, and the accumulation of wealth "in the name of the Lord."

In 1991, with the publication of "The Gospel According to Jesus Christ", Saramago infuriated the Church, which was backed in the row by the conservative government of then prime minister (and current president) Aníbal Cavaco Silva, which ended up vetoing the book's presentation for the European Literary Prize on the argument that it was offensive to Catholics.

The book portrays Jesus Christ as a fallible, rebellious young man and hints at a more intimate relationship with Mary Magdalene.

At the time, the Portuguese government drew broad criticism from democrats within and outside Portugal for its censorship.

In response to the censorship, Saramago moved in symbolic–self exile to Spain's Canary Islands, where he still lives today.

In the current controversy, which would appear to be far from over, the spokesman for Portugal's bishops' conference, Jesuit priest Manuel Morujão, said the whole thing was a "publicity stunt" mounted by the writer to drive up sales of Cain, which he said he had not read because "it is not one of my priorities."

Morujão said the "offensive" terms used by Saramago to refer to the Bible "hurt the feelings of millions of Catholics around the world." He also said the author "does not have sufficient knowledge" of the Bible to write about it.

A higher-level Catholic authority, Bishop Manuel Clemente of Oporto, Portugal's second-largest city, urged the author to "be more careful and better informed" when writing about Biblical events.

Saramago responded by saying he was surprised by "the superficiality of the gentlemen of the Church, who did not read the book, but with unusual speed began to spread opinions and dismissive insults about it and its author."

Father Morujão "said reading Cain is not one of his priorities. His frankness is appreciated, but it's still strange when a spokesman does not know what he is talking about."

"In terms of a lack of intellectual rigor, you could not ask for worse," said the writer.

At the same time, Saramago said it is not against God that he is writing, "because he does not exist," but that his stance is against religions, "because they do not, and have never, helped bring people together."

In the writer's view, "God only exists in our minds."

His book points out that in the Old Testament, Cain killed his younger brother Abel in a fit of jealousy after God preferred his brother's sacrifice of sheep to his.

"None of that happened, it's obvious that they're myths invented by man, just like God, a creation of men. All I do is lift up the stones and show the reality hidden beneath them," said Saramago.

He said Cain is a book written "against any and all religions," because throughout history, "all religions, without exception, have done humanity more bad than good."

Visão magazine's review of the book describes it is an ironic, provocative and irreverent work which, despite the humour in some parts, points to injustices, cruelties, limitations of free will and incongruities in the book of Genesis.

In Saramago's book, Cain travels through time, witnessing events like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the Great Flood and the construction of Noah's Ark, the fall of Jericho, and the conflict between God and Satan. He also keeps Abraham from stabbing his son Isaac.

Saramago concludes: "Yes, reader, that's what it really says. The Lord ordered Abraham to sacrifice his own son, as casually as someone asking for a glass of water when they're thirsty…The logical, natural or simply human thing would have been for Abraham to tell the Lord to go to hell.

Burned Deerfield teen has nightmares, grandmother says

2009-11-19T07:05:00.000-08:00

Only bullying psychopaths would do something like this! Most psychopaths are born that way and it is exhibited in children and young adults...

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/broward/deerfield/fl-brewer-mother-interview-20091118,0,2267373.story

South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com
Burned Deerfield teen has nightmares, grandmother says
Sun Sentinel
November 18, 2009
MIAMI

Michael Brewer has frequent nightmares about the incident last month in which he was severely burned after a group of teens allegedly set him on fire, his grandmother told WFOR-Ch. 4 in a recent interview.

"He screams for his dad and he screams for help, and he says he's on fire," said his grandmother, Reenie Brewer, who then has to reassure him that he's not.

Brewer, 15, of Deerfield Beach, remains hospitalized at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami with second- and third-degree burns covering more than 65 percent of his body, with most of the wounds on his back side.

He took another step in his recovery Tuesday, by moving out of the intensive care unit, The Miami Herald reports.

But Brewer still has a long way to go, his doctors say. He is expected to spend months in the hospital and undergo several skin grafts. Jackson officials described his condition as "guarded.''

"I don't tell him what happened. I just tell him he's in the hospital and he's safe and he's getting better. And he'll say, 'Am I going to be OK?' And I say, 'Yes, Michael. You're going to be fine. You're going to be just fine,'" said his mother, Valerie Brewer.

"Michael's not going to remember the [intensive care] unit because of all the drugs he's on. And that's comforting because he won't remember the incredible pain that he's going through," she said. "But we'll remember."

Three teens have been charged as adults in the case.

Brewer's parents say that at the moment they're focused on their son and not the investigation. They have been at his bedside since he was brought to the hospital.

Mike Brewer Sr. remembers seeing his son for the first time after the accident. Michael reached out to console him.

"From the first day, he put his hand up to shake and hold my hand, the one that was burnt. This is when he was all swollen so his eyes were closed. So from that day on I've been a lot stronger than I should be because that was like … 'It's all right, Dad,' " said Mike Brewer Sr.

Valerie Brewer said her son has come a long way and is healing well.

"They only have to change his bandages every other day now," she said. "They take him outside for 10 minutes. They go to a secluded area where there aren't too many people. Because people come up to us, he gets nervous. He starts crying."

Copyright © 2009, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Obscenely Rich Bankers Claim to Do God's Work -- They Can Go to Hell

2009-11-18T06:48:00.000-08:00

Hightower: Obscenely Rich Bankers Claim to Do God's Work -- They Can Go to Hell
By Jim Hightower, AlterNet
November 18, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/144026/

"Repent," the preacher cried out, startling those who heard him.

This was no street evangelist ranting at the passing crowd, but the archbishop of Canterbury, head of the Church of England. His sharp admonition was pointed directly at a particular set of sinners, who undoubtedly had never given any thought to the morality of their actions: the barons of global banking.

As in our country, people in Europe are enraged at those hustlers of high finance who wrecked the world's economies, then flexed their political muscle to get governments to replenish their bankrupt vaults. Infuriatingly, these bailed-out bankers have now returned to business as usual, including grabbing monstrous bonus payments for themselves.

In Europe, such greed is not only being assailed politically, but it is also being cast as a matter of fundamental moral failure. As another of Britain's leading clergymen put it, "There is a general feeling that the level of bonuses we've seen have been obscene."

While top executives of Barclays, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs and other big investment houses were initially puzzled and hurt by the public's moral outrage, their audacious sense of personal worth and entitlement quickly kicked back in. So Europeans are now witnessing the spectacle of bankers draping themselves in radiant robes of ethical purity.

"Profit is not satanic," the CEO of Barclays recently proclaimed. "Size is not necessarily evil," asserted the head of Deutsche Bank.

But leave it to Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs (and the world's highest-paid banker -- $68 million in 2007 alone) to combine self-pity with self-adulation in a grandiose PR effort to reposition financial thieves as paragons of social altruism. "I know I could slit my writs and people would cheer," he acknowledged in an interview published Nov. 8 in London's Sunday Times. But, he said of himself and his big banking brethren," We're very important. We help companies to grow by helping them to raise capital. Companies that create more growth and more wealth. This, in turn, allows people to have jobs that create more growth and more wealth. It's a virtuous cycle."

And, just in case you missed the message of Blankfein's morality tale, he concluded by portraying himself as a mere banker "doing God's work."

Wow. What a wrathful god he must worship!

One wonders -- has Lord Blankfein even read about, much less visited, any of the millions of Americans who are out of work or out of business because of the financial schemes and scams that he and his peers conjured up? Who does he think he's fooling? Far from investing capital (including the trillions of dollars they took from us taxpayers) in companies and jobs, these financial whizzes continue to throw it into the global craps game of debt swaps and other speculative nonsense. The game enriches them and their super-wealthy clients, but it creates nothing whatsoever of social value.

Nonetheless, this clueless clique is actually claiming that we commoners should be applauding the return of their multimillion-dollar bonus bonanzas. Why? Because, they aver, the rich payouts allow them to contribute to charity.

Such narcissism reminds me of a story about a selfish, no-good rich man who died and tried to get into heaven. But you can't just walk through the Pearly Gates. An angel reviews your life, then St. Peter decides if you can enter. To counter the angel's negative review, the rich man argued that he had a history of charitable giving. He'd once tossed a nickel into a beggar's cup, he pointed out. Plus, some years later, he had aided a poor woman by giving her a nickel. Then there was the time he put a nickel into the Salvation Army kettle.

Hearing all this, the angel turned to St. Peter and asked, "What in the world should we do with this man?" And St. Peter said, "Give him back his 15 cents, and tell him to go to hell!"

Now that's a story that these big banksters need to hear -- and ponder.

To find out more about Jim Hightower, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.

UK: Parents living in fear of their bullying children

2009-11-09T13:25:00.000-08:00

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/nov/08/parents-bullied-by-children

UK: Parents living in fear of their bullying children
Guardian
Sun, 08 Nov 2009 14:36 EST
Mothers and fathers tell charity of attacks by teenage offspring

Children as young as13 are behaving with extreme physical and verbal violence towards their parents, according to new statistics from the national helpline, Parentline Plus.

Almost 1,200 calls were made to the charity in the past year by parents suffering abuse from their children. Most of the violence was perpetrated by children aged 13-15. Daughters were more likely to be aggressors than sons.

Jeremy Todd, chief executive of the charity and the survey's author, said: "It happens - we know that - but we didn't know how common it was because no one talks about it."

One mother told the helpline that she was afraid to be alone in the house with her 15-year-old son after he attacked her when his laptop and phone were confiscated.

Another parent said that she "lives in fear" of her 14-year-old daughter. "One minute we can be sitting down watching television, the next she flies out of her seat, switches off the telly and launches into a torrent of abuse."

Todd said that there was not always an obvious reason for the violence: mental health problems were identified in 23% of cases and parental divorce was an issue in 20% of cases. Drugs and bullying of the child by others were issues in about 10% of phone calls.

Me, me, me! America's 'Narcissism Epidemic'

2009-11-08T14:30:00.000-08:00

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30312181/

Me, me, me! America's 'Narcissism Epidemic'
Jean M. Twenge and W. Keith Campbell
Microsoft National Broadcasting
Sun, 08 Nov 2009 08:29 EST

Authors say long-term consequences are destructive to society

In their new book, The Narcissism Epidemic, psychologists Jean M. Twenge and W. Keith Campbell explore the rise of narcissism in American culture and explain how this can lead to aggression, materialism and shallow values. An excerpt.

Introduction

We didn't have to look very hard to find it. It was everywhere.

On a reality TV show, a girl planning her sixteenth birthday party wants a major road blocked off so a marching band can precede her grand entrance on a red carpet. A book called "My Beautiful Mommy" explains plastic surgery to young children whose mothers are going under the knife for the trendy "Mommy Makeover." It is now possible to hire fake paparazzi to follow you around snapping your photograph when you go out at night - you can even take home a faux celebrity magazine cover featuring the pictures.

A popular song declares, with no apparent sarcasm, "I believe that the world should revolve around me!" People buy expensive homes with loans far beyond their ability to pay - or at least they did until the mortgage market collapsed as a result. Babies wear bibs embroidered with "Supermodel" or "Chick Magnet" and suck on "Bling" pacifiers while their parents read modernized nursery rhymes from This Little Piggy Went to Prada. People strive to create a "personal brand" (also called "self-branding"), packaging themselves like a product to be sold. Ads for financial services proclaim that retirement helps you return to childhood and pursue your dreams. High school students pummel classmates and then seek attention for their violence by posting YouTube videos of the beatings.

Although these seem like a random collection of current trends, all are rooted in a single underlying shift in the American psychology: the relentless rise of narcissism in our culture. Not only are there more narcissists than ever, but non-narcissistic people are seduced by the increasing emphasis on material wealth, physical appearance, celebrity worship, and attention seeking. Standards have shifted, sucking otherwise humble people into the vortex of granite countertops, tricked-out MySpace pages, and plastic surgery. A popular dance track repeats the words "money, success, fame, glamour" over and over, declaring that all other values have "either been discredited or destroyed."

The United States is currently suffering from an epidemic of narcissism. Merriam-Webster's dictionary defines an epidemic as an affliction "affecting ... a disproportionately large number of individuals within a population," and narcissism more than fits the bill. In data from 37,000 college students, narcissistic personality traits rose just as fast as obesity from the 1980s to the present, with the shift especially pronounced for women.

The rise in narcissism is accelerating, with scores rising faster in the 2000s than in previous decades. By 2006, 1 out of 4 college students agreed with the majority of the items on a standard measure of narcissistic traits. Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), the more severe, clinically diagnosed version of the trait, is also far more common than once thought. Nearly 1 out of 10 of Americans in their twenties, and 1 out of 16 of those of all ages, has experienced the symptoms of NPD. Even these shocking numbers are just the tip of the iceberg; lurking underneath is the narcissistic culture that has drawn in many more. The narcissism epidemic has spread to the culture as a whole, affecting both narcissistic and less self-centered people.

Like a disease, narcissism is caused by certain factors, spreads through particular channels, appears as various symptoms, and might be halted by preventive measures and cures. Narcissism is a psychocultural affliction rather than a physical disease, but the model fits remarkably well. We have structured the book according to this model, explaining the epidemic's diagnosis, root causes, symptoms, and prognosis.

Like the obesity epidemic, the narcissism epidemic has not affected everyone in the same way. More people are obese, just as more people are narcissistic, but there are still those who exercise and eat right, and still those who are humble and caring. Even the less self-absorbed have witnessed narcissistic behavior on TV, online, or in real-life interactions with friends, family, or coworkers. The mortgage meltdown that led to the financial crisis of 2008 was caused, in part, by the narcissistic overconfidence of homebuyers who claimed they could afford houses too expensive for them and greedy lenders who were willing to take big risks with other people's money. In one way or another, the narcissism epidemic has touched every American.

In the last few years, narcissism has become a popular buzzword, used to explain the behavior of everyone from hooker-obsessed former New York governor Eliot Spitzer to famous-for-being-famous Paris Hilton. Others have diagnosed themselves: former presidential candidate John Edwards explained his extramarital affair by stating, "In the course of several campaigns, I started to believe that I was special and became increasingly egocentric and narcissistic." As the New York Times noted, narcissism "has become the go-to diagnosis by columnists, bloggers, and television psychologists. We love to label the offensive behavior of others to separate them from us. 'Narcissist' is among our current favorites."

Despite the popularity of narcissism as a label, it is difficult to find scientifically verified information on it outside academic journal articles. Many websites on narcissism are based on some combination of conjecture, personal experience, and poorly understood psychoanalytic theories. Christopher Lasch's 1979 bestselling book, The Culture of Narcissism, though fascinating, was written before any serious research explored the personality and behavior of narcissists. Books such as "Why Is It Always About You?" and "Freeing Yourself from the Narcissist in Your Life" were written by established psychotherapists and use case studies of individuals with NPD. This approach is important, but largely ignores the scientific data on the topic.

We take a different approach in this book, describing the now-extensive scientific research on the truth about narcissists and why they behave the way they do. We believe that with a topic as complex as narcissism, the empirical research is the place to begin.

Narcissism is an attention-getting term, and we do not use it lightly. We discuss some research on NPD, but primarily concentrate on narcissistic personality traits among the normal population - behavior and attitudes that don't go far enough to merit a clinical diagnosis but that can nevertheless be destructive to the individual and other people. This "normal" narcissism is potentially even more harmful because it is so much more common. Of course, much of what we discuss applies to individuals with NPD as well.

Narcissism is not simply a confident attitude or a healthy feeling of self-worth. As we explore in chapters 2 and 3, narcissists are overconfident, not just confident, and - unlike most people high in self-esteem - place little value on emotionally close relationships. We will also address other myths, such as "narcissists are insecure" (they're typically not), and "it's necessary to be narcissistic to succeed today" (in most contexts, and long term, narcissism is actually a deterrent to success).

Understanding the narcissism epidemic is important because its long-term consequences are destructive to society. American culture's focus on self-admiration has caused a flight from reality to the land of grandiose fantasy. We have phony rich people (with interest-only mortgages and piles of debt), phony beauty (with plastic surgery and cosmetic procedures), phony athletes (with performance-enhancing drugs), phony celebrities (via reality TV and YouTube), phony genius students (with grade inflation), a phony national economy (with $11 trillion of government debt), phony feelings of being special among children (with parenting and education focused on self-esteem), and phony friends (with the social networking explosion). All this fantasy might feel good, but, unfortunately, reality always wins. The mortgage meltdown and the resulting financial crisis are just one demonstration of how inflated desires eventually crash to earth.

The cultural focus on self-admiration began with the shift toward focusing on the individual in the 1970s, documented in Tom Wolf's article on "The Me Decade" in 1976 and Lasch's The Culture of Narcissism. In the three decades since, narcissism has grown in ways these authors never could have imagined. The fight for the greater good of the 1960s became looking out for number one by the 1980s. Parenting became more indulgent, celebrity worship grew, and reality TV became a showcase of narcissistic people. The Internet brought useful technology but also the possibility of instant fame and a "Look at me!" mentality. Using botulinum toxin to smooth facial wrinkles to perpetuate a youthful face birthed a huge industry. The easy accessibility of credit allowed people to look better off financially than they actually were.

Jean's first book, Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled - and More Miserable Than Ever Before, explored the cultural shifts in self-focus that affected people born after 1970 and - because the trends continued to accelerate - especially those born in the 1980s and '90s. In The Narcissism Epidemic, we widen our focus to Americans of all ages, and to the entire culture. Younger people bear the brunt of the changes because this is the only world they have ever known, but retirement ads promising extravagant fantasies (own your own vineyard!) suggest that the epidemic has reached far up the age scale. And although we present data on the growing number of narcissistic individuals, we concentrate on the rise in cultural narcissism - changes in behavior and attitudes that reflect narcissistic cultural values, whether the individuals themselves are narcissistic or simply caught up in a societal trend.

When observing cultural change - especially changes in the negative direction - one runs the risk of mistaking one's aging for a true shift in culture. Change is difficult to take when you're older, and it's easy to conclude that the world is going to hell in a handbasket. We have tried to avoid this bias by finding as much hard data and considering as many perspectives as we could. Many cultural changes were eminently quantifiable: the fivefold increase in plastic surgery and cosmetic procedures in just ten years, the growth of celebrity gossip magazines, Americans spending more than they earn and racking up huge amounts of debt, the growing size of houses, the increasing popularity of giving children unique names, polling data on the importance of being rich and famous, and the growing number of people who cheat. We also journeyed outside the research data by gathering stories and opinions through our online survey at www.narcissismepidemic.com (we have changed respondents' names and, in some cases, identifying information). Since this is a book about culture, we explore media events, pop culture happenings, and Internet phenomena. We also talked to our students to get perspectives from the younger generation. We were somewhat shocked to find that many graduate students - most in their mid-twenties - think things have gotten worse in their lifetimes. Undergraduates are more accepting of the current culture but often report feeling tremendous pressure to self-promote and keep up in a materialistic world.

The kernel of the idea for this book was planted in 1999 in a basement office at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. We were both working as postdocs - a kind of research limbo between graduate school and hoped-for professorships - in the lab of Roy Baumeister, a well-known social psychologist. There's not much to do in Cleveland, especially in the winter, so we ended up talking a lot in our shared office. Sometimes we were actively procrastinating - Jean recalls one conversation about weight loss in which our fellow postdoc Julie Exline described a diet pill that supposedly contained a tapeworm. Before she could even finish the story, Keith began yelling "Urban legend!" and looked it up on the nascent Internet (he was right). Most of the time, though, we talked about ideas. Keith would describe his latest study on the behavior of narcissistic people, and Jean would talk about trends in American culture and how they were showing up in personality traits. Almost immediately we thought about looking at trends in narcissism, but in 1999 the standard measure of narcissism had only been around for 10 years, which wasn't long enough to do a solid study of change over time.

That study would have to wait for the summer of 2006, when Jean was seven months pregnant and couldn't do much but sit at her computer. By then, we had both married and settled into jobs across the country from each other (Keith at the University of Georgia, far from where he grew up in Southern California, and Jean at San Diego State University, far from where she grew up in Minnesota and Texas). Our coauthors on this project were renowned narcissism and aggression researcher Brad Bushman and two former students (now faculty), Joshua Foster and Sara Konrath. The rise in college students' narcissism over the generations was clear, and when we released the study in February 2007, it was covered by the Associated Press and many other news outlets. It was an interesting first day back on the job for Jean after a four-month maternity leave. One TV crew setting up a standard "walking" shot asked Jean to carry her briefcase so she would "look more professional." "Guys," Jean said, "That's not my briefcase. It's my breast pump."

When Jean got home that night, the full impact hit her: the story had been covered by the NBC Nightly News, Fox News Channel, and National Public Radio, and both Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien made jokes about it. The AP story appeared in more than one hundred newspapers around the country, prompting a slew of editorials, newspaper columns, and e-mails. Much of the feedback was positive, but we also received intense questioning and harsh criticism, some of it based on misunderstandings about what narcissism is and how it is measured.

That was when we realized we'd hit a nerve. We also realized that the narcissism epidemic went far beyond the changing personalities of college students. The American culture was shifting in a fundamental way, and we wanted to document it - and figure out how to stop it. Every time we turned on the TV, it seemed that another symptom of narcissism was rearing its ugly head - Botox ads, the mortgage meltdown, fake paparazzi. We found so many examples of narcissism in American culture that we had to stop collecting them. This book could have been twice as long.

***

We want this book to be a wake-up call. In contrast to the obesity epidemic, which has been widely publicized, Americans have become inured to the incivility, exhibitionism, and celebrity obsession caused by the narcissism epidemic. It's taken for granted that a baby bib saying "Supermodel" is "cute." "Having changed ourselves, we no longer perceive our transformation," wrote Roger Kimball in the New Criterion. We've gotten so turned around that some people now argue that narcissism is good (as we discuss in Chapter 3, narcissism has some short-term benefits to the self, but is not good for other people, society, or even the narcissist himself in the long run). Even when trends are recognized for their negative effects - such as the fistfights on YouTube or teens posting inappropriate pictures of themselves online - people rarely connect the dots to see that these trends are all related to the rise in narcissism.

Recognizing the narcissism epidemic is the first step to stopping it. The analogy to the obesity epidemic is useful here. Definite steps are being taken to combat obesity: soda machines are being removed from schools, exercise programs suggested, and nutrition education plans implemented. Not so with narcissism. In many cases, the suggested cure for narcissistic behavior is "feeling good about yourself." After all, the thinking goes, fourteen-year-old Megan wouldn't post revealing pictures of herself on MySpace if she had higher self-esteem. So parents redouble their efforts, telling Megan she's special, beautiful, and great. This is like suggesting that an obese person would feel much better if she just ate more doughnuts. Megan wants everyone to see just how beautiful and special she is, and it's not because she thinks she is ugly - it's because she thinks she's hot and, perhaps more importantly, because she lives in a narcissistic society where she might garner praise, status, and "friends" by displaying blatant sexuality.

In fact, narcissism causes almost all of the things that Americans hoped high self-esteem would prevent, including aggression, materialism, lack of caring for others, and shallow values. In trying to build a society that celebrates high self-esteem, self-expression, and "loving yourself," Americans have inadvertently created more narcissists - and a culture that brings out the narcissistic behavior in all of us. This book chronicles American culture's journey from self-admiration, which seemed so good, to the corrosive narcissism that threatens to infect us all.

Excerpted from The Narcissism Epidemic by Jean M. Twenge and W. Keith Campbell.

Cognitive Dissonance In Action: Pain Of Torture Can Make Innocent Seem Guilty

2009-10-28T15:45:00.001-07:00

Psychopaths and psychopathic systems torture!

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/195732-Cognitive-Dissonance-In-Action-Pain-Of-Torture-Can-Make-Innocent-Seem-Guilty

Cognitive Dissonance In Action: Pain Of Torture Can Make Innocent Seem Guilty
Science Daily
Wed, 28 Oct 2009 16:23 EDT

The rationale behind torture is that pain will make the guilty confess, but a new study by researchers at Harvard University finds that the pain of torture can make even the innocent seem guilty.

Participants in the study met a woman suspected of cheating to win money. The woman was then "tortured" by having her hand immersed in ice water while study participants listened to the session over an intercom. She never confessed to anything, but the more she suffered during the torture, the guiltier she was perceived to be.

The research, published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, was conducted by Kurt Gray, graduate student in psychology, and Daniel M. Wegner, professor of psychology, both in Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

"Our research suggests that torture may not uncover guilt so much as lead to its perception," says Gray. "It is as though people who know of the victim's pain must somehow convince themselves that it was a good idea -- and so come to believe that the person who was tortured deserved it."

Not all torture victims appear guilty, however. When participants in the study only listened to a recording of a previous torture session -- rather than taking part as witnesses of ongoing torture -- they saw the victim who expressed more pain as less guilty. Gray explains the different results as arising from different levels of complicity.

"Those who feel complicit with the torture have a need to justify the torture, and so link the victim's pain to blame," says Gray. "On the other hand, those distant from torture have no need to justify it and so can sympathize with the suffering of the victim, linking pain to innocence."

The study included 78 participants: half met the woman who was apparently tortured (actually a confederate of the experimenters who was, of course, not harmed at all), and half did not. Participants were told that the study was about moral behavior, and that the woman may have cheated by taking more money than she deserved. The experimenter suggested that a stressful situation might make a guilty person confess, so participants listened for a confession over a hidden intercom as she was subjected to the sham "torture."

The confederate did not admit to cheating but reacted to having her hand submerged in ice water with either indifference or with whimpering and pleading. Participants who had met her rated her as more guilty the more she suffered. Those who did not meet her rated her as more guilty when she felt less pain.

Gray suggests that these results offer an explanation for the debate swirling around torture.

"Seeing others in pain can perpetuate ideological differences about the justifiability of torture," says Gray. "Those who initially advocate torture see those harmed as guilty, unlike those who initially reject torture and its methods."

The findings also shed light on the Abu Ghraib scandal, where prison guards tortured Iraqi detainees. Prison guards, who are close to the suffering of detainees, see detainees as more guilty the more they suffer, unlike the more distant general public.

The case is still open on whether torture actually makes victims more likely to tell the truth. This research suggests instead that the mere fact that someone was tortured leads observers to think that the truth was found.

The research was supported by the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and the Institute for Humane Studies.

Canada: Psychopath named long-term offender

2009-10-28T15:21:00.000-07:00

For every apparent psychopath, there are hundreds of 'invisible' ones!

Canada: Psychopath named long-term offender
Andrew Seymour
The Ottawa Citizen
Tue, 27 Oct 2009 20:21 EDT
Judge sends man to prison after girlfriend terrorized with 'spectacularly gratuitous' violence

Ottawa - A diagnosed psychopath who once plunged a fork into his girlfriend's eye and had what a judge described as a long and "deeply troubling" history of violently abusing and threatening his intimate partners has been declared a long-term offender and sentenced to nine years in prison.

Ontario Superior Court Justice Colin McKinnon said it was time for Jason Kirk Bone, 29, to "graduate" to the federal prison system after years of harsh warnings he wouldn't heed from judges and Crown attorneys about more severe punishments if he didn't address problems with anger, jealousy and severe drug and alcohol abuse.

"It is time for Jason Bone to grow up and face the music," said McKinnon, who found there was a "substantial risk" Bone would re-offend given his lengthy and frequently violent criminal past, which includes multiple convictions for assault and uttering threats.

Crown prosecutors sought a long-term offender order after a jury found him guilty in June 2008 of aggravated assault, assault causing bodily harm, assault with a weapon and unlawful confinement following a particularly violent assault on the mother of his young son just before Christmas 2006.

Bone had just been released from jail for a prior assault on the woman when he went to her home on Dec. 21, 2006, and started drinking. After getting into a fight with one of his girlfriend's male friends, Bone grabbed his girlfriend by the neck and plunged a fork into her eye socket, immediately below her left eye.

That attack was followed by another on Christmas Eve, where an intoxicated Bone assaulted his girlfriend over several hours with what McKinnon described as "spectacularly gratuitous" violence.

With his young son in the house, Bone grabbed his girlfriend by the hair and swung her around the room before repeatedly punching her in the head. He later armed himself with a steak knife and threatened to stab her to death, at one point holding the blade millimetres from her eye and threatening to cut out her eyes.

Throughout the assault, Bone repeatedly threatened to kill himself. His girlfriend was eventually able to get help after Bone left the house.

When his girlfriend returned home from the hospital on Christmas Day accompanied by police, she found the door to her home kicked in.

Two police officers were searching the home when Bone, who had rolled himself up in a carpet, leapt out and assaulted them. After the officers struck and pepper-sprayed Bone with little effect, he grabbed the holstered gun of one of the officers. Bone told the officer, "You better hope I don't get your gun out, because you'll be dead," before biting the officer's leg. Police were eventually able to subdue Bone and arrest him.

Once in jail, Bone bit a guard on the finger and threatened several others.

In addition to the nine years behind bars, Bone, who at one point during Monday's hearing appeared to mock assistant Crown attorney Vivian-Lee Stewart, will also be subject to strict supervision and conditions for 10 years following his release.

With credit for time served, Bone has four years and nine months of his sentence left to serve.

Understanding psychopaths

2009-10-21T15:01:00.000-07:00

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/195307-Understanding-psychopaths

Understanding psychopaths
Paul Wilson
ABC Science
Thu, 01 Oct 2009 16:43 EDT

Psychopaths are usually egocentric and often experience little guilt or remorse for their actions
The successful TV series Dexter, based on Jeff Lindsay's novels of the same name, follows Dexter Morgan, a forensic blood spatter expert for the Miami Dade Police Department.

He hunts down people who have escaped justice and then kills them. Quirky, charming but often murderously violent Dexter's character oscillates between normality and controlled psychopathic fury.

But does Dexter represent the typical psychopathic serial killer? For that matter do psychopaths really exist or are they, as some psychologists believe, simply a media and writers' beat-up, a condition that has never been scientifically established?

While I am sceptical about many psychological categorisations and believe that it is always difficult to pigeon-hole humans into neat diagnostic packages, there is a great deal of evidence that psychopaths really do exist.

More surprising to many is that violent serial killers - such as Ted Bundy, Australian child killer Derek Percy or even fiction's Dexter - are not necessarily stereotypical psychopaths.

While many psychopaths are violent criminals, others prefer to stay within the bounds of the law and achieve their career or interpersonal aspirations by manipulation and intimidation.

Indeed, there is an increasing amount of evidence that corrupt politicians and businessmen, unethical lawyers, some radical activists and many others who may have reached positions of authority or power have psychopathic personalities. And these are the psychopaths we are more likely to encounter or be affected by in our lives.

What is a psychopath?

Although there are many evidence-based psychological tests to measure psychopathy, the most well researched is undoubtedly Robert Hare's psychopathy checklist which is used extensively around the world.

Hare describes psychopaths as "intra-species predators" who use charm, manipulation and/or violence to satisfy their own selfish needs.

Lacking in conscience or real feelings they take what they want regardless of the consequences to others. In pursuing their goals they are likely to be cool under pressure, calm, emotionally flat and lacking in feeling. And by these criteria, Dexter is indeed a quintessential psychopath.

The general consensus is that psychopaths don't change over time, although the number of their criminal acts might well reduce with age. However, most experts believe that they remain thoroughly unpleasant individuals throughout their life.

Psychopathy is a socially destructive personality disorder usually characterised by a combination of emotional, interpersonal and behavioural traits. The most common of these are egocentricity, extreme impulsivity coupled with irresponsible behaviour, pathological lying and a lack of guilt or remorse. The condition is not a defined mental illness - both legally and in a psychiatric sense psychopaths are generally declared sane, although there is some evidence that a combined diagnosis of schizophrenia and psychopathy occurs occasionally.

Psychopathy and crime

While psychopaths comprise around one per cent of the general population, it's estimated that between 15 and 25 per cent of the American male prison population and seven to 15 per cent of female prisoners are psychopaths. The figures for Australian prisons are thought to be lower, although no one knows for sure.

The crimes of psychopaths are not confined to violent predatory behaviour. Embezzlement, major fraud and many other "white collar" offences are also committed by psychopaths. But often the psychopaths who make headlines are the ones that represent the most violent and dangerous criminals.

Those who commit child abduction and murder are very often sexual psychopaths, sadists who delight in inflicting emotional and physical pain on their victims. These men - and occasional woman - are driven by their wild and dangerously out-of-control fantasies that include acting out visions of domination, pain, humiliation and sexual perversion.

It is often said that the people who commit these kinds of crimes lack empathy - the ability to identify with how other people feel. But I believe that this view distorts how psychopaths actually feel.

Comment: This is the author's opinion of course, but do Psychopaths actually 'feel' anything for other people?

Violent sexual psychopaths have an urgent and intense desire to inflict pain and suffering and do actually identify with how their victims feel. Indeed, the more pain and suffering their victims suffer, the more pleasure they obtain - they identify with the pain, they simply do not care about the physical and psychological anguish that they cause.

Causes of psychopathy

A great deal of debate has occurred as to the origins of psychopathy - much of it a classic nature versus nurture argument.

Many psychopaths have had appalling childhoods punctuated by parental, sexual or physical abuse by one or both parents. Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy and many of Australia's and the world's worst serial killers have childhoods marked by these events, often reinforced by horrendous abuse in child or juvenile institutions for young offenders or those taken into care.

However, these environments cannot by themselves explain why men and women become violent predators or psychopaths - if only because hundreds of thousands of children all over the world have similar upbringings and never commit any crime or develop psychopathy.

On the 'nature' side of the argument, there is some evidence of physiological differences in the brains of psychopaths. Preliminary neurophysiological research suggests that psychopaths fail to appreciate the emotional importance of events and that this may be related to brain dysfunction especially in the frontal cortex, the area of the brain that is responsible for processing emotions.

More recent research has emphasised psychopathy as essentially a learning disability. For example Joseph Newman's work categorises the way that psychopaths think as an information processing problem that makes psychopaths oblivious to the implications of their actions when focussed on tasks that promise instant rewards.

Clearly we are far from understanding the causes of this condition.

The future

We still have a lot to learn about the origins of psychopathy and how it manifests itself across cultures. A great deal of research is currently being conducted on the neurophysiological, psychological and social roots of psychopathy and how each may interact with each other.

And in an exciting trend, researchers are increasingly focussing on community studies of psychopaths, rather than just confining their studies to the extreme sub-populations within prisons.

This research is critical because few who have worked in this field doubt the enormous destructive power of the psychopathic personality, a personality that seems resilient to any known therapy or intervention.

Professor Paul Wilson, a forensic psychologist and criminologist at Bond University, was one of the guest speakers when ABC Science's Bernie Hobbs hosted Café Scientific: The Science of Psychopaths in Storytelling at the Brisbane Writers Festival. His most recent book, written with Amanda Howard, is Predators: Killers without Conscience, published in Australia by New Holland.