Is George Bush A Psychopath?
by Dr. Kevin Barrett/Silvia Cattori
http://www.opednews.com
I make the effort to share this information because it gives me, at last, a plausible answer to a long-unanswered question: Why, no matter how much intelligent goodwill exists in the world, is there so much war, suffering and injustice? It doesn't seem to matter what creative plan, ideology, religion, or philosophy great minds come up with, nothing seems to improve our lot. Since the dawn of civilization, this pattern repeats itself over and over again.
The answer is that civilization, as we know it, is largely the creation of psychopaths. All civilizations, our own included, have been built on slavery and mass murder. Psychopaths have played a disproportionate role in the development of civilization, because they are hard-wired to lie, kill, cheat, steal, torture, manipulate, and generally inflict great suffering on other humans without feeling any remorse, in order to establish their own sense of security through domination. The inventor of civilization, "the first tribal chieftain who successfully brainwashed an army of controlled mass murderers," was almost certainly a genetic psychopath. Since that momentous discovery, psychopaths have enjoyed a significant advantage over non-psychopaths in the struggle for power in civilizational hierarchies -- especially military hierarchies.
Behind the apparent insanity of contemporary history, is the actual insanity of psychopaths fighting to preserve their disproportionate power. And as their power grows ever-more-threatened, the psychopaths grow ever-more-desperate. We are witnessing the apotheosis of the overworld -- the overlapping criminal syndicates that lurk above ordinary society and law just as the underworld lurks below it.
During the past fifty years, psychopaths have gained almost absolute control of all the branches of government. You can notice this if you observe carefully that no matter what illegal thing a modern politician does, no one will really take him to task. All of the so called scandals that have come up, any one of which would have taken down an authentic administration, are just farces played out for the public, to distract them, to make them think that the democracy is still working.
One of the main factors to consider in terms of how a society can be taken over by a group of pathological deviants is that the psychopaths' only limitation is the participation of susceptible individuals within that given society. Lobaczewski gives an average figure for the most active deviants of approximately 6% of a given population. (1% essential psychopaths and up to 5% other psychopathies and characteropathies.) The essential psychopath is at the center of the web. The others form the first tier of the psychopath's control system.
The next tier of such a system is composed of individuals who were born normal, but are either already warped by long-term exposure to psychopathic material via familial or social influences, or who, through psychic weakness have chosen to meet the demands of psychopathy for their own selfish ends. Numerically, according to Lobaczewski, this group is about 12% of a given population under normal conditions.
So approximately 18% of any given population is active in the creation and imposition of a Pathocracy. The 6% group constitutes the Pathocratic nobility and the 12% group forms the new bourgeoisie, whose economic situation is the most advantageous.
When you understand the true nature of psychopathic influence, that it is conscienceless, emotionless, selfish, cold and calculating, and devoid of any moral or ethical standards, you are horrified, but at the same time everything suddenly begins to makes sense. Our society is ever more soulless because the people who lead it and who set the example are soulless - they literally have no conscience.
In his book Political Oenology, Andrej Lobaczewski explains that clinical psychopaths enjoy advantages even in non-violent competitions to climb the ranks of social hierarchies. Because they can lie without remorse (and without the telltale physiological stress that is measured by lie detector tests), psychopaths can always say whatever is necessary to get what they want.
In court, for example, psychopaths can tell extreme bald-faced lies in a plausible manner, while their sane opponents are handicapped by an emotional predisposition to remain within hailing distance of the truth. Too often, the judge or jury imagines that the truth must be somewhere in the middle, and then issues decisions that benefit the psychopath. As with judges and juries, so too with those charged with decisions concerning who to promote and who not to promote in corporate, military and governmental hierarchies. The result is that all hierarchies inevitably become top-heavy with psychopaths. Since psychopaths have no limitations on what they can or will do to get to the top, the ones in charge are generally pathological. It is not power that corrupts, it is that corrupt individuals seek power.
How can we distinguish between psychopaths and healthy people? What is the portrait of a true psychopath?
Such a dangerous question has almost never been successfully asked. The reason is because we mistakenly confuse healthy for normal. Human psychological diversity is the health of our race. There is no normal because healthy humans continuously evolve beyond all normalizing standards.
The terrorism of searching through hierarchies for anyone deviating from normal is no different from witch hunts or Inquisitions. You must remember that hierarchies thrive on such low dramas, torturing victims until they confess to evil beliefs. Not so long ago the church and state ongoingly acquired significant income and property through witch hunts and Inquisitions. This continued for over two hundred and fifty years. Ten generations of Europeans understood pogrom as normal life. Let us not return to that nightmare. Testing for normal is guaranteed to backfire in our face. There is no normal. But there is conscience.
We have very little empirical evidence to support the idea that true psychopathy is the result of an abused childhood, and much empirical evidence to support that it is genetic. The neurobiological model offers us the greatest hope of being able to identify even the most devious psychopath.
Other recent studies lead to similar results and conclusions: that psychopaths have great difficulty processing verbal and nonverbal affective (emotional) material, that they tend to confuse the emotional significance of events, and most importantly, that these deficits show up in brain scans! A missing internal connection between the feeling heart and the thinking brain is detectable.
Psychopaths are incapable of authentic deep emotions. In fact, when Robert Hare, a Canadian psychologist who spent his career studying psychopathy, did brain scans on psychopaths while showing them two sets of words, one set of neutral words with no emotional associations and a second set with emotionally charged words, while different areas of the brain lit up in the non-psychopathic control group, in the psychopaths, both sets were processed in the same area of the brain, the area that deals with language. They did not have an emotional reaction until they intellectually concluded that it would be better if they had one, and then they whipped up an emotional response just for show.
The simplest, clearest and truest portrait of the psychopath is given in the titles of three seminal works on the subject: "Without Conscience" by Robert Hare, "The Mask of Sanity" by Hervey Cleckley, and "Snakes in Suits" by Robert Hare and Paul Babiak. A psychopath is exactly that: conscienceless. The most important thing to remember is that this lack of conscience is hidden from view behind a mask of normality that is often so convincing that even experts are deceived. As a result, psychopaths become the Snakes in Suits that control our world.
Psychopaths lack a sense of remorse or empathy with others. They can be extremely charming and are experts at using talk to charm and hypnotize their prey. They are also irresponsible. Nothing is ever their fault; someone else or the world at large is always to blame for all of their problems or their mistakes. Martha Stout, in her book, "The Sociopath Next Door," identifies what she calls the pity ploy. Psychopaths use pity to manipulate. They convince you to give them one more chance, and to not tell anyone about what they have done. So another trait -- and a very important one -- is their ability to control the flow of information.
They also seem to have little real conception of past or future, living entirely for their immediate needs and desires. Because of the barren quality of their inner life, they are often seeking new thrills, anything from feeling the power of manipulating others to engaging in illegal activities simply for the rush of adrenaline.
Another trait of the psychopath is what Lobaczewski calls their special psychological knowledge of normal people. They have studied us. They know us better than we know ourselves. They are experts in knowing how to push our buttons, to use our emotions against us. But beyond that, they even seem to have some sort of hypnotic power over us.
When we begin to get caught up in the web of the psychopath, our ability to think deteriorates, gets muddied. They seem to cast some sort of spell over us. It is only later when we are no longer in their presence, out of their spell, that the clarity of thought returns and we find ourselves wondering how it was that we were unable to respond or counter what they were doing.
Psychopaths learn to recognize each other in a crowd as early as childhood, and they develop an awareness of the existence of other individuals similar to themselves. They also become conscious of being of a different world from the majority of other people surrounding them. They view us from a certain distance.
Think about the ramifications of this statement: Psychopaths are, to some extent, self-aware as a group even in childhood! Recognizing their fundamental difference from the rest of humanity, their allegiance would be to others of their kind, that is, to other psychopaths.
Their own twisted sense of honor compels them to cheat and revile non-psychopaths and their values. In contradiction to the ideals of normal people, psychopaths feel breaking promises and agreements is normal behavior.
Not only do they covet possessions and power and feel they have the right to them just because they exist and can take them, but they gain special pleasure in usurping and taking from others; what they can plagiarize, swindle, and extort are fruits far sweeter than those they can earn through honest labor. They also learn very early how their personalities can have traumatizing effects on the personalities of non-psychopaths, and how to take advantage of this root of terror for purposes of achieving their goals.
So now, imagine how human beings who are totally in the dark about the presence of psychopaths can be easily deceived and manipulated by these individuals, gaining power in different countries, pretending to be loyal to the local populations while at the same time playing up obvious and easily discernable physical differences between groups (such as race, skin color, religion, etc). Psychologically normal humans would be set against one another on the basis of unimportant differences (think of Rwanda 1994, think of Israelis and Palestinians) while the deviants in power, with a fundamental difference from the rest of us, a lack of conscience, an inability to feel for another human being, reaped the benefits and pulled the strings.
We are seeing the final desperate power-grab or endgame (Alex Jones) of brutal, cunning gangs of CIA drug-runners and President-killers; money-laundering international bankers and their hit-men -- economic and otherwise -- corrupt military contractors and gung-ho generals; corporate predators and their political enablers; brainwashers and mind-rapists euphemistically known as psy-ops and PR specialists. In short, the whole crew of certifiable psychopaths running our so-called civilization.
And they are running scared.
Why does the Pathocracy fear it is losing control? Because it is threatened by the spread of knowledge. The greatest fear of any psychopath is of being found out.
Psychopaths go through life knowing that they are completely different from other people. Deep down they know something is missing in them. They quickly learn to hide their lack of empathy, while carefully studying others' emotions so as to mimic normalcy while cold-bloodedly manipulating the normals.
Today, thanks to new information technologies, we are on the brink of unmasking the psychopaths and building a civilization of, by and for the healthy human being -- a civilization without war, a civilization based on truth, a civilization in which the saintly few rather than the diabolical few would gravitate to positions of power. We already have the knowledge necessary to diagnose psychopathic personalities and keep them out of power. We have the knowledge necessary to dismantle the institutions in which psychopaths especially flourish -- militaries, intelligence agencies, large corporations, and secret societies. We simply need to disseminate this knowledge, and the will to use it, as widely and as quickly as possible.
Until the knowledge and awareness of pathological human beings is given the attention it deserves and becomes part of the general knowledge of all human beings, there is no way that things can be changed in any way that is effective and long-lasting. If half the people agitating for truth or stopping the war or saving the earth would focus their efforts, time and money on exposing psychopathy, we might get somewhere.
One might ask if the weak point of our society has been our tolerance of psychopathic behavior? Our disbelief that someone could seem like an intelligent leader and still be acting deceptively on their own behalf without conscience? Or is it merely ignorance?
If the general voting public is not aware that there exists a category of people we sometimes perceive as almost human, who look like us, who work with us, who are found in every race, every culture, speaking every language, but who are lacking conscience, how can the general public take care to block them from taking over the hierarchies? General ignorance of psychopathology may prove to be the downfall of civilization. We stand by like grazing sheep as political/corporate elites throw armies of our innocent sons and daughters against fabricated enemies as a way of generating trillions in profits, vying against each other for pathological hegemony.
Nearly everyone who has been part of an organization working for social change has probably seen the same dynamic play out: The good and sincere work of many can be destroyed by the actions of one person. That doesn't bode well for bringing some sort of justice to the planet! In fact, if psychopaths dominate political hierarchies, is it any wonder that peaceful demonstrations have zero impact on the outcome of political decisions? Perhaps it is time to choose something other than massive, distant hierarchies as a way of governing ourselves?
So many efforts to provide essays, research reports, expose's and books to leaders so they might take the new information to heart and change their behavior have come to naught. For example, in the final paragraph of his revised edition of the book, "The Party's Over," Richard Heinberg writes:
I still believe that if the people of the world can be helped to understand the situation we are in, the options available, and the consequences of the path we are currently on, then it is at least possible that they can be persuaded to undertake the considerable effort and sacrifice that will be entailed in a peaceful transition to a sustainable, locally based, decentralized, low-energy, resource-conserving social regime. But inspired leadership will be required.
And that is the just-murdered fantasy. There are no inspired leaders anymore. And in hierarchical structures there can't be. Assuming that you can elect men or women to office who will see reason and the light of day, and who will change and learn and grow, make compassionate decisions and take conscientious actions is a foolish, childish dream. Continuing to dream it simply plays into psychopathic agendas.
Only when the 75% of humanity with a healthy conscience come to understand that we have a natural predator, a group of people who live amongst us, viewing us as powerless victims to be freely fed upon for achieving their inhuman ends, only then will we take the fierce and immediate actions needed to defend what is preciously human.
Psychological deviants have to be removed from any position of power over people of conscience, period. People must be made aware that such individuals exist and must learn how to spot them and their manipulations. The hard part is that one must also struggle against those tendencies to mercy and kindness in oneself in order not to become prey.
The real problem is that the knowledge of psychopathy and how psychopaths rule the world has been effectively hidden. People do not have the adequate, nuanced knowledge they need to really make a change from the bottom up. Again and again, throughout history it has been meet the new boss, same as the old boss. If there is any work that is deserving of full time efforts and devotion for the sake of helping humanity in this present dark time, it is the study of psychopathy and the propagation of this information as far and wide and fast as possible.
There are only two things that can bring a psychopath under submission:
1. A bigger psychopath.
2. The non-violent, absolute refusal to submit to psychopathic controls, no matter the consequences (non-violent noncompliance).
Let us choose path 2! If individuals simply sat down and refused to lift a hand to further one single aim of the psychopathic agenda, if people refused to pay taxes, if soldiers refused to fight, if government workers and corporate drones and prison guards refused to go to work, if doctors refused to treat psychopathic elites and their families, the whole system would grind to a screeching halt.
True change happens in the moment that a person becomes aware of psychopathy in all its chilling details. From this new awareness, the world looks different, and entirely new actions can be taken. Distinguishing between human and psychopathic qualities begins the foundation of responsibility upon which we have a real chance to create sustainable culture.
Clinton Callahan, originator of Possibility Management, author of "Radiant Joy Brilliant Love," founder of Callahan Academy, empowers responsible creative leadership through authentic personal development.
The following is largely extracted from two articles: "Twilight of the Psychopaths," by Dr. Kevin Barrett, and "The Trick of the Psychopath's Trade," by Silvia Cattori.
Both articles are recommended. Both articles reference the book, "Political Ponerology: A Science on the Nature of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes," by Andrzej Lobaczewski.
Cattori's article is longer and includes an interview with the book's editors, Laura Knight-Jadczyk and Henry See.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/1/Is-George-Bush-A-Psychopat-by-Dr--Kevin-Barrett--080602-915.html
by Dr. Kevin Barrett/Silvia Cattori
http://www.opednews.com I make the effort to share this information because it gives me, at last, a plausible answer to a long-unanswered question: Why, no matter how much intelligent goodwill exists in the world, is there so much war, suffering and injustice? It doesn't seem to matter what creative plan, ideology, religion, or philosophy great minds come up with, nothing seems to improve our lot. Since the dawn of civilization, this pattern repeats itself over and over again.
The answer is that civilization, as we know it, is largely the creation of psychopaths. All civilizations, our own included, have been built on slavery and mass murder. Psychopaths have played a disproportionate role in the development of civilization, because they are hard-wired to lie, kill, cheat, steal, torture, manipulate, and generally inflict great suffering on other humans without feeling any remorse, in order to establish their own sense of security through domination. The inventor of civilization, "the first tribal chieftain who successfully brainwashed an army of controlled mass murderers," was almost certainly a genetic psychopath. Since that momentous discovery, psychopaths have enjoyed a significant advantage over non-psychopaths in the struggle for power in civilizational hierarchies -- especially military hierarchies.
Behind the apparent insanity of contemporary history, is the actual insanity of psychopaths fighting to preserve their disproportionate power. And as their power grows ever-more-threatened, the psychopaths grow ever-more-desperate. We are witnessing the apotheosis of the overworld -- the overlapping criminal syndicates that lurk above ordinary society and law just as the underworld lurks below it.
During the past fifty years, psychopaths have gained almost absolute control of all the branches of government. You can notice this if you observe carefully that no matter what illegal thing a modern politician does, no one will really take him to task. All of the so called scandals that have come up, any one of which would have taken down an authentic administration, are just farces played out for the public, to distract them, to make them think that the democracy is still working.
One of the main factors to consider in terms of how a society can be taken over by a group of pathological deviants is that the psychopaths' only limitation is the participation of susceptible individuals within that given society. Lobaczewski gives an average figure for the most active deviants of approximately 6% of a given population. (1% essential psychopaths and up to 5% other psychopathies and characteropathies.) The essential psychopath is at the center of the web. The others form the first tier of the psychopath's control system.
The next tier of such a system is composed of individuals who were born normal, but are either already warped by long-term exposure to psychopathic material via familial or social influences, or who, through psychic weakness have chosen to meet the demands of psychopathy for their own selfish ends. Numerically, according to Lobaczewski, this group is about 12% of a given population under normal conditions.
So approximately 18% of any given population is active in the creation and imposition of a Pathocracy. The 6% group constitutes the Pathocratic nobility and the 12% group forms the new bourgeoisie, whose economic situation is the most advantageous.
When you understand the true nature of psychopathic influence, that it is conscienceless, emotionless, selfish, cold and calculating, and devoid of any moral or ethical standards, you are horrified, but at the same time everything suddenly begins to makes sense. Our society is ever more soulless because the people who lead it and who set the example are soulless - they literally have no conscience.
In his book Political Oenology, Andrej Lobaczewski explains that clinical psychopaths enjoy advantages even in non-violent competitions to climb the ranks of social hierarchies. Because they can lie without remorse (and without the telltale physiological stress that is measured by lie detector tests), psychopaths can always say whatever is necessary to get what they want.
In court, for example, psychopaths can tell extreme bald-faced lies in a plausible manner, while their sane opponents are handicapped by an emotional predisposition to remain within hailing distance of the truth. Too often, the judge or jury imagines that the truth must be somewhere in the middle, and then issues decisions that benefit the psychopath. As with judges and juries, so too with those charged with decisions concerning who to promote and who not to promote in corporate, military and governmental hierarchies. The result is that all hierarchies inevitably become top-heavy with psychopaths. Since psychopaths have no limitations on what they can or will do to get to the top, the ones in charge are generally pathological. It is not power that corrupts, it is that corrupt individuals seek power.
How can we distinguish between psychopaths and healthy people? What is the portrait of a true psychopath?
Such a dangerous question has almost never been successfully asked. The reason is because we mistakenly confuse healthy for normal. Human psychological diversity is the health of our race. There is no normal because healthy humans continuously evolve beyond all normalizing standards.
The terrorism of searching through hierarchies for anyone deviating from normal is no different from witch hunts or Inquisitions. You must remember that hierarchies thrive on such low dramas, torturing victims until they confess to evil beliefs. Not so long ago the church and state ongoingly acquired significant income and property through witch hunts and Inquisitions. This continued for over two hundred and fifty years. Ten generations of Europeans understood pogrom as normal life. Let us not return to that nightmare. Testing for normal is guaranteed to backfire in our face. There is no normal. But there is conscience.
We have very little empirical evidence to support the idea that true psychopathy is the result of an abused childhood, and much empirical evidence to support that it is genetic. The neurobiological model offers us the greatest hope of being able to identify even the most devious psychopath.
Other recent studies lead to similar results and conclusions: that psychopaths have great difficulty processing verbal and nonverbal affective (emotional) material, that they tend to confuse the emotional significance of events, and most importantly, that these deficits show up in brain scans! A missing internal connection between the feeling heart and the thinking brain is detectable.
Psychopaths are incapable of authentic deep emotions. In fact, when Robert Hare, a Canadian psychologist who spent his career studying psychopathy, did brain scans on psychopaths while showing them two sets of words, one set of neutral words with no emotional associations and a second set with emotionally charged words, while different areas of the brain lit up in the non-psychopathic control group, in the psychopaths, both sets were processed in the same area of the brain, the area that deals with language. They did not have an emotional reaction until they intellectually concluded that it would be better if they had one, and then they whipped up an emotional response just for show.
The simplest, clearest and truest portrait of the psychopath is given in the titles of three seminal works on the subject: "Without Conscience" by Robert Hare, "The Mask of Sanity" by Hervey Cleckley, and "Snakes in Suits" by Robert Hare and Paul Babiak. A psychopath is exactly that: conscienceless. The most important thing to remember is that this lack of conscience is hidden from view behind a mask of normality that is often so convincing that even experts are deceived. As a result, psychopaths become the Snakes in Suits that control our world.
Psychopaths lack a sense of remorse or empathy with others. They can be extremely charming and are experts at using talk to charm and hypnotize their prey. They are also irresponsible. Nothing is ever their fault; someone else or the world at large is always to blame for all of their problems or their mistakes. Martha Stout, in her book, "The Sociopath Next Door," identifies what she calls the pity ploy. Psychopaths use pity to manipulate. They convince you to give them one more chance, and to not tell anyone about what they have done. So another trait -- and a very important one -- is their ability to control the flow of information.
They also seem to have little real conception of past or future, living entirely for their immediate needs and desires. Because of the barren quality of their inner life, they are often seeking new thrills, anything from feeling the power of manipulating others to engaging in illegal activities simply for the rush of adrenaline.
Another trait of the psychopath is what Lobaczewski calls their special psychological knowledge of normal people. They have studied us. They know us better than we know ourselves. They are experts in knowing how to push our buttons, to use our emotions against us. But beyond that, they even seem to have some sort of hypnotic power over us.
When we begin to get caught up in the web of the psychopath, our ability to think deteriorates, gets muddied. They seem to cast some sort of spell over us. It is only later when we are no longer in their presence, out of their spell, that the clarity of thought returns and we find ourselves wondering how it was that we were unable to respond or counter what they were doing.
Psychopaths learn to recognize each other in a crowd as early as childhood, and they develop an awareness of the existence of other individuals similar to themselves. They also become conscious of being of a different world from the majority of other people surrounding them. They view us from a certain distance.
Think about the ramifications of this statement: Psychopaths are, to some extent, self-aware as a group even in childhood! Recognizing their fundamental difference from the rest of humanity, their allegiance would be to others of their kind, that is, to other psychopaths.
Their own twisted sense of honor compels them to cheat and revile non-psychopaths and their values. In contradiction to the ideals of normal people, psychopaths feel breaking promises and agreements is normal behavior.
Not only do they covet possessions and power and feel they have the right to them just because they exist and can take them, but they gain special pleasure in usurping and taking from others; what they can plagiarize, swindle, and extort are fruits far sweeter than those they can earn through honest labor. They also learn very early how their personalities can have traumatizing effects on the personalities of non-psychopaths, and how to take advantage of this root of terror for purposes of achieving their goals.
So now, imagine how human beings who are totally in the dark about the presence of psychopaths can be easily deceived and manipulated by these individuals, gaining power in different countries, pretending to be loyal to the local populations while at the same time playing up obvious and easily discernable physical differences between groups (such as race, skin color, religion, etc). Psychologically normal humans would be set against one another on the basis of unimportant differences (think of Rwanda 1994, think of Israelis and Palestinians) while the deviants in power, with a fundamental difference from the rest of us, a lack of conscience, an inability to feel for another human being, reaped the benefits and pulled the strings.
We are seeing the final desperate power-grab or endgame (Alex Jones) of brutal, cunning gangs of CIA drug-runners and President-killers; money-laundering international bankers and their hit-men -- economic and otherwise -- corrupt military contractors and gung-ho generals; corporate predators and their political enablers; brainwashers and mind-rapists euphemistically known as psy-ops and PR specialists. In short, the whole crew of certifiable psychopaths running our so-called civilization.
And they are running scared.
Why does the Pathocracy fear it is losing control? Because it is threatened by the spread of knowledge. The greatest fear of any psychopath is of being found out.
Psychopaths go through life knowing that they are completely different from other people. Deep down they know something is missing in them. They quickly learn to hide their lack of empathy, while carefully studying others' emotions so as to mimic normalcy while cold-bloodedly manipulating the normals.
Today, thanks to new information technologies, we are on the brink of unmasking the psychopaths and building a civilization of, by and for the healthy human being -- a civilization without war, a civilization based on truth, a civilization in which the saintly few rather than the diabolical few would gravitate to positions of power. We already have the knowledge necessary to diagnose psychopathic personalities and keep them out of power. We have the knowledge necessary to dismantle the institutions in which psychopaths especially flourish -- militaries, intelligence agencies, large corporations, and secret societies. We simply need to disseminate this knowledge, and the will to use it, as widely and as quickly as possible.
Until the knowledge and awareness of pathological human beings is given the attention it deserves and becomes part of the general knowledge of all human beings, there is no way that things can be changed in any way that is effective and long-lasting. If half the people agitating for truth or stopping the war or saving the earth would focus their efforts, time and money on exposing psychopathy, we might get somewhere.
One might ask if the weak point of our society has been our tolerance of psychopathic behavior? Our disbelief that someone could seem like an intelligent leader and still be acting deceptively on their own behalf without conscience? Or is it merely ignorance?
If the general voting public is not aware that there exists a category of people we sometimes perceive as almost human, who look like us, who work with us, who are found in every race, every culture, speaking every language, but who are lacking conscience, how can the general public take care to block them from taking over the hierarchies? General ignorance of psychopathology may prove to be the downfall of civilization. We stand by like grazing sheep as political/corporate elites throw armies of our innocent sons and daughters against fabricated enemies as a way of generating trillions in profits, vying against each other for pathological hegemony.
Nearly everyone who has been part of an organization working for social change has probably seen the same dynamic play out: The good and sincere work of many can be destroyed by the actions of one person. That doesn't bode well for bringing some sort of justice to the planet! In fact, if psychopaths dominate political hierarchies, is it any wonder that peaceful demonstrations have zero impact on the outcome of political decisions? Perhaps it is time to choose something other than massive, distant hierarchies as a way of governing ourselves?
So many efforts to provide essays, research reports, expose's and books to leaders so they might take the new information to heart and change their behavior have come to naught. For example, in the final paragraph of his revised edition of the book, "The Party's Over," Richard Heinberg writes:
I still believe that if the people of the world can be helped to understand the situation we are in, the options available, and the consequences of the path we are currently on, then it is at least possible that they can be persuaded to undertake the considerable effort and sacrifice that will be entailed in a peaceful transition to a sustainable, locally based, decentralized, low-energy, resource-conserving social regime. But inspired leadership will be required.
And that is the just-murdered fantasy. There are no inspired leaders anymore. And in hierarchical structures there can't be. Assuming that you can elect men or women to office who will see reason and the light of day, and who will change and learn and grow, make compassionate decisions and take conscientious actions is a foolish, childish dream. Continuing to dream it simply plays into psychopathic agendas.
Only when the 75% of humanity with a healthy conscience come to understand that we have a natural predator, a group of people who live amongst us, viewing us as powerless victims to be freely fed upon for achieving their inhuman ends, only then will we take the fierce and immediate actions needed to defend what is preciously human.
Psychological deviants have to be removed from any position of power over people of conscience, period. People must be made aware that such individuals exist and must learn how to spot them and their manipulations. The hard part is that one must also struggle against those tendencies to mercy and kindness in oneself in order not to become prey.
The real problem is that the knowledge of psychopathy and how psychopaths rule the world has been effectively hidden. People do not have the adequate, nuanced knowledge they need to really make a change from the bottom up. Again and again, throughout history it has been meet the new boss, same as the old boss. If there is any work that is deserving of full time efforts and devotion for the sake of helping humanity in this present dark time, it is the study of psychopathy and the propagation of this information as far and wide and fast as possible.
There are only two things that can bring a psychopath under submission:
1. A bigger psychopath.
2. The non-violent, absolute refusal to submit to psychopathic controls, no matter the consequences (non-violent noncompliance).
Let us choose path 2! If individuals simply sat down and refused to lift a hand to further one single aim of the psychopathic agenda, if people refused to pay taxes, if soldiers refused to fight, if government workers and corporate drones and prison guards refused to go to work, if doctors refused to treat psychopathic elites and their families, the whole system would grind to a screeching halt.
True change happens in the moment that a person becomes aware of psychopathy in all its chilling details. From this new awareness, the world looks different, and entirely new actions can be taken. Distinguishing between human and psychopathic qualities begins the foundation of responsibility upon which we have a real chance to create sustainable culture.
Clinton Callahan, originator of Possibility Management, author of "Radiant Joy Brilliant Love," founder of Callahan Academy, empowers responsible creative leadership through authentic personal development.
The following is largely extracted from two articles: "Twilight of the Psychopaths," by Dr. Kevin Barrett, and "The Trick of the Psychopath's Trade," by Silvia Cattori.
Both articles are recommended. Both articles reference the book, "Political Ponerology: A Science on the Nature of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes," by Andrzej Lobaczewski.
Cattori's article is longer and includes an interview with the book's editors, Laura Knight-Jadczyk and Henry See.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/1/Is-George-Bush-A-Psychopat-by-Dr--Kevin-Barrett--080602-915.html
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The cost of compliance...
03.06.2008 17:54
But it isn't just George Bush that has a curious hidden quality, Tony Blair suffers the same disability. The degree to which the two have been successful in their plan is testament to the degree to which they naturally recognise each other. Tony Blair claims to be a religious man but he is also a smiling killer, how can this be?
This is a man who put the case for war after he had decided the plan. This is a man who made excuse after excuse after excuse until the killing was finished...and then carried on! This is a man who was comfortable with being painted as a messiah by the media and helped the media concoct the notion. This is a man who could barely hide his anger at Dr David Kelly's death just after he received the US congressional medal, he was annoyed that this 'Kelly person' had spoilt his party. This is also a man who cannot understand why he is so unpopular despite him being 'convinced' he is the greatest British leader since Winny. He does not and will not ever get it.
Tony Blair stands tall amongst the psychopaths of the world and we now know it. The psychopaths just can't hide themselves can they...no matter what device they use, no matter what character they learn to ape, no matter what they learn to abuse to keep themselves hidden, we can always spot them because we are now wise to them.
Have you ever seen a psychopath that realises its been found out...its not pretty!
Excellent article and worthy too. Here's to a brighter future for us all.
The right stuff.
George Bush was under enormous pressure after 9/11!
03.06.2008 19:12
Vote Obama for President
Do NOT trust Kevin Barrett
03.06.2008 22:01
And if that wasn't enough to convince you that this guy is a total phony then try and read the private correspondence he had with Chomsky and which he published *against* Chomsky's will (warning: this is sick):
And if you want more you could dig through this 15 page thread:
And the above article mentions, Laura Knight-Jadczyk... where to start with her crazy, crazy cult... here perhaps:
___________________________________
"Disinformation, in order to be effective, must be 90% accurate."
-- Peter Dale Scott
Chris
Homepage:
http://www.oilempire.us/disinfo.html
All very well but...
04.06.2008 12:43
Its his point that matters and I am quite sure he is not the only one to hold this view...both mssrs Blair and Bush ARE psychopaths. It doesn't really matter whether its this guy or Mickey mouse who says it. The truth is the truth.
I think the argument that Mr Bush did what he did because he was under huge pressure just doesn't stand up. Its a good argument, but the US went to war in Afghanistan to route out the so called terrorist training camps but Iraq didn't happen for another two years. The pressure was still there of course but two years is a long time in politics isn't it. The argument that he was panic stricken and the disaster of Iraq came out of this panic is pretty void.
Its what happened afterwards that points to the clinical nature of the failure. Despite Iraq going bad and despite the insurgency, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo bay, extroardinary rendition (livestock slaughter)...the US president could not listen to his critics. He couldn't listen because he could not understand what was a moral objection. He simply did not understand it and couldn't relate or understand his advisors who tried to tell him what was happening...and why. Blair had the same problem.
The objections to the War on Terror have been moral and those who made those objections remain stunned at how both the US and UK leaders have failed even to see that morality. There is a saying isn't there...
Don't know who said this but learned it many years ago..
"No man can see over the height of his own head...compassion is invisible to those who possess none".
This is the curse of the psychopath...that which they cannot see is both what drives them and betrays them.
The right stuff
Normal psychopathy
04.06.2008 14:46
I think we miss the point if we accept the notion that the US public forced Bush into a warlike posture. The behaviour of psychopathic leaders would be to so manipulate the public that they would beg for war or a surveillance society. That is, psychopaths attack New York, pretend it was done by non-white terrorists then sit back and watch people demand violence revenge.
But race, ethnicity, nationhood is my problem with the psychopathic leader thesis. The thesis has it that normal humans have an emotional bond of varying degrees with other humans but psychopaths have not such bond. Therefore, murder and criminality is normal behaviour to them whereas this is inconceivable to the rest of us, apart from non-leader criminals.
Yet, history shows that normal people do find psychopathic behaviour is normal when it is people from a different nation, race and ethnicity who are suffering the psychopathy of normal people. I need only point to slavery. Africans had done nothing to Europeans but most Europeans endorsed a psychopathic relationship with Africans. This is unlike the Germans and Jewish people because Germans were deliberately hoodwinked into believing Jewish people were the aggressor.
Also, strong sociopathic tendencies among groups and nations are is necessary for the psychopathic leader. This does not necessarily arise through some brain damage but rather it is instilled in people. So, the rich in general exhibit sociopathy towards the poor.
But in general, as an explanation of evil or human created injustice in the world, the psychopathic thesis is worth exploring.
Simon
Bigger Picture: Corporate Structure of Society
04.06.2008 16:09
This comment, I thought, was especially funny ...
"But George Bush was under so much pressure following 9/11"
Right. The CIA and Mossad had carried out their False Flag Attack, and he was now saddled with the responsibility to creating the wars that Treasonous Act was desiged to feign a reason for. He had to be the public face of the rest of the Sociopaths who really called the shots within his Regime.
"Even if Obama had been president at the time he would still have been under pressure to do the same."
Perhaps. But unlike Bush/PNAC, I think he wouldn't have blocked an investigation into what happened that terrible day, and more importantly, who was responsible. I think this would have pushed him in a different direction altogether, and Afghanistan and Iran (and Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Gaza) would have been spared the aggression they suffered under Bush/PNAC.
Mull It Over
Chomsky Fan Club
04.06.2008 18:25
So we can split the criticism of the (old) idea that Barrett is spouting from criticism of Barrett himself.
Chomsky is a crotchety old git, mostly because he is constantly being challenged by everyone who fancies their own intellect and is trying to make a name for themselves. If you are not polite or genuine then he is a bad debating partner. It is still despicable of Barret to publish Chomskys corresspondence after promising not to. That would only have been justified if Chomsky had said 'I did 911' or something similar, not the pretence of explaining to his radio audience why Chomsky refused to appear.
Saying that I feel a bit dirty as I read every word of it and could have chosen not to. Barely hiding a couple of extremely personal comments doesn't stop that publication being the equivlent of house-burglary. Saying that, I'm going to sink to Barrets level and reveal some more private Chomsky correspondence without permission. Over a decade ago I got a scientist acquaintance into Chomsky, so she wrote to his publishers praising a book and half-jokingly asking if he had a fan-club. She received a reply from Chomsky saying 'There is no such club and if there were I'd be banging on it's doors demanding it disbanded'
ny
Homepage:
http://coljennysparks.blogspot.com/2007/11/kevin-barrett-front-and-center-please.html
Prosecute Them All
04.06.2008 19:00
I disagree.
You can't really correct a problem until you understand what it is, or in this case, alert people to the fact that the problem exists, using science.
Or Risk Emboldening Them
My "Disinformation"?
04.06.2008 20:46
What would my "Disinformation" be?
This feature article perhaps, 11th September 2001, Five Years On?
This post about the BBC and WTC7 perhaps, BBC reporting the collapse 20 mins beforehand:
Or my repost of Nafeez Ahmed's "INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM: THE SECRET HISTORY"?
Or his presentation at Cynthia McKinney's congressional briefing, Ties With Terror: Western-Al-Qaeda Relations in the Post-Cold War Period:
Or perhaps the season of screenings I helped organise a couple of year ago, The Summer of Truth?
Or maybe you are referring to my contribution to the Truth Revolution Radio show on Indymedia and 9/11 truth?
Do you actually follow what is posted to this site about 9/11?
Chris
@ny re: Chomsky Fan Club
04.06.2008 21:14
For the record I think it's dead nasty to post personal information that has no bearing on the public interest. It is used as an intimidation tactic against activists. If it is in the interests of the public, that information should properly go to people who can do something, not spread around like gratuitous gossip online.
It is debatable whether ny's comment is that bad, but I would never say this:
"I'm going to sink to Barrets level and reveal some more private Chomsky correspondence without permission"
Too much is at stake and we need to keep our house in order to win.
Jenny Sparks
Homepage:
http://coljennysparks.blogspot.com/
Where now?
05.06.2008 07:12
Not wishing to question ANYTHING you say but this is a discussion on the rise of the pathocracy in the United States and United Kingdom.
Would you please take your inner fight elsewhere please. Surely you can see that the very thing you are claiming to be suffering with is the very same thing you are bringing about. How are we to get to the bottom of all of this if you coagulate generel movement disorder and inter-movement rivalry every time we get a decisive and penetrating discussion going?
The problem here is that you are advocating a very complex matter and you are doing it in way that doesn't have an 'exit strategy'. How can you postulate an idea and do it in such a way that doesn't allow for a future for those who take part. Your problem in the TM movement is that you are 'so easily' seen as agents of the very body that you claim to be arranged against.
It is no big jump for people to make to bring them to a point that they can openly question the events you deal with as they already appear to have done so. Lets say that Chomsky is right and between one third and half of all American citizens believe, as you do, that the US government planned and executed, or allowed to happen, the assaults against it in 2001. This would, as you say, be need to be dealt with as a matter of law. The culprits would need to be brought into court for a multiplicity of offences from criminal damage (or the American equivelant) to hijacking, larceny, theft, trespass, deception, collusion, fraud, through to battery, assault, attempted murder, murder (three thousand plus accounts) and on and on all the way to high treason. Absolutely every part of American law would need to be invoked. The United States civil service is huge and there would be many thousands of people, by professional association, that would need to be arrested, charged, and brought to trial. The sheer scale of this in legal and civil terms would be astronomical and the costs of it would be equally astronomical. The cost to the American people in terms of the loss of its strategic ability to organise local and national government would be fatal. What you are advocating is that America subject itself to a 'Chernobyl moment'.
Ultimately, you are advocating that the American citizens consider, and bring about, the effective collapse of the civil and political order of the continental United States.
Why would they do this? What do they have to gain?
If you study American history, and in particular, the history of both the Democratic and Republican governments that have appeared in the US, then yes...9/11 is curiously familiar. What happened on that day looks more like what the American political tactical mind is known to do, not what comes easily to non-Americans. At the least we might entertain the notion that the American government had a huge amount to gain by having another 'Pearl harbour moment'. The fact that the PNAC postulated this BEFORE it happened is worrying. After that, the economists appear to have made the most of it. What is more likely to happen is that people will attempt to ensure that it does not, and cannot, happen again.
Enter the psychopath, or more properly, a new awareness of the presence of the psychopath.
In 1999 in the UK there was a great deal of speculation about what the incoming 21st century would bring, how would it be characterised? The collective answer to this question ended, just before the stroke of millenarial midnight, as an acceptance that it would be a 'century of the mind'.
What better outcome could we have that this new century might start with a new understanding that the United States government, and to a lesser extent, the British government, have been weakened by the presence of a tactical, withering, empty presence that cannot, in fact is fundamentally incapable of, human insight. If we can properly deal with that, then we can move forward with more coherent and balanced government that does not parade wekness as strength and visa versa.
The Right Stuff.
Jenny, do I call you 'Sir' or Maam' in the US forces ?
05.06.2008 13:59
Sorry, I doubted anyone around here would think I was related to you. If I only have one link in any post then I always stick it in the homepage. Lot's of people do here, and I've never thought about it before but won't in future to avoid similar confusion. I would have stuck the link to your blog in the body of the text just to add an explanation of why I was posting it - which is it was the best article on Barrett that I'd found after hours of reading - but I had already written my comment and only found your article at the last minute. Apologies.
> For the record I think it's dead nasty to post personal information that has no bearing on the public interest. It is used as an intimidation tactic against activists. If it is in the interests of the public, that information should properly go to people who can do something, not spread around like gratuitous gossip online.
"People who can do something" - you really were in the military, weren't you ?
>It is debatable whether ny's comment is that bad, but I would never say this:
"I'm going to sink to Barrets level and reveal some more private Chomsky correspondence without permission"
Too much is at stake and we need to keep our house in order to win.
Colonel, that is a crazy thing to say. My Chomsky quote was a one line, self-depreciating quip from Chomsky that carried no request not for privacy. It's an anectdote I've told before, and it can only offend Chomskys modesty as it is wholly flattering. It is an anecdote I've told before, probably here, and I was using it to ridicule his detractor and praise him. So I think your 'Too much is at stake...' summation is overblown or at least inappropriate hyrperbole. I linked to your article because it was the best one I found - I already apologised if it seemed I was trying to take credit for it but you are just a random blogger to me, a good writer who has more experince of Mr Barrett than my couple of hours reading. Still, the only subject I know we agree on is Keith Barrett so try not to pull rank, eh ?
ny
Relevancy.
21.11.2008 22:36
The title of the article is:
'Is George Bush a Psychopath?'
I read the article and did not see the question discussed at any point in the article, therefore the discussion should be re-titled.
Regarding the article itself, it is an interesting discussion. I think the point should also be made that psychopaths can also be made from normal people from normal civilian life, when they are subject to extraordinary circumstances in their lives, where they become unhinged, and then they have to re-adjust their mental framework to cope with the new reality that they have been subject to. Anyone can become a psychopath. Anyone can become 'desperate for control and power' - once they have lost the power and control of their own lives that gave them security - therefore they have to find any way that they can to seek it, and re-gain control. The power games that cause people to have to embark on these psychopathic measures will often be inflicted on people throughout their lives at some point, either through the family, through school, or through power games of the people that surround them. The point is that the places that the author describes where these 'psychopaths' flourish - is exactly where the places of power games take place.
If you go to places where power and domination are crucial to the running of that society - you realise that the rank and file of 'psychopaths' are in fact a normal part of most of the world's normal day to day affairs.
Sometimes you realise that it is easy to describe another as a psychopath, but the point is that these power games are not something that are taught as part of our normal educational system. These psychopathic control games can also be found amongst the people that want to find power through the chains of rank and file of 'social change justice activists' and 'alternative peace activists who want to jsutify their power against the establishment just as much as they are found in government offices and boardrooms. Any form of competition can bring out the socio/psychopath. Part of our normal education system teaches us about being a good or educated person. In days past, religious education was a normal part of most schools.
Nowadays most children don't get that religious education, and instead now more and more children learn about 'power and respect' through testing their own limits of power and respect through hurting others and disrespecting their own teachers and those in authority. The point is 'where does the line get drawn?'.
The lines of power boundaries will cause pain and distress and those boundaries will get pushed.
Anyone who has spent time outside of Europe, will know that Europe is a very small enclave where peaceful democratic principles reign, and where people actually have the freedom to 'rally against the establishment' exactly because they know really that the truth is that the principles of democracy and freedom and civil rights have actually been laid down, so that normal everyday people do actually have the relative peace and tranquility to be able to actually think about such things such as the difference between being a normal person with a conscience and sense of civil liberties and social justice and all that, in comparison to someone who has had to fight to get to the top of whatever pile he found himself in where he had to prove that he had to fight and where he has actually had to close down his emotional empathy otherwise he would just get too hurt and want to curl up and die.
Anyone who has spent any length of time anywhere on the planet, apart from Europe (or maybe even just the tiny island called England or maybe those tiny islands where small groups of activists sit and think that they feel safe with their friends around them) might realise that pyschopaths vying for control of their little worlds is part of every day normal life.
In certain parts of the world, you realise that thinking about such things like 'civilised behaviour' is actually a luxury that only the few in the relative safety of the real civilised world can enjoy and think about.
lili
e-mail:
liliap@btinternet.com