Showing posts with label corporations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label corporations. Show all posts
Monday, July 09, 2012
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Friday, September 02, 2011
The Self-Delusions of the Wealthy: Are They Really Worth What They’re Paid?
“If the wealthy had to work as hard as the janitor, they’d demand enough money to hire someone else to do the job.”
-- Richard Sherricky
As summer slides into fall, if not the financial fall that’s eventual, some things haven’t changed, such as the investment bank aristocracy of Wall Street, already wallowing in obscenely large salaries, apparently believing they actually earn their pay for continuing to peddle worthless paper and hoodwinking their own customers. This addled belief, however, is nothing new.
Having misspent a part of my youth as an advertising executive at a publishing company, I once had an opportunity to encounter wealthy people at business lunches and social functions, and noticed a few habits of hypocritical thinking most of them had in common:
-- To a man — and they were all men back then — they believed, even the silver-spoon trust fund scions and coddled bosses sons, that they were ‘self-made’ and everything they had was attained by their own hard work, even if their wealth was derived from dividend income, the result of a long-dead relative fortunately picking the right investments or starting a successful business.
-- Speaking of hard work, when these CEOs and corporate presidents drifted in at 10 or 11 in the morning to check the mail and sign a few letters, left for a two-hour lunch at 12:30, and then went golfing for the rest of the afternoon, leaving their overworked and underpaid secretaries to run the place, they would still insist that they had ‘worked hard’ all day. The trust fund scoundrels were even worse; they’d sit in a quiet bar in the afternoon hunched over a drink, or lounge at home in their bathrobe, and their ‘work’ for the day consisted of a few calls to the office to see if everything was all right. As usual, a secretary or senior manager was running the company.
-- Whatever their educational institution, Ivy League or state university, they all thought they graduated because they ‘studied hard’ and ‘put their noses to the grindstone’ even though some would laughingly brag, after a few too many cocktails, about how they had hired poor ‘scholarship brainiacs’ or ‘eggheads’ to teach them how to cheat on their tests.
-- While most of them abhorred any publicly-funded program that enabled poor kids to get a better education, and especially affirmative action, they were blind to their own advantages, beyond just being born white. If Uncle Joe picked up the phone to make sure they got into the ‘right’ college, or Daddy was once a student and fast-tracked their ‘legacy’ acceptance into a good university, that was fine — just the way the world worked. Of course, left unsaid was how they would have been able to make their way through college if such financially-strapped ‘scholarship brainiacs’ were not there to help them cheat, just one of many mental cul-de-sacs that these sons of privilege passed by quickly, lest they get caught on their own conundrum.
-- Although most of them supported the war in Vietnam, none of them came close to serving in it. They either received school draft deferments like Dick Cheney; or, like Rush Limbaugh, had a note from the family doctor describing some dread condition that made them militarily unfit, but somehow didn’t interfere with their golf game. Others had a family-friend Congressman intervene to keep them out; or, like Junior Bush, had the Old Man pull a few strings to get them ‘Weekend Warrior’ duty in the National Guard. Privately, they had little regard or compassion for the troops in the field; in fact, they believed them stupid and that the grunts should show gratitude for the opportunity that military service provided to raise their lowly selves out of the ghetto or trailer park. Should they die or be maimed for life during this process of elevation – well, that’s just the price they pay for not having the foresight to be born in better circumstances.
-- Most of them hated paying taxes, the hatred much more intense than that of those lower on the income ladder. Like Leona Helmsley, they thought taxes were fine — for the ‘little people.’ A couple of them were even said to spend more money on lawyers and accountants to avoid paying taxes than the amount they owed in taxes. But they didn’t mind one bit freeloading off poorer folks by using roads, highways, airports, parks, sewer lines and other public facilities partly paid for by the taxes of the non-rich; and they took it for granted their class would receive preferential treatment from cops and firefighters they didn’t want to pay taxes to support. I won’t even get into the courts, prosecutors, and military all arrayed to protect their property that they also didn’t want to pay to uphold — suffice it to say that they didn’t believe in any taxes for themselves, even for those things that benefited them greatly. It would be a mistake to take this as any sort of reasonable consideration on the subject of taxation; it was not – it was a nearly-hysterical emotional reaction born of mindless greed or sheer obtuseness.
Because of my position at the time, I couldn’t easily debunk or refute their various delusions and fits of psychological zoanthropy; to do so might affect my company and my employment there and, frankly, I needed the job. While I would pose a mild question or two -- nothing too challenging or confrontational -- I mainly just listened to their hallucinations. Two of the great common myths of American culture are that you can’t be too rich or too thin. Anyone who has seen a person dying of anorexia knows the first is false, and anyone who has encountered the wealthy as I did knows that an excess of money can be just as harmful to a healthy mind as eating nothing but candy is to the body. One thought, unexpressed, went through my mind repeatedly as I listened and watched these well-heeled business acquaintances go through the motions: what exactly do these people do that is worth so much money? One-thousand dollars an hour or more for calling into the office or letting your secretary handle things? Doling out a few million to someone who cured cancer would seem appropriate; but paying that to a man who rarely worked and took months off for vacation while begrudging his employees a slight raise and a couple of weeks off for a holiday? It was outrageous and the situation has worsened in the decades since these events happened. Then, top executives received about 50 times more than the average worker; today, it’s about 700 times. Yet, are they working any harder than the top execs of the mid-70s? I’d bet Lloyd Blankfein’s yearly salary of $55 million they aren’t.
(Incidentally, I’m exempting here those who really did start their own businesses from scratch with next to nothing. They worked hard getting the place running and deserve to be paid for their effort if they succeed. That said, I don’t know if that effort is worth billions, but that’s a question for another time. Also, I’m not taking a swipe at entertainers or sports stars; most of them also worked hard to get where they are, generally have brief professional lives, and merit compensation for their talents since it’s usually based on public approval rather than a board of directors stocked with your cronies.)
Until executive compensation is brought into line with actual worthwhile work done, and the wealthy have to pay their fair share of taxes, including payroll taxes and capital gains taxes commensurate with what the average worker pays, I don’t think we can resolve our current economic mess.
That aside, the thread running through all of this is the massive degree of self-delusion practiced by those with wealth. It’s scary enough when they know they’re lying to make a buck; it’s pathologically dangerous when they buy into their own fantasies about themselves as have, it seems, the current crop of Wall Street bunco artists and banking grifters. In this case, it won’t end until Richie Rich, ensconced in an office at Goldman Sachs, dreaming up the next fraudulent financial instrument for his firm to foist on the gullible markets, hits bottom – an inevitability since they refuse to learn from their mistakes — and seeks another ‘loan’ from the contemptible ‘little people’ who pay taxes via the federal Big Daddy and, to mix metaphors, the cupboard is bare.
Then these Masters of the Universe will learn the tough lesson the cosseted Junior Bush as president had to endure: there are times when even Big Daddy can’t save you from the hard consequences of acting like a spoiled brat with too much for your own good.
© 2011 RS Janes.
www.fishink.us
-- Richard Sherricky
As summer slides into fall, if not the financial fall that’s eventual, some things haven’t changed, such as the investment bank aristocracy of Wall Street, already wallowing in obscenely large salaries, apparently believing they actually earn their pay for continuing to peddle worthless paper and hoodwinking their own customers. This addled belief, however, is nothing new.
Having misspent a part of my youth as an advertising executive at a publishing company, I once had an opportunity to encounter wealthy people at business lunches and social functions, and noticed a few habits of hypocritical thinking most of them had in common:
-- To a man — and they were all men back then — they believed, even the silver-spoon trust fund scions and coddled bosses sons, that they were ‘self-made’ and everything they had was attained by their own hard work, even if their wealth was derived from dividend income, the result of a long-dead relative fortunately picking the right investments or starting a successful business.
-- Speaking of hard work, when these CEOs and corporate presidents drifted in at 10 or 11 in the morning to check the mail and sign a few letters, left for a two-hour lunch at 12:30, and then went golfing for the rest of the afternoon, leaving their overworked and underpaid secretaries to run the place, they would still insist that they had ‘worked hard’ all day. The trust fund scoundrels were even worse; they’d sit in a quiet bar in the afternoon hunched over a drink, or lounge at home in their bathrobe, and their ‘work’ for the day consisted of a few calls to the office to see if everything was all right. As usual, a secretary or senior manager was running the company.
-- Whatever their educational institution, Ivy League or state university, they all thought they graduated because they ‘studied hard’ and ‘put their noses to the grindstone’ even though some would laughingly brag, after a few too many cocktails, about how they had hired poor ‘scholarship brainiacs’ or ‘eggheads’ to teach them how to cheat on their tests.
-- While most of them abhorred any publicly-funded program that enabled poor kids to get a better education, and especially affirmative action, they were blind to their own advantages, beyond just being born white. If Uncle Joe picked up the phone to make sure they got into the ‘right’ college, or Daddy was once a student and fast-tracked their ‘legacy’ acceptance into a good university, that was fine — just the way the world worked. Of course, left unsaid was how they would have been able to make their way through college if such financially-strapped ‘scholarship brainiacs’ were not there to help them cheat, just one of many mental cul-de-sacs that these sons of privilege passed by quickly, lest they get caught on their own conundrum.
-- Although most of them supported the war in Vietnam, none of them came close to serving in it. They either received school draft deferments like Dick Cheney; or, like Rush Limbaugh, had a note from the family doctor describing some dread condition that made them militarily unfit, but somehow didn’t interfere with their golf game. Others had a family-friend Congressman intervene to keep them out; or, like Junior Bush, had the Old Man pull a few strings to get them ‘Weekend Warrior’ duty in the National Guard. Privately, they had little regard or compassion for the troops in the field; in fact, they believed them stupid and that the grunts should show gratitude for the opportunity that military service provided to raise their lowly selves out of the ghetto or trailer park. Should they die or be maimed for life during this process of elevation – well, that’s just the price they pay for not having the foresight to be born in better circumstances.
-- Most of them hated paying taxes, the hatred much more intense than that of those lower on the income ladder. Like Leona Helmsley, they thought taxes were fine — for the ‘little people.’ A couple of them were even said to spend more money on lawyers and accountants to avoid paying taxes than the amount they owed in taxes. But they didn’t mind one bit freeloading off poorer folks by using roads, highways, airports, parks, sewer lines and other public facilities partly paid for by the taxes of the non-rich; and they took it for granted their class would receive preferential treatment from cops and firefighters they didn’t want to pay taxes to support. I won’t even get into the courts, prosecutors, and military all arrayed to protect their property that they also didn’t want to pay to uphold — suffice it to say that they didn’t believe in any taxes for themselves, even for those things that benefited them greatly. It would be a mistake to take this as any sort of reasonable consideration on the subject of taxation; it was not – it was a nearly-hysterical emotional reaction born of mindless greed or sheer obtuseness.
Because of my position at the time, I couldn’t easily debunk or refute their various delusions and fits of psychological zoanthropy; to do so might affect my company and my employment there and, frankly, I needed the job. While I would pose a mild question or two -- nothing too challenging or confrontational -- I mainly just listened to their hallucinations. Two of the great common myths of American culture are that you can’t be too rich or too thin. Anyone who has seen a person dying of anorexia knows the first is false, and anyone who has encountered the wealthy as I did knows that an excess of money can be just as harmful to a healthy mind as eating nothing but candy is to the body. One thought, unexpressed, went through my mind repeatedly as I listened and watched these well-heeled business acquaintances go through the motions: what exactly do these people do that is worth so much money? One-thousand dollars an hour or more for calling into the office or letting your secretary handle things? Doling out a few million to someone who cured cancer would seem appropriate; but paying that to a man who rarely worked and took months off for vacation while begrudging his employees a slight raise and a couple of weeks off for a holiday? It was outrageous and the situation has worsened in the decades since these events happened. Then, top executives received about 50 times more than the average worker; today, it’s about 700 times. Yet, are they working any harder than the top execs of the mid-70s? I’d bet Lloyd Blankfein’s yearly salary of $55 million they aren’t.
(Incidentally, I’m exempting here those who really did start their own businesses from scratch with next to nothing. They worked hard getting the place running and deserve to be paid for their effort if they succeed. That said, I don’t know if that effort is worth billions, but that’s a question for another time. Also, I’m not taking a swipe at entertainers or sports stars; most of them also worked hard to get where they are, generally have brief professional lives, and merit compensation for their talents since it’s usually based on public approval rather than a board of directors stocked with your cronies.)
Until executive compensation is brought into line with actual worthwhile work done, and the wealthy have to pay their fair share of taxes, including payroll taxes and capital gains taxes commensurate with what the average worker pays, I don’t think we can resolve our current economic mess.
That aside, the thread running through all of this is the massive degree of self-delusion practiced by those with wealth. It’s scary enough when they know they’re lying to make a buck; it’s pathologically dangerous when they buy into their own fantasies about themselves as have, it seems, the current crop of Wall Street bunco artists and banking grifters. In this case, it won’t end until Richie Rich, ensconced in an office at Goldman Sachs, dreaming up the next fraudulent financial instrument for his firm to foist on the gullible markets, hits bottom – an inevitability since they refuse to learn from their mistakes — and seeks another ‘loan’ from the contemptible ‘little people’ who pay taxes via the federal Big Daddy and, to mix metaphors, the cupboard is bare.
Then these Masters of the Universe will learn the tough lesson the cosseted Junior Bush as president had to endure: there are times when even Big Daddy can’t save you from the hard consequences of acting like a spoiled brat with too much for your own good.
© 2011 RS Janes.
www.fishink.us
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Thursday, April 14, 2011
The Facts of the Leisure Class
"All business sagacity reduces itself in the last analysis to the judicious use of sabotage."
-- Thorstein Veblen, author of "The Theory of the Leisure Class."
Left click on image to enlarge.
Saturday, March 12, 2011
The Tattlesnake – Defending Charlie Sheen Edition
Is it crazy to stand up to corporations and media parasites that are trying to tell you how to live your life?
Charlie Sheen's gotten a bum rap from the media lately because he refused to play the corporate and tabloid-TV game: the Shamed Celebrity is supposed to enter rehab and emerge contrite and chastened and just so gleefully grateful his corporate employer stuck by him during his time of need. Instead, Sheen called CBS and his producers on their 'we care' bullshit, and told the media hypocrites that parasitically cover celebrities to stuff it where the moon don't shine. Here's a news flash you won't see on the MSM: When celebs enter rehab, it's mainly for PR, career, or project-insurance purposes and there is no shortage of drugs and alcohol at any of the well-known rehab ranches that cater to the famous. What are they going to do, kick them out and lose all of that money? No, they turn a blind eye and cooperate in the fraud that the celebrity is 'cured,' and everybody goes home happy. Charlie Sheen just refused to indulge in this fetid game and, for that, he should be applauded.
Is he crazy? Maybe, but no more than most of us, and he's not advising that we hurt or hate anyone. If you read his quotes below, he often makes considerable sense and he frequently lampoons himself, which the TMZ-style media are apparently too obtuse to recognize. He's certainly more honest and lucid than the demented wolfpack of politicians and pundits that appear on Meet the Press every Sunday and are treated as sane and reasonable.
If a Hunter S. Thompson had given Charlie's recent interviews, some of the same people pointing the 'nutjob drug addict' finger at Charlie Sheen and 'tsk, tsk' self-righteously shaking their heads over his sure demise, would be laughing with or praising him. But because he's known as a film/TV actor, and many of them don't want to offend Viacom/CBS for professional reasons, they toe the corporate line that Sheen is spinning out of control and needs help. Haven't we learned by now that large corporations do not have compassionate souls that take pity on their employees, and neither do the heads of Hollywood production companies? It's all about the money.
Aside from that, when did Charlie Sheen's personal life become the concern of anyone but himself and those around him? How would you like your personal problems exaggerated and splashed all over the TV beast and the Internet?
As you read the poem below, pretend they are the words of a beat poet rather than a movie star. It might give you a whole different perspective; "Droopy-eyed armless children" by itself is a line worthy of a Jack Kerouac novel or Allen Ginsberg epic.
"Winning"
The words of Charlie Sheen edited into poetry
I so desperately wanted to be
Mr. Somebody.
Instead, I was the little brother…
As kids we're not taught how to deal
with success; we're taught how to
deal with failure.
If at first you don't succeed,
try, try again.
If at first you succeed,
then what?
C’mon, bro, I won best picture at 20!
I wasn’t even trying.
I wasn’t even warm.
Fame is empowering.
My mistake was that I thought
I would instinctively know
how to handle it.
But there's no manual,
no training course.
The run I was on made Sinatra,
Flynn, Jagger, Richards,
all of them look like
droopy-eyed armless children!
Sure, I did a lot of things in excess.
But if you look at the core,
the foundation of what I pursued,
what red-blooded young American
male in my position wouldn't?
But you can't focus on things
that matter if all you've been
is asleep for forty years.
Funny how sleep
rhymes with sheep.
I'm tired of ignoring that I
march to a different beat.
I will not believe that
if I do something then
I have to follow a certain
path because it was
written for normal people.
People who aren’t special.
People who don’t have
tiger blood and Adonis DNA!
I’m tired of pretending I’m not
a total bitchin’ rock star from Mars!
Here's the good news:
If I realize that I'm insane,
then I'm okay with it.
I'm not dangerous insane.
I am on a drug.
It's called Charlie Sheen.
It's not available because
if you try it, you will die.
Your face will melt off and
your children will weep over
your exploded body.
What you come to discover is,
it isn't how you get there,
it's that you get there.
If that's what it took to get me
where I'm at today,
so be it.
People go,
'What's going on with this guy?
Why does he sound so weird?
What is going on in his brain?'
I don't know. Just one day I
suddenly woke up with a new brain.
I love it! It's original!
You don't have the right to judge me.
Look what I’m dealing with, man,
I’m dealing with fools and trolls!
'Can't' is the cancer of happening.
That's life. There's nobility in that.
There's focus. It's genuine.
It's crystal and it's pure and
it's available to everybody,
so just shut your traps and
put down your McDonald's,
your vaccines, your US Weekly,
your TMZ and the rest of it.
There have to be more important
things going on in the world than
my past.
Uncertainty is a sign of humility,
and humility is just the ability or
the willingness to learn.
I’m sorry, man, I got magic and
I’ve got poetry in my fingertips,
you know, most of the time,
and this includes naps.
You either love or you hate.
You live in the middle,
you get nothing.
Boom, crush!
Night, losers.
Winning, duh!
Bring me Dr. Clown shoes!
[End]
© 2011 RS Janes. LTSaloon.org.
Charlie Sheen's gotten a bum rap from the media lately because he refused to play the corporate and tabloid-TV game: the Shamed Celebrity is supposed to enter rehab and emerge contrite and chastened and just so gleefully grateful his corporate employer stuck by him during his time of need. Instead, Sheen called CBS and his producers on their 'we care' bullshit, and told the media hypocrites that parasitically cover celebrities to stuff it where the moon don't shine. Here's a news flash you won't see on the MSM: When celebs enter rehab, it's mainly for PR, career, or project-insurance purposes and there is no shortage of drugs and alcohol at any of the well-known rehab ranches that cater to the famous. What are they going to do, kick them out and lose all of that money? No, they turn a blind eye and cooperate in the fraud that the celebrity is 'cured,' and everybody goes home happy. Charlie Sheen just refused to indulge in this fetid game and, for that, he should be applauded.
Is he crazy? Maybe, but no more than most of us, and he's not advising that we hurt or hate anyone. If you read his quotes below, he often makes considerable sense and he frequently lampoons himself, which the TMZ-style media are apparently too obtuse to recognize. He's certainly more honest and lucid than the demented wolfpack of politicians and pundits that appear on Meet the Press every Sunday and are treated as sane and reasonable.
If a Hunter S. Thompson had given Charlie's recent interviews, some of the same people pointing the 'nutjob drug addict' finger at Charlie Sheen and 'tsk, tsk' self-righteously shaking their heads over his sure demise, would be laughing with or praising him. But because he's known as a film/TV actor, and many of them don't want to offend Viacom/CBS for professional reasons, they toe the corporate line that Sheen is spinning out of control and needs help. Haven't we learned by now that large corporations do not have compassionate souls that take pity on their employees, and neither do the heads of Hollywood production companies? It's all about the money.
Aside from that, when did Charlie Sheen's personal life become the concern of anyone but himself and those around him? How would you like your personal problems exaggerated and splashed all over the TV beast and the Internet?
As you read the poem below, pretend they are the words of a beat poet rather than a movie star. It might give you a whole different perspective; "Droopy-eyed armless children" by itself is a line worthy of a Jack Kerouac novel or Allen Ginsberg epic.
"Winning"
The words of Charlie Sheen edited into poetry
I so desperately wanted to be
Mr. Somebody.
Instead, I was the little brother…
As kids we're not taught how to deal
with success; we're taught how to
deal with failure.
If at first you don't succeed,
try, try again.
If at first you succeed,
then what?
C’mon, bro, I won best picture at 20!
I wasn’t even trying.
I wasn’t even warm.
Fame is empowering.
My mistake was that I thought
I would instinctively know
how to handle it.
But there's no manual,
no training course.
The run I was on made Sinatra,
Flynn, Jagger, Richards,
all of them look like
droopy-eyed armless children!
Sure, I did a lot of things in excess.
But if you look at the core,
the foundation of what I pursued,
what red-blooded young American
male in my position wouldn't?
But you can't focus on things
that matter if all you've been
is asleep for forty years.
Funny how sleep
rhymes with sheep.
I'm tired of ignoring that I
march to a different beat.
I will not believe that
if I do something then
I have to follow a certain
path because it was
written for normal people.
People who aren’t special.
People who don’t have
tiger blood and Adonis DNA!
I’m tired of pretending I’m not
a total bitchin’ rock star from Mars!
Here's the good news:
If I realize that I'm insane,
then I'm okay with it.
I'm not dangerous insane.
I am on a drug.
It's called Charlie Sheen.
It's not available because
if you try it, you will die.
Your face will melt off and
your children will weep over
your exploded body.
What you come to discover is,
it isn't how you get there,
it's that you get there.
If that's what it took to get me
where I'm at today,
so be it.
People go,
'What's going on with this guy?
Why does he sound so weird?
What is going on in his brain?'
I don't know. Just one day I
suddenly woke up with a new brain.
I love it! It's original!
You don't have the right to judge me.
Look what I’m dealing with, man,
I’m dealing with fools and trolls!
'Can't' is the cancer of happening.
That's life. There's nobility in that.
There's focus. It's genuine.
It's crystal and it's pure and
it's available to everybody,
so just shut your traps and
put down your McDonald's,
your vaccines, your US Weekly,
your TMZ and the rest of it.
There have to be more important
things going on in the world than
my past.
Uncertainty is a sign of humility,
and humility is just the ability or
the willingness to learn.
I’m sorry, man, I got magic and
I’ve got poetry in my fingertips,
you know, most of the time,
and this includes naps.
You either love or you hate.
You live in the middle,
you get nothing.
Boom, crush!
Night, losers.
Winning, duh!
Bring me Dr. Clown shoes!
[End]
© 2011 RS Janes. LTSaloon.org.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Hard-Working Americans Are 'Bottom-Feeders' and 'Freeloaders' to the Elitist Limbaugh
Left click on image to enlarge.Friday, January 21, 2011
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Thursday, February 04, 2010
Monday, November 30, 2009
Thursday, April 19, 2007
The Virginia Tech Killer: Who Does It Sound Like? Edition
"It would be a gross deception to admit power intoxication only for the individual psyche. The mass also is guided by this goal and the effect of this is the more devastating as in the mass psyche the feeling of personal responsibility is essentially reduced."
-- Alfred Adler, "The Psychology of Power," 1928.
"The close relationship between politics and power has always been recognized. In the world of politics, Lassalles' expression still has currency: 'Constitutional struggles are struggles for power.' ..... Masaryk's expression, 'There will be no peace in the world as long as individual ethics do not also apply to the state,' is as much a criticism of the present as a challenge for the future."
-- Alexander Mueller, "The Principles of Individual Psychology."
April 19, 2007 -- On MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann last night, the subject, as it has been on most of the cable news shows recently, was once again the Virginia Tech killer, Cho Seung-Hui.
Keith's been better at plowing this gutted field for new information than most of the news media, but what caught my attention were the words and phrases uttered by his guest experts.
Former FBI profiler Gregg McCrary described Cho Seung-Hui as full of "paranoid delusions," addicted to his own "grandiosity,"and someone who wanted to gain "power through violence."
Later in the show Keith welcomed Dr. Susan Lipkins, a psychologist, who gave her professional perspective on the crazed murderer, depicting him as "operating outside of reality" and exhibiting "extreme behavior" as a result. She added that, typically, psychotic killers "think that they are god" at which time they should be "removed from society" when they are "found to be incompetent."
This morning Melissa Segrest had an article up at MSN, "Getting Inside the Mind of a Killer." She also consulted experts who rendered their opinions on the Virginia Tech maniac.
Dr. James Alan Fox, a professor of criminal justice at Boston's Northeastern University who has spent 25 years studying mass murderers, said, "Typically you have someone who has a long history of frustration and failure..." and "They have a diminished capacity to cope with disappointment." He added, "they are people who blame others for those failures, they externalize blame, they never see themselves as responsible, ... and they're angry, they're full of blame and resentment."
Dr. Robert R. Butterworth, a Los Angeles psychologist who works with violent criminals and heads International Trauma Associates, told Segrest, "A lot of times these people are somewhat aloof from people. They're very sensitive to slights," and summed up, "They're not friendly, they're usually socially inept, they have problems a lot of times with females and sometimes they have a fascination with guns."
Dr. Stanton Samenow, a clinical psychologist who has been has been studying killers since 1970 and wrote the book "Inside the Criminal Mind," added, "These men interpret any affront or adversity very personally. It threatens their very sense of who they are. They think in extremes... They are constantly angry at a world that, from their perspective, does not give them what they are due."
Samenow also said, "These are people who know right from wrong. They also know the potential consequences to themselves if they are caught .... When they commit the crime, they are certain about their course of action. They are deliberate and purposeful. They may have planned the crime well in advance. At the time they commit the crime, they are calm -- having shut off all fear."
Dr. Butterworth put in, "We're developing a narcissistic, angry culture that, when crossed, are prone to attack."
And Dr. Fox concluded, "We've become much more of a competitive society. We admire the winners and we pity the losers. We have no tolerance for them. We ridicule them and vote them off the island." Later, he said, "The more people they kill, the greater the level of satisfaction they feel and derive from the crime."
Read through these quotes and what picture emerges -- who does it sound like?
"[P]aranoid delusions," "grandiosity" gaining "power through violence."
"operating outside of reality" "extreme behavior" "think that they are god."
Just look at the history of the Bush Administration; paranoid delusions about the power of Al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations; obvious grandiosity and god-like thinking in Bush believing he was installed as president by the Creator of the Universe; gaining power through violence is in progress in the Middle East, if not in this country; some might consider invading another country on false pretenses and killing innocent civilians was extreme behavior; and operating outside of reality is the modus operandi of the Bushies and their neocon supporters.
"[They have] a long history of frustration and failure...They have a diminished capacity to cope with disappointment. [T]hey are people who blame others for those failures, they externalize blame, they never see themselves as responsible, ... and they're angry, they're full of blame and resentment."
The Bush neocon 'experiment' has been one long trail of frustration and failure, and the Bush neocons pathologically evade responsibility and blame others for their failures. The media neocons -- O'Reilly, Hannity, Boortz, et al -- are hair-triggers seething with anger, blame and resentment and appeal to an audience similarly ill-disposed.
"These men interpret any affront or adversity very personally. It threatens their very sense of who they are. They think in extremes ... They are constantly angry at a world that, from their perspective, does not give them what they are due."
Both the neocons and the Bushies are prime examples of this: political disagreements are always personal, and they can't deal with adversity maturely. Every slight or failure is a challenge to their manhood. Thinking in extremes and angry at the world? Read Ann Coulter, Anti-Idiotarian Rottweilers, Little Green Footballs, Charles Krauthammer or listen to Michael Savage, Glenn Beck, Neal Boortz or Rush Limbaugh.
"These are people who know right from wrong. They also know the potential consequences to themselves if they are caught.... When they commit the crime, they are certain about their course of action. They are deliberate and purposeful. They may have planned the crime well in advance."
Isn't this a pretty good description of the Bush Administration? From using false intelligence to invade Iraq, to leaking Valerie Plame's name, to Alberto Gonzales' blatant lies, to the current fiasco over Rove's emails, ad nauseum, they knew what they were doing was wrong, but were deliberate and purposeful in their planning to accomplish their treacherous and illegal goals.
"They're very sensitive to slights,...They're not friendly, they're usually socially inept, they have problems a lot of times with females and sometimes they have a fascination with guns."
Check out who advertises on neocon websites, and the fascination with guns, general unfriendliness, problems with females and social ineptitude should be clear. Sensitivity to slights -- have you ever known anyone as thin-skinned as a neocon?
"We're developing a narcissistic, angry culture that, when crossed, are prone to attack."
Read the neocon blogs -- it doesn't get more angry, narcissistic and prone to attack than that.
"We've become much more of a competitive society. We admire the winners and we pity the losers. We have no tolerance for them. We ridicule them and vote them off the island. ... The more people they kill, the greater the level of satisfaction they feel and derive from the crime."
The entire greedy, demented consumer culture, the one advertised and promoted every day by the six big US media conglomerates and global corporations, and wallowed in by the Bush neocons, has no tolerance or pity for losers. "The good calls are for winners." Losers -- usually defined as minorities, Democrats, women and liberals -- are mercilessly derided by right-wing sites, who, steeped in their fervid delusions and contrary to harsh reality, think they are winners with all the answers. They don't realize the only winners are the corporations and their political and media shills making a buck off them and conning them for votes. At some point, they will have a rude awakening as they are 'voted off the island' by those they idolized when they lose their job, their pension or their house. (It's happening every day.) Then, they might be enlightened by reality but, more likely, they'll just crawl further back in the cave, alternately bellowing and whimpering. And, yes, they do seem to derive great satisfaction from the deaths of those they've deemed the enemy -- Iraqi insurgents, Afghanis, Muslims in general, Spanish-speaking immigrants, poor blacks and, of course, the Devil's minions who are the fount of all the world's problems, liberals and Democrats.
They should be "removed from society [when they are] "found to be incompetent."
I don't think this government's monumental incompetence is even an issue for reasonable debate any longer. In the case of the Bushies, impeachment is the obvious answer to remove them from doing further harm. In the case of the neocons, they have, and should have, freedom of speech, so they can say or write whatever they want, but I'd keep them away from the Glock 9mm's just in case.
Most of them are only courageous when hiding behind a screen name or a microphone -- hence the paltry number of neocon frothers who've signed up to fight in Bush's Global War on Terror -- but you never know when one of them might take some Viagra and go off half-cocked.
"To prevail through violence appears to many as an obvious thought. And we admit: the simplest way to attain everything that is good and promises happiness, or even only what is in the line of a continuous evolution seems to be by means of power. But where in the life of men or in the history of mankind has such an attempt ever succeeded? As far as we can see, even the use of mild violence awakens opposition everywhere, even where the welfare of the subjugated is obviously intended."
-- Alfred Adler, "The Psychology of Power," 1928.
-- Alfred Adler, "The Psychology of Power," 1928.
"The close relationship between politics and power has always been recognized. In the world of politics, Lassalles' expression still has currency: 'Constitutional struggles are struggles for power.' ..... Masaryk's expression, 'There will be no peace in the world as long as individual ethics do not also apply to the state,' is as much a criticism of the present as a challenge for the future."
-- Alexander Mueller, "The Principles of Individual Psychology."
April 19, 2007 -- On MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann last night, the subject, as it has been on most of the cable news shows recently, was once again the Virginia Tech killer, Cho Seung-Hui.
Keith's been better at plowing this gutted field for new information than most of the news media, but what caught my attention were the words and phrases uttered by his guest experts.
Former FBI profiler Gregg McCrary described Cho Seung-Hui as full of "paranoid delusions," addicted to his own "grandiosity,"and someone who wanted to gain "power through violence."
Later in the show Keith welcomed Dr. Susan Lipkins, a psychologist, who gave her professional perspective on the crazed murderer, depicting him as "operating outside of reality" and exhibiting "extreme behavior" as a result. She added that, typically, psychotic killers "think that they are god" at which time they should be "removed from society" when they are "found to be incompetent."
This morning Melissa Segrest had an article up at MSN, "Getting Inside the Mind of a Killer." She also consulted experts who rendered their opinions on the Virginia Tech maniac.
Dr. James Alan Fox, a professor of criminal justice at Boston's Northeastern University who has spent 25 years studying mass murderers, said, "Typically you have someone who has a long history of frustration and failure..." and "They have a diminished capacity to cope with disappointment." He added, "they are people who blame others for those failures, they externalize blame, they never see themselves as responsible, ... and they're angry, they're full of blame and resentment."
Dr. Robert R. Butterworth, a Los Angeles psychologist who works with violent criminals and heads International Trauma Associates, told Segrest, "A lot of times these people are somewhat aloof from people. They're very sensitive to slights," and summed up, "They're not friendly, they're usually socially inept, they have problems a lot of times with females and sometimes they have a fascination with guns."
Dr. Stanton Samenow, a clinical psychologist who has been has been studying killers since 1970 and wrote the book "Inside the Criminal Mind," added, "These men interpret any affront or adversity very personally. It threatens their very sense of who they are. They think in extremes... They are constantly angry at a world that, from their perspective, does not give them what they are due."
Samenow also said, "These are people who know right from wrong. They also know the potential consequences to themselves if they are caught .... When they commit the crime, they are certain about their course of action. They are deliberate and purposeful. They may have planned the crime well in advance. At the time they commit the crime, they are calm -- having shut off all fear."
Dr. Butterworth put in, "We're developing a narcissistic, angry culture that, when crossed, are prone to attack."
And Dr. Fox concluded, "We've become much more of a competitive society. We admire the winners and we pity the losers. We have no tolerance for them. We ridicule them and vote them off the island." Later, he said, "The more people they kill, the greater the level of satisfaction they feel and derive from the crime."
Read through these quotes and what picture emerges -- who does it sound like?
"[P]aranoid delusions," "grandiosity" gaining "power through violence."
"operating outside of reality" "extreme behavior" "think that they are god."
Just look at the history of the Bush Administration; paranoid delusions about the power of Al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations; obvious grandiosity and god-like thinking in Bush believing he was installed as president by the Creator of the Universe; gaining power through violence is in progress in the Middle East, if not in this country; some might consider invading another country on false pretenses and killing innocent civilians was extreme behavior; and operating outside of reality is the modus operandi of the Bushies and their neocon supporters.
"[They have] a long history of frustration and failure...They have a diminished capacity to cope with disappointment. [T]hey are people who blame others for those failures, they externalize blame, they never see themselves as responsible, ... and they're angry, they're full of blame and resentment."
The Bush neocon 'experiment' has been one long trail of frustration and failure, and the Bush neocons pathologically evade responsibility and blame others for their failures. The media neocons -- O'Reilly, Hannity, Boortz, et al -- are hair-triggers seething with anger, blame and resentment and appeal to an audience similarly ill-disposed.
"These men interpret any affront or adversity very personally. It threatens their very sense of who they are. They think in extremes ... They are constantly angry at a world that, from their perspective, does not give them what they are due."
Both the neocons and the Bushies are prime examples of this: political disagreements are always personal, and they can't deal with adversity maturely. Every slight or failure is a challenge to their manhood. Thinking in extremes and angry at the world? Read Ann Coulter, Anti-Idiotarian Rottweilers, Little Green Footballs, Charles Krauthammer or listen to Michael Savage, Glenn Beck, Neal Boortz or Rush Limbaugh.
"These are people who know right from wrong. They also know the potential consequences to themselves if they are caught.... When they commit the crime, they are certain about their course of action. They are deliberate and purposeful. They may have planned the crime well in advance."
Isn't this a pretty good description of the Bush Administration? From using false intelligence to invade Iraq, to leaking Valerie Plame's name, to Alberto Gonzales' blatant lies, to the current fiasco over Rove's emails, ad nauseum, they knew what they were doing was wrong, but were deliberate and purposeful in their planning to accomplish their treacherous and illegal goals.
"They're very sensitive to slights,...They're not friendly, they're usually socially inept, they have problems a lot of times with females and sometimes they have a fascination with guns."
Check out who advertises on neocon websites, and the fascination with guns, general unfriendliness, problems with females and social ineptitude should be clear. Sensitivity to slights -- have you ever known anyone as thin-skinned as a neocon?
"We're developing a narcissistic, angry culture that, when crossed, are prone to attack."
Read the neocon blogs -- it doesn't get more angry, narcissistic and prone to attack than that.
"We've become much more of a competitive society. We admire the winners and we pity the losers. We have no tolerance for them. We ridicule them and vote them off the island. ... The more people they kill, the greater the level of satisfaction they feel and derive from the crime."
The entire greedy, demented consumer culture, the one advertised and promoted every day by the six big US media conglomerates and global corporations, and wallowed in by the Bush neocons, has no tolerance or pity for losers. "The good calls are for winners." Losers -- usually defined as minorities, Democrats, women and liberals -- are mercilessly derided by right-wing sites, who, steeped in their fervid delusions and contrary to harsh reality, think they are winners with all the answers. They don't realize the only winners are the corporations and their political and media shills making a buck off them and conning them for votes. At some point, they will have a rude awakening as they are 'voted off the island' by those they idolized when they lose their job, their pension or their house. (It's happening every day.) Then, they might be enlightened by reality but, more likely, they'll just crawl further back in the cave, alternately bellowing and whimpering. And, yes, they do seem to derive great satisfaction from the deaths of those they've deemed the enemy -- Iraqi insurgents, Afghanis, Muslims in general, Spanish-speaking immigrants, poor blacks and, of course, the Devil's minions who are the fount of all the world's problems, liberals and Democrats.
They should be "removed from society [when they are] "found to be incompetent."
I don't think this government's monumental incompetence is even an issue for reasonable debate any longer. In the case of the Bushies, impeachment is the obvious answer to remove them from doing further harm. In the case of the neocons, they have, and should have, freedom of speech, so they can say or write whatever they want, but I'd keep them away from the Glock 9mm's just in case.
Most of them are only courageous when hiding behind a screen name or a microphone -- hence the paltry number of neocon frothers who've signed up to fight in Bush's Global War on Terror -- but you never know when one of them might take some Viagra and go off half-cocked.
"To prevail through violence appears to many as an obvious thought. And we admit: the simplest way to attain everything that is good and promises happiness, or even only what is in the line of a continuous evolution seems to be by means of power. But where in the life of men or in the history of mankind has such an attempt ever succeeded? As far as we can see, even the use of mild violence awakens opposition everywhere, even where the welfare of the subjugated is obviously intended."
-- Alfred Adler, "The Psychology of Power," 1928.
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