Political and Corporate Pathology

Psychopaths Among Us

Excerpt:

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

Corporate Psychopaths

Excerpt:

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

John Michael Farren, Ex-Bush Lawyer, Tried To Kill Wife: Connecticut Police

Excerpt:

NEW HAVEN, Conn. — An attorney who worked in both Bush administrations was charged Thursday with trying to kill his wife by beating her with a flashlight and choking her two days after she delivered divorce papers. – Read more at the Huffington Post

Former George W. Bush Attorney Arrested

Excerpt:

A former attorney to President George W. Bush was arrested Wednesday at his Connecticut home and accused of trying to kill his wife, according to the New Canaan Police Department. – Read more at the CNN Political Ticker

Disgraced Miss. Judge Reports to Federal Prison

Excerpt:

by Holbrook Mohr, Associated Press Writer Holbrook Mohr, Associated Press Writer – Mon Jan 4, 9:18 pm ET

(source: Yahoo News)
JACKSON, Miss. – Bobby DeLaughter, a former Mississippi prosecutor and judge whose legal conquests became the subject of books and a movie, reported to federal prison Monday for lying to the FBI in a judicial bribery investigation. – Read more on the Yahoo News website

Review of New Movie Prince of the City

Excerpt:
EDITOR’S NOTE: Rarely do readers get the real story on cops and courts. When the public focuses on corruption in the so-called justice system, virtually all the weight falls on the cops. The lawyers and judges are much more adept at evading justice. Author and former NYPD Detective Bob Leuci knows the score. He lived it. Leuci will be appearing in Connecticut Jan. 15, 2010 as part of the CT Young Writers Triple Knockout event at the Hartford Club. Following are some video excerpts of Prince of the City and links to Leuci books and details about the upcoming event. – Read more on the Cool Justice Blog

FBI’s 10 Most Wanted List – Semion Mogilevich

Excerpt:
“A Ukrainian businessman charged with more than 40 counts of racketeering, wire fraud, mail fraud, money laundering, and other economic crimes carried out in dozens of countries around the world is the newest addition to our Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list.

Semion Mogilevich is wanted for his alleged participation in a multi-million dollar scheme to defraud investors in the stock of YBM Magnex International, a company he controlled—which had its world headquarters just outside Philadelphia—that was supposed to manufacture magnets but instead bilked investors out of $150 million.” – Read more on the FBI website

Dimitri The Lover’s History Of Sexual Assault, Weapons Stockpiling And Psychiatric Evaluations
By Moe, 5:40 PM on Fri Jun 27 2008
(source:  Jezebel, Celebrity, Sex, and Fashion for Women)

Oh god, here goes. You know how we sort of stopped wanting to hear about Paul Janka when he officially became an accused sex assailant (or actually, come to think of it, when he assaulted me a few months before that?) Well, over the course of a day Dimitri the creep behind a couple fake-seemingly funny voicemails revealed himself to be Dimitri the douchebag with disciples, who revealed himself to be Dmitri a.k.a. James Sears. And yeah, if all the “there’s nothing wrong with me” talk on his voicemail wasn’t a red enough flag for you, maybe the 1986 concern of the military psychiatrist who evaluated him during his enlistment in the Canadian Army that there was “something seriously wrong” with him is? But don’t take it from those shrinks; his psychiatric evaluation when he went to med school states that he got drunk and high on call, made “numerous random and obsessive telephone calls” to women during which he would (only sometimes) jerk off, and was generally immature and narcissistic — but not enough to deny him a medical license.

Maybe they didn’t know about the mace, stun gun and EMPTY HAND GRENADE CANISTERS cops reported finding in his room after he tried to enter a female officer’s dorm? Anyway, he failed to “grow up” much, spending his residency masturbating six or seven times a day at work and garnering complaints from female patients, one of whom finally pressed sexual assault charges, to which he pled guilty and got out of practicing medicine. So he could work as a “medical investigator” offering a second opinion on… SEXUAL HARRASSMENT SUITS.

UPDATE: The Toronto Sun re-posted the story on its wesbite.

The Toronto Sun

The most promiscuous women, according to Dimitri’s website, are saleswomen (especially real estate agents), nannies, schoolteachers (especially elementary and early childhood education), nurses and lawyers (criminal and civil litigation in particular).

Dimitri charges $40 to attend one of his weekday meetings, $269 for an annual membership to his “lair” and as much as $2,997 plus GST for a two-day workshop advertised on his website, dimitrithelover.com, where “Dimitri The Lover creates a powerful identity for you that women will find irresistible.”

Also from the website:

“Learn the secret physical, verbal and psychological techniques used by Dimitri the Lover to seduce, pleasure and sexually enslave women,” says one of his program outlines.

Or this: “A man’s ‘basic operating system’ is composed of ‘rapist’ and ‘murderer’ programs which have been hard-wired into his brain.

And here’s a snippet from his marketing materials:
“Dimitri The Lover is the ONLY pickup guru in the world WITH PROFESSIONAL CREDENTIALS TO BACK HIM UP who has conducted IN-FIELD MEDICAL RESEARCH ON SEDUCTION!!!” he proclaims in another.

However, his troubled past and medical credentials are hardly worth bragging about.

Dimitri the Lover’s real name is James N. Sears.
…

By 1986, Sears was in the Canadian Armed Forces and while still a third-year medical student was evaluated by a military psychiatrist who suggested there was “something seriously wrong” with Sears.

He was shunned by fellow students because of his behaviour. A female officer complained he repeatedly tried to enter her room, and military police found “a can of Mace, several knives, two empty smoke grenade canisters and an electronic stun gun” in his room following an incident.

As a result of his antics, Sears had to repeat a year of medical school. Despite documented reservations, he graduated from U of T as a doctor in 1988.

During his internship at Doctors Hospital in Toronto, Sears skipped duties, drank while on call, indulged in “inappropriate self-use of prescription drugs,” according to the College hearing record.

Sears was judged “immature” in a subsequent psychiatric assessment and it was noted he displayed “inappropriate behaviour towards female staff members,” and was viewed by peers as “un -trustworthy, cynical and narcissistic.”

He underwent psychotherapy and was admitted to Ottawa’s National Defence Medical Centre in 1990 for evaluation and treatment.

There, “record was made of numerous, random and obsessive telephone calls to women during which he would sometimes masturbate,” and evidence suggested “prescribable substance abuse,” according to the College hearing records.

However, after a conclusion of “no clear evidence of major psychiatric illness,” Sears was cleared to return to medical practice.

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Evangelist Tony Alamo convicted of child sex crimes
July 24, 6:10 PM

(source: examiner.com)

Remember Tony Alamo? He’s the founder of Arkansas’ Alamo Christian Ministries and, if you read his tracts, a persecuted Christ-like figure who has been victimized by everyone from Ronald Reagan and the federal government to the Pope. Today he’s been convicted in a Texarkana courtroom of 10 counts of sex abuse against girls as young as 9. The victims, who currently range in age from 17 to 33, testified that Alamo “married” them in private ceremonies while they were still minors and transported them across state lines for sexual gratification. He could receive a sentence of up to 175 years in prison as well as a $250,000 fine for each count.

Born September 20, 1934 as Bernie LaZar Hoffman, the flamboyant Alamo has been making headlines for years. He changed his name to Tony Alamo in 1966 when he married his second wife, Susan. Hand his wife founded the Tony and Susan Alamo Christian Foundation in Hollywood, California in1969. They ran a television ministry and sold a line of “Tony Alamo” brand sequined jackets on the side. When Susan died of cancer in 1984, he kept the body on display for 6 months and in his possession for 16 years before releasing it to her family.

This is hardly Alamo’s first run-in with the law either. He spent 4 years in prison as a result of a 1994 conviction for tax evasion. His Foulke, Arkansas compound has been raided before over civil suits and other actions but the current trial came after a September 2008 raid involving allegations of child abuse and child pornography. After the conviction, he left the courthouse to be greeted by cries of “Bye, bye Bernie!” (a reference to his birth name). As US marshalls escorted him to their van, the 74-year-old Alamo called out to reporters, “I’m just another one of the prophets that went to jail for the Gospel.”

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(Source: SLATE–Online Magazine)

But Enough About You …What is narcissistic personality disorder, and why does everyone seem to have it?

By Emily Yoffe Posted Wednesday, March 18, 2009, at 7:05 AM ET

The narcissists did it. Some commentators are fingering them as the culprits of the financial meltdown. A Bloomberg columnist blamed the conceited for our financial troubles in a piece titled “Harvard Narcissists With MBAs Killed Wall Street.” A Wall Street Journal op-ed on California’s economy suggested that Gov. Schwarzenegger’s desire for voter’s love (“It’s classic narcissism”) helped cause the state’s budget debacle. A forthcoming book, The Narcissism Epidemic, says we went on a national binge of I-deserve-it consumption that’s now resulting in our economic purging.

This is the cultural moment of the narcissist. In a New Yorker cartoon, Roz Chast suggests a line of narcissist greeting cards (“Wow! Your Birthday’s Really Close to Mine!”). John Edwards outed himself as one when forced to confess an adulterous affair. (Given his comical vanity, the deceitful way he used his marriage for his advancement, and his self-elevation as an embodiment of the common man while living in a house the size of an arena, it sounds like a pretty good diagnosis.) New York Times critic Alessandra Stanley wrote of journalists who Twitter, “it’s beginning to look more like yet another gateway drug to full-blown media narcissism.” And what other malady could explain the simultaneous phenomena of Blago and the Octomom?

These days, “narcissist” gets tossed around as an all-purpose insult, a description of self-aggrandizing, obnoxious behavior. Unfortunately, the same word is used to describe a quality that comes in three gradations: a characteristic that in the right amount is a normal component of healthy ego; a troublesome trait when there is too much; and a pathological state when it overwhelms a personality. Narcissism fuels drive and ambition, a desire to be recognized for one’s accomplishments, a sense that one’s life has meaning and importance. The problem occurs when narcissism becomes the primary principle of someone’s personality. Its most extreme form is narcissistic personality disorder, a psychological condition that impairs a person’s ability to form normal relationships and wreaks havoc on those who have close encounters with it.

A recent study titled “Leader Emergence: The Case of the Narcissistic Leader” describes how narcissists have skills and qualities—confidence, extraversion, a desire for power—that propel them into leadership roles but that when true narcissists are in charge, other aspects of their makeup—a feeling the rules don’t apply to them, a need for constant stroking—can have “disastrous consequences.” Yes, we’re talking about you, former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. After Blagojevich was caught on tape trying to sell a Senate seat, he reveled in the opportunity to appear on talk shows, making the case that he himself was a victim—self-pity being a favorite narcissist refuge.

A line from a New York Times profile of him is as trenchant a description of narcissism as is found in most
psychology textbooks: “[He] is unapologetically late to almost everything, and can treat employees with disdain, cursing and erupting in fury for failings as mundane as neglecting to have at hand at all times his preferred black Paul Mitchell hairbrush.” There it all is: the sense that other people don’t matter, the belief others are instruments for the narcissist’s use, the self-admiration.

Narcissistic personality disorder is not simply about taking normal egoism to extremes. NPD is one of fewer than a dozen personality disorders described by the American Psychiatric Association. These differ from the major mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia and manic-depression, which are believed to have a biological origin. Personality disorders are seen as a failure of character development. Others include anti-social personality disorder (these people are also commonly called “sociopaths” or “Bernie Madoff”) and borderline personality disorder (think of Livia Soprano). NPD has been officially recognized by the American Psychiatric Association only since 1980, but descriptions of this syndrome go back to ancient times. The name for it, after all, comes from the Greek myth of Narcissus, the beautiful boy who was unable to love until he saw his own reflection in the water and died pining away at his image.

Elsa Ronningstam, a psychologist at Harvard Medical School who specializes in NPD, points out the myth is not really about self-love but the inability to love. Eleanor Payson, a therapist in Michigan and the author of The Wizard of Oz and Other Narcissists, says of people with NPD, “They have a primitive, undeveloped sense of self.” To compensate, they create a grandiose image to distract from an inner state that Payson says is one of “almost malignant anxiety and emptiness.”

Octomom Nadya Suleman explained in an interview that she started having her brood so she they would fill “the void, the feeling of emptiness” inside her she said was the result of an unhappy childhood. When the first six kids apparently failed to understand their Sisyphean life’s work of making their mother feel loved, Suleman pushed on and had eight more. Perhaps this latest batch—once they get out of the neonatal intensive care unit—will discharge their obligations better.

People with NPD act as if they are special beings who are exceptionally intelligent, accomplished, beautiful, or sexy (or all of the above), to whom lesser people (pretty much everyone else) must bow. For example, the late real estate heiress Leona Helmsley did time in prison for her belief about herself and her husband, “We don’t pay taxes. Only little people pay taxes.” Narcissists like to leave posthumous landmines in their wills, and in hers Helmsley excluded two grandchildren and left $12 million to the individual she cared about the most, her Maltese, Trouble. (A judge considered the dog’s needs and cut its award to $2 million.) Helmsley left a $5.2 billion fortune to a foundation whose mission was to be the care of dogs, a bequest that made her Slate’s No. 1 charitable giver of 2008. But the little people may have gotten their revenge. Another judge just ruled that the foundation’s trustees may ignore Helmsley’s wishes.

Every personality disorder runs on a continuum from mild to severe. People with mild NPD, more than those with mild cases of other personality disorders, can be very high functioning. Their aura of excitement, the force of their personality can be powerfully seductive. The arts, medicine, politics all attract inwardly injured people with an outsize sense of themselves and a desire for the world to recognize them. As columnist Charles Krauthammer noted about the 42nd president, “Clinton craves your adulation (the source of all his troubles).” Ronningstam says part of director Ingmar Bergman’s genius was that he could project his narcissistic struggles in a compelling way on-screen. A striking number of successful artistic people with NPD establish their own compounds. Bergman, architect Frank Lloyd Wright, director Stanley Kubrick, and artist Salvador Dalí all retreated to self-created worlds, populated with casts (often revolving) of adoring spouses and assistants.

NPD is a little-studied condition. According to the American Psychiatric Association, about 1 percent of the general population has it. To researchers in the field, this is a significant underestimate. (One recent study concludes it occurs in 6 percent of Americans.) Psychologists Jean Twenge and W. Keith Campbell, authors of The Narcissism Epidemic, who obviously have a stake in proving there is one, estimate around 10 percent of today’s young people have clinical manifestations of NPD. They believe narcissism is a cultural virus that has spread throughout the population over the past several decades.

Those who frequently treat NPD, or its victims, point out one reason the statistics may so underestimate its incidence is that narcissists rarely show up at a therapist’s office. There are no pharmaceutical fixes, and therapy is often unsuccessful. If they do seek treatment—usually under duress—a primary outcome is that they drive their therapists bonkers. A study in the American Journal of Psychiatry found that “clinicians reported feeling anger, resentment, and dread in working with narcissistic personality disorder patients; feeling devalued and criticized by the patient; and finding themselves distracted, avoidant, and wishing to terminate the treatment.”

In a paper in Comprehensive Psychiatry, researchers explored whether NPD should even be considered a disorder since the people who have it, by definition, think so highly of themselves. The authors conclude it is a pathological condition but one that uniquely causes “pain and duress” not to the sufferers but to those closest to them. Psychologist Allan N. Schore, an associate clinical professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA says NPD can be summed up as, “Contempt of other people and their emotions.” People with NPD are convinced there is nothing wrong with them; it’s everyone around them who is impossible or crazy. There’s some truth to their perception because often the spouse and children of the narcissist have been driven mad by their cruelty, disparagement, rages, and vindictiveness.

The leading theory about the development of NPD is that people get it the old-fashioned, Freudian way: Your parents give it to you. It starts very early when the attachment between infant and caregiver goes awry. In the first years attentive parents instinctively respond to the infant’s moods. But cold, neglectful, or abusive parents don’t provide the necessary comfort. Paradoxically, over-involved parents can be just as damaging because they convey anxiety and distress in the face of their child’s unhappiness. As a result of neglect or smothering, these children don’t learn the essential skills of being able to soothe themselves and regulate their feelings. The authors of The Narcissism Epidemic say the drift toward hovering, boosterish parents who want to gratify their child’s every impulse will churn out more narcissistically disordered people.

Fortunately, not everyone with this kind of parenting ends up with NPD, which indicates there is a genetic susceptibility as well. Harvard’s Ronningstam, in her book Identifying and Understanding the Narcissistic Personality, cites evidence that hypersensitive babies with a low tolerance for frustration and a strong aggressive drive may be particularly vulnerable.

Because the caregiver lacks an empathetic understanding of the baby, the baby’s ability to become an empathetic person is impaired. Empathy, the ability to instinctively understand how another person is feeling, is a crucial human attribute, part of what makes us a social species. A chilling lack of empathy is a hallmark of NPD. Shame, that painful sense one has acted in an unacceptable way, is another necessary emotion that is also largely missing from the person with NPD. Since shame feels so terrible, it sounds liberating not to feel it. But psychologist Schore points out a feeling of shame signals that we need to reassess our behavior. “Shame is a moral emotion,” he says. “It’s without feeling shame that the most horrendous acts occur.”

Those involved with someone with NPD frequently say they feel as if they are interacting with a kindergartener. In some way they are. According to a study in the journal Advances in Psychiatric Treatments, narcissists are stuckwith the emotional development of 5-year-olds. It’s about at age 5 that children start realizing their feelings are not just the result of other people or events but occur within themselves, and that they have control over them. But this understanding does not take place for the narcissist, who continues to see all internal states as having an external cause. Because of narcissists’ inability to control their own emotions, they unconsciously experience the world as constantly threatening—thus the tendency toward inexplicable rages, the wild overreactions to the slightest perception of criticism.

Management consultant Michael Maccoby studied narcissistic bosses for his book, The Productive Narcissist: The Promise and Peril of Visionary Leadership. He makes a distinction between leaders with narcissistic traits and those who have full-blown NPD. He says narcissists can be charismatic forces for change—because of their drive, vision, risk-taking, and even ruthlessness, many corporations turn to narcissists for salvation. But such people can become dangerous because their success fuels their already ample grandiosity and feeds the sense they got there by disdaining the normal rules. Maccoby says those working for or doing business with a narcissist have to be careful not be drawn into crossing legal and ethical lines. A good example is Blagojevich, who seemed to have a rare ability to taint almost anyone who took his phone calls. Twenge and Campbell cite studies which show that narcissistic bosses produce volatile results. Their boldness can lead to big short-term success but long-term disaster.

If the observers who say that part of our economic troubles result from a mass case of narcissism, from consumers who thought they should have the house of their dreams financed on bad debt to bankers who thought they deserved eight-figure bonuses for packaging that bad debt, then perhaps we are about to be cured. Twenge and Campbell point out that the 1920s was a narcissistic era whose economic collapse led to the Great Depression and the greatest generation. Perhaps it’s time to dig out those Depression-era recipes for humble pie.

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Opportunities to deal with sociopaths in American politics

by Gene Messick

OpEdNews.com
December 11, 2008 at 14:51:24

Frequent arrest of Senators and Congressmen, and now arrest of the Illinois
Governor, forces a question that has been far too long ignored: How do we
deal with sociopaths in our government?

Most Americans have a mistaken belief that sociopaths in America are a rare
breed, that they are wild eyed, murderous lunatics who are regularly
recognized, put away or executed. Most unfortunately, nothing could be
further from the truth.

What’s a sociopath? Why do we not recognize them for what they are? How do
we protect ourselves from them?

Reading early FBI descriptions of the crime spree of Illinois Governor
Blagojevich and other accomplices is like reading a 3rd rate piece of horror
pulp fiction: surely, this did not actually happen! How could this go on and
the many people involved NOT know that what they were doing was wrong? How
could anyone believe that such cynical behavior as trying to sell a
Senatorial Seat is acceptable in America today?

To understand this fully, we must first understand what a sociopath is, how
many are freely wandering around America, and why they gravitate toward
positions of control and power found in public government and private
corporations.

To help understand this peculiar situation, I have repeatedly recommended
that us ordinary folks read a book by Dr Martha Stout, entitled: the
sociopath next door: 1 in 25 ordinary Americans secretly has no conscience
and can do anything they want without feeling guilty.

The essence of Dr Stout’s discovery is that being without the blessing of a
conscience, sociopaths cannot feel guilt nor remorse like the other 96% of
Americans. According to a doctor friend who spends time observing them,
sociopaths spend their lifetime staring at the rest of us, wondering what
all the fuss is about. The fact that others of their kind are regularly
arrested and jailed has little effect on the behavior of other sociopaths.

Being a sociopath is not like having a mental disease, and therefore, it is
not treatable nor curable. Sociopathy is a deficiency. It’s akin to being
born without fingers. It’s an absence of something most of the rest of us
have, not the addition of a disease, condition, or mental illness.
Sociopaths do NOT lack the capacity to know right from wrong. They lack the
capacity to care. Whatever advances their goals, whether right or wrong, is
fully acceptable behavior.

All sociopaths are narcissists; but not all narcissists are sociopaths.
Narcissism was named after a mythical creature who sat beside a pond,
incessantly infatuated with its own reflection. A narcissist in
psychotherapy is one with a preoccupation with self-image, self-worth, and
self-indulgence, to the exclusion of a healthy respect for others.

Not knowing how to classify sociopaths, most recently they have been stuck
in as a subset of Narcissism. But Narcissism is treatable. Sociopathy is
not. The brain of a sociopath lacks the capacity to change. We know of no
way to add to a human brain what someone was not born with, as we can with
prosthetic devices for missing limbs.

Some professionals believe that a disproportionate number of politicians and
corporate executives are sociopaths, drawn to power like a moth to a flame.
We have no problem in accepting that Hitler, Stalin, bin Laden, and hundreds
of others guilty of murdering multitudes of innocent ordinary people are
sociopaths. But when it comes to our own leaders, somehow we cannot accept
that many of them are driven by similar forces we’re not able to feel nor
understand. How many times have you wondered how such extremists imagine
they can get away with their aberrant behavior? It’s because you have a
conscience, and they do not.

Certainly, GwB, Cheney, Rove & Co, along with their NeoCON string pullers,
fit the definition. Daily involved in murder, not one of them has ever
expressed sincere feelings of guilt nor remorse for their actions.
Sociopaths cannot. A sociopath can look you right in your eye, and tell you
lies without blinking. It happens to us every day.

Usually sociopaths hide themselves behind a pretense of being able to feel
what the rest of us feel. Their very survival depends on being able to blend
in, by imitating what they see around them, but cannot themselves feel,
ever. Those most successful are those who con us best.

So why is it that sociopaths are not called out more often? Why is this term
never used in descriptions of their behavior? Is it only because we cannot
understand how they think, because we cannot think that way?

That’s part of it. A significant, but small part. Another is an innate
conditioning among law enforcement and prosecutors that labeling someone a
sociopath is far too close to saying that they are criminally insane, and
therefore not able to stand trial under existing law. A prosecutor explained
it this way: there is no law against being a sociopath. To be sure, there is
no legal definition for what a sociopath is. When delving into the processes
of the human mind, the law is seriously deficient. So those responsible for
protecting us must dance around a reality they all too well understand, but
have to search for more acceptable legal charges to bring. There’s no law
against being evil. Only the results of being evil can be prosecuted.

Consequences of such avoidance has produced a wall behind which sociopaths
conveniently hide. Each failure to condemn them for what they are only
emboldens them. They believe that if they are clever enough, successful
acquisition of their goals is inevitable. Ethics and morality are for
sissies.

This is true only because we allow them to succeed. The more we decline to
hold sociopaths accountable for their crimes against us–and crimes against
humanity–the more extreme they become. Why haven’t Bush, Cheney, Rove & Co
be impeached and prosecuted long ago? Why does Senator Stevens believe he
did nothing wrong? Why does Governor Blagojevich say he has no intention of
resigning? Why are CEOs on Wall $treet, who financially wrecked their
corporations, allowed to remain as CEOs, and expect bonuses despite all the
pain they caused? And when will we realize that sociopaths cannot feel guilt
nor remorse like the rest of us, and hence will never self-correct their
abuses of power?

What in God’s Name do we do with these malformed humans? That’s a question
that can only be addressed once we are willing to ask why sociopaths are
free to roam among us, and why we seem impotent to curb their excesses. The
longer we wait, the more powerful they become.

* All content does not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Institute.

Petty Tyrants

Part IV

6-7-2009

Bait and Switch

by: Harrison Koehli

Psychopaths are somewhat paradoxical. On the one hand they are known to experts as extremely impulsive, with a seeming inability to plan ahead or to be affected by the threat of future punishments. Their behavior is mainly directed in the service of fulfilling their immediate impulses and whims. However, on the other hand, they can be perfect predators, stalking their kill with the patience and precision of a cougar, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. It’s a marvel to watch the steady, subtle maneuverings of a psychopath climbing his way up the hierarchy of power, influence, and control.

Researchers aren’t exactly sure how to reconcile the two. Perhaps intelligence is a factor that contributes towards the making of a “successful” psychopath who manages to avoid detection, or who operates within the law. For the successful psychopath, a good intellect is a useful tool in fulfilling the impulses that often are the Achilles’ heel of less intelligent psychopaths. And when good intelligence combines with utter ruthlessness in the pursuit of an impulse for power and subjection, disaster results for everyone caught in the maelstrom of the psychopaths influence.

Paul Babiak’s and Robert Hare’s book, Snakes in Suits, contains an entertaining case study of a corporate psychopath manipulating his way to the top. He does this by cultivating a series of relationships with those he feels can be used as stepping stones on his rise to success. He establishes a hierarchy of those he sees as occupying important positions of influence, and those he sees as below him. Babiak and Hare divide these relationships into “pawns, patrons, and patsies.” Those he feels have nothing to offer are treated as worthless, while those with something to offer are conned. By developing relationships with important people, convincing them of his goodness and skills, he shelters himself from the criticisms of those who see through his game. These patrons become patsies as he orchestrates situations geared towards usurping their power.

This cold, calculated behavior is entirely geared towards getting what the psychopath wants, and is definitely at odds with the petty and inept criminal psychopaths who populate our prisons and psychiatric wards. It is these successful psychopaths who can do the most damage to individuals and even entire countries. On the interpersonal level they masterfully gain the influence of men and women in romantic relationships, establishing a strong emotional bond in their partner, who they then use as sources of emotional feeding and exploitation. They entrench themselves in our lives and suck us dry, moving from one victim to the next, in the manner described so well in Sandra Brown’s book, Women Who Love Psychopaths.

When this dynamic plays out in political organizations, the results are tremendous and catastrophic, as demonstrated by Andrew Lobaczewski in Political Ponerology. Just as a psychopath distorts reality, and demands his partner adopt this distorted perception, psychopaths seeking political power strive to achieve the same ends. They seek to create an environment in which their behavior is not only permitted, but accepted. Lobaczewski calls this process by which psychopaths gain prominence, distorting the minds of their pawns and patrons, ponerization. Not only do they infect groups with their presence, they infect the minds of those under their influence.

One method by which they achieve this is by setting up patsies. On the micro level this can be as simple as convincing a partner that her family and friends are evil, cutting her off from a support base that could otherwise help her. On the macro level, this is achieved by creating or exploiting external or internal enemies. Hitler did it with communists and the Jews, and American leaders have continued this process with the demonization of “traitors” and “terrorists”. By convincing the people that this easily identifiable group is evil and worthy of destruction, psychopaths corrupt the minds of their subjects, forming them into just the kind of bloodthirsty monsters they accuse their enemies of being.

In such an environment, psychopathic thinking becomes widespread. The minds of ordinary people are ponerized towards viewing other humans as less than animals, and the destructive wishes of psychopaths are normalized. In this way, psychopaths exploit our natural tendency to abhor the very behavior they are guilty of. They manage to convince us that it is not them that is to blame, but a convenient scapegoat, the result being a kind of Orwellian doublethink. On the one hand we condemn violent behavior, and on the other we condone it in ourselves, because, “They deserve it.” It is this “bait and switch” operation that is used most often, and most expertly, by psychopathic politicians, not only in their character assassinations of political rivals, but also in their creation of a controlled opposition. The Nazis used it, in their false-flag burning of the Reichstag in 1933, falsely blamed on a communist named Marinus van der Lubbe. Orwell described it, in 1984’s Party-orchestrated “terrorist” bombings, blamed on political dissidents. And it’s up to us to see it when the snakes in suits currently occupying important positions of political influence use the same tricks.

Part III

Taking the Bait

by: Harrison Koehli

I already observed that we often spot pathological dynamics in other people’s lives. After the horror of discovering on our own that our partners are not who they say they are, parents, siblings, and friends will often say, “I knew he was trouble from the start!” So why couldn’t we see it?

There are several reasons, and they boil down to this: when a psychopath picks his mark, whether in a personal or business relationship, he focuses all his resources on making his victim think he is something he is not. He specially tailors his manufactured persona to your specific traits, behaviors, and anxieties. In other words, he makes it personal, projecting the image of your fantasy partner, perfect in every way. The problem is, it’s all an act. Once he has used you up he will throw you to the side and move on to his next victim, leaving you traumatized and clueless as to what hit you.

But how does he begin to do this? How does he convince us of his perfection, even if others can see he’s dangerous? This is where his special ability to exploit emotional weaknesses begins: the initial con. The psychopath is aware of certain things about so-called normal people. He observes their strange rituals of “loyalty” and “friendship”, their meaningless fantasies, their desperation for something so lacking in their lives. To him these things don’t make sense. They’re like the dance and music of a foreign culture. But he observes these strange “rules” of behavior and quickly understands that they can be put to use to give him what he wants. He learns to use people as instruments, as machine parts. “Put in a coin and push this button. Out comes food. When nothing else comes out, move on to the next.” He pushes the buttons but has no understanding, like a deaf man who plays piano by rote, amused by the goofy smiles of enjoyment on the faces of people who hear the music he never will.

But the psychopath can’t simply play random notes. He needs to learn the correct technique and melodies otherwise he’ll be exposed for what he is. He needs to identify what it is we want and need and then give it to us. It’s only when we trust, respect, and love him that we become his slave. In this stage of his con, he exploits our positive emotions. He gives us the pleasure of telling us everything we’ve always wanted to hear, giving us what we want, and fulfilling our long-held fantasies. The psychopath can be the perfect friend, the perfect lover. He likes the things we like, reads the same books, has the same views on the world, and he accepts us completely and with no conditions. He is always there for us and is considerate to our every need. The psychopath protects us from the dangers of the world and lets us bask in his perfection.

It is this process that makes the psychopath go from just being some guy whose opinion we could care less about, to someone we trust and look to for love and guidance; from an outsider, to a member of our family. He conditions us to need him. He “hooks” us via our emotions so that it hurts not to have him. As mentioned last month, our basic emotions serve our survival. We come to enjoy good meals because they give us energy and keep us alive; our homes which provide shelter from the elements. The positive feelings of the social bonds with our families and close friends gives us a network of support and trust to survive in the world. And when those habitual and emotional bonds are broken, it hurts.

The psychopath knows we prefer pleasure over pain, so he deliberately makes us feel great and sets it up so that we feel miserable without him. When we have a job, we tend to want to keep it; a house, to stay in it; a meal, to eat it. We don’t willingly just give these things away. We need them, and we often fight to keep these things. When the psychopath insinuates himself into a position of being the provider of the things we need, we can’t leave him. We NEED him. And he knows it.

Let’s look how pathology creeps into other areas of our lives. For instance, our political and religious systems follow the same psychopathic dynamic. Just look at the position of President of
the United States and the manner in which he is presented to the public (the “image” of President Obama being a case in point).  He is a myth, a god, a superhero. He loves us, understands us, praises us, and does everything he can to help us and give us what we want and need. He is a good father, one who knows best and in whom we place our respect and trust. If he tells us something, we believe him. After all, we are emotionally invested in believing because government is set up in a such a way, and marketed in such a way, that we NEED it. This has provided the perfect feeding ground for inordinate number of psychopaths who seek politics and government as a career.

After all, they are experts in telling us what we want to hear, presenting themselves as our country-saviors and protectors. They are charming, hope-inspiring, and charismatic. But again, it’s all the well-known ‘mask of sanity’ of the psychopath.  These  politicians could care less about us and what we need. They lie to gain our support, and later use our own support to dominate us. Of course, just as in relationships, we usually don’t realize we’ve been duped until it’s too late and the life has been drained out of us.

What the politician does on the national and global level, the charismatic pathological preacher does in his church. The news is often packed with the latest pathological preacher and what he’s doing within his church. He plays on our desire for meaning and transcendence. He tells us we are “special” and “chosen”, and presents himself as the interpreter of God’s will instead of allowing each person to know that for themselves. He convinces us that we can only continue to be “special” children of God if we follow his will and ideology. In this way, he makes it so that we rely on him alone. Without him, as God’s middleman and mouth-piece of truth, we cannot be saved. Once he has his flock, he keeps it, and feeds at will.

Here we can see how pathology implies into our mind the issue of ‘needing’ this person for our own relational needs, governmental protection, or spiritual service. It’s no wonder that psychopaths can easily enter our lives under the guise of need.

The Pathological Relationship: Here, There, Everywhere!

by Harrison Koehli

Part II

In the last column of Petty Tyrants I made the observation that the pathological relationship is a well-known dynamic. Either we’ve experienced it ourselves, or if we haven’t, we know someone who has. We see them in TV shows and movies, and hear news reports on domestic violence and husbands and wives with “secret lives”, and so on. But often that’s where our knowledge ends. We know it happens, and that’s pretty much it. We’re still left in the dark when it comes to why and how, and the explanations we do have are often dangerously wrong. Without this knowledge of the real nature of pathology and the reasons we get involved, we cannot possibly prevent ourselves from future danger.

Our complete lack of education in this area is difficult to comprehend. Imagine a mother who teaches her child she’ll be safe around dogs as long as she is friendly and approaches them with care. Eventually, the child will approach an aggressive dog, and perhaps be seriously harmed by the resulting attack. Now imagine that this is how an entire society approaches the topic. The children in such a world would have no ability to tell the difference between friendly dogs and dangerous ones; no knowledge of those dogs bred specifically for aggressive traits; no ability to detect an overly fearful, territorial, or possessive dog; no knowledge on the effects of previous abuse on a dog’s behavior. The child may even mistake a predatory animal like a coyote or even a hyena for a normal canine.

Not only would the children be at risk, the adults who pass on such naïve beliefs would lack the knowledge necessary to come to a correct conclusion about WHY their children keep getting mauled. After all, dogs are inherently good and friendly, especially if they’re approached in a loving manner, so it must be the children’s fault. They must be doing something wrong. In other words, they’d use all sorts of mental gymnastics to force reality to conform to their worldview. Belief systems tend to do that—distort reality.

Unfortunately, the state of public education about psychopathy (not to mention relationships in general) is that bad, if not worse. We not only neglect to teach our children about its existence and the cautionary clues to help us avoid interactions with psychopaths, we blame the victims for the harm they unwittingly experience. To many, still, the rape victim “had it coming.” And victims eventually adopt such excuses for themselves: “I know deep down, some part of him really loves me. He just had a really rough childhood.” And just like the in the dog analogy, we end up blaming ourselves when our love doesn’t change them. It must be something we’re doing wrong.

The situation is made even more difficult because psychopathy is like a swift punch in the back of the head—you never see it coming until it’s too late! We tend to only hear about their crimes after they’ve been caught. To all appearances, they look and act just like we do. They learn very early in life to present a near-perfect image of normality. So on the surface of reality, everything looks in order.

While in reality psychopaths feel nothing, they learn how to fake emotion, for example, crying in situations where one is supposed to be sad. And most importantly, they become experts at manipulating the very real emotions of others. They are so successful because, strangely, they seem to have a better grasp on our emotional lives than we do. They instantly spot all those weaknesses and blind spots that we try so desperately to ignore, and they exploit them ruthlessly. If our emotions were keys on a piano, psychopaths would be virtuosos! And when you can manipulate a person’s emotions, you can manipulate their actions, even to their own destruction.

Although it is certainly a difficult skill to learn, it is possible to recognize such individuals, before we get involved. The first step is to understand the nature of our own emotions. Only then will we be able to understand how psychopaths use these emotions to manipulate us and how to prevent it. But before we get into some specific emotions, like happiness, fear, and anger, and the techniques psychopaths use to take advantage of them, we need to talk a little about emotions in general.

Not only are basic emotions like fear, anger, joy, disgust, and contempt common to members of the human species, we also share them with most other mammals. They serve a specific purpose to us as part of our body’s natural survival mechanism. For example, materials and substances that are toxic to our bodies, like rotten food, feces, and vomit, disgust us, so we stay away from them as much as possible. We feel fearful when threatened, freezing or fleeing in order to avoid the pain we may experience. In contrast, we are drawn towards things that sustain us, like good food, good people, and physical comfort. In other words, these basic emotions are the body’s way of telling us what to do if we’re going to stay alive.

Emotions are automatic reactions to our experience of the world, and they’re like that for a reason. For example, when the emotional systems in our nervous system first recognize a threat in the outside world, they essentially take over control of our body and mind in order to deal with the threat. They focus our attention on the situation at hand and push everything else out of mind. When we’re walking alone at night on a dark street and a man appears out of an alleyway in front of us, we may feel fear. If that’s the case, our heart rate increases, blood flows to our legs preparing us to run, and our mind filters out all unnecessary information, interpreting whatever DOES enter strictly in terms of the fear. If he puts his hand in his pocket, we expect him to pull out a weapon.

These emotions are common to people of all cultures, and they are all triggered in similar scenarios. However—and this is the most important part of this discussion—while the emotional “themes” of these emotions are universal, the specific situations in which we feel them are not necessarily so. We can be socialized, trained, and manipulated to feel emotions in situations where they are not only unnecessary; they are even harmful to our wellbeing.

This subject will be the focus of this column for the next several installments. Psychopaths, whether in our personal lives, or in the halls of political, religious, or corporate power, have an almost innate understanding of the emotional themes that run our lives. They see how situations trigger an emotion, and they see that this emotion causes us to act in very specific ways. And they use us as pawns in their games of power. Luckily, if we can learn to differentiate between real emotion and manipulated emotion—to become free from those parts of ourselves which control us—we can then become free from the rule of those external tyrants which control us. We can cease to be pawns in someone else’s game.

Harrison Koehli is an editor for the alternative news website http://sott.net, and Red Pill Press http://www.redpillpress.com), which publishes Andrew Lobaczewski’s important book, “Political Ponerology: A science on the nature of evil adjusted for political purposes.” An authority on its subject matter, Harrison’s writings deal with the influence of psychopathy on politics. He maintains the website http://ponerology.com, and is currently collaborating on a graphic novel entitled “When Psychopaths Rule.” He has appeared on Dr. Kevin Barrett’s “Dynamic Duo” radio program and Dustin Cantwell’s “Fane of the Cosmos”. He studied jazz performance and religious studies at Grant MacEwan College and the University of Alberta.

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Part I

Psycho girlfriends. Toxic boyfriends. The pathological relationship. We’ve all heard about it or experienced it for ourselves. Even if we’re not familiar with its various names or the psychological explanations behind it, we’re not surprised when we hear that a friend or family member is in a physically or emotionally abusive relationship. Whether it’s a girl insulted and humiliated by her boyfriend, or a man whose wife leaves him, takes his money, their kids, and his reputation after a painful divorce, these pathological relationships still seem to be a natural part of our daily experience. The pain and hopeless cycles of these relationships remind us that pathology in relationships is all too common.

Luckily there is a growing body of research on these all-too-familiar dynamics, and therapists trained in dealing with them. Sandra Brown’s How To Spot a Dangerous Man and Women Who Love Psychopaths; Martha Stout’s The Myth of Sanity and The Sociopath Next Door; and Robin Stern’s The Gaslight Effect. These and other essential materials bring an important body of knowledge to those who need it most. Because without such knowledge, we are like Goldilocks entering a dark and unknown forest, blind to the dangers of charming yet cunning predators.

Upon meeting and interacting with such a predator, many men and women ignore the warning signs, rationalizing the odd behavior that doesn’t quite add up. Unfortunately, that inability to recognize the warning signs—the ever-so-slight intuition that something is wrong—is the first step in a downward spiral of deceitfulness, manipulation, and suffering. And unfortunately, a clever psychopath is an expert at taking advantage of this gap in our knowledge. Like a hyena picking out the weakest of the herd, they spot our weaknesses and exploit them ruthlessly.

The purpose of the materials listed above, and this magazine, is twofold. On the one hand, the information helps to educate those of us who have not been in a pathological relationship. By learning the signs, we can avoid such a relationship before it happens. On the other hand, it provides the information necessary to help those of us within such a relationship to recognize what is really going on, and that there is a solution.

The simple act of learning that one’s partner, or parent, or sibling, is pathological can be therapeutic in itself. Then we know that we’re not crazy—there is an explanation for their incomprehensible and often inconceivable behavior, and there are others who have gone through the exact same thing. Simply learning that language brings relief, comfort, and the strength to continue healing.

But let’s step back for a moment here and look at the bigger picture. Surely the partners of these individuals are not the only ones affected by their pathology. They have jobs, and because of their own ruthless drive for power and control, they often achieve influential positions in corporations, churches, and politics.

The purpose of this column is to analyze the pathological “dictators” in our lives, both on the interpersonal level—the dirty tricks and subtle manipulations we encounter in our everyday interactions—and on the wider, societal/political level—from our bosses, political leaders, and church authorities. We know the havoc one psychopath can bring down upon just one individual. When in a position of great power and influence, that havoc is vastly increased, as their pathology affects the lives of entire nations.

Just as the books listed above are essential tools in bringing an understanding of the pathological relationship to the general population, several recently published books expand this approach to the broader, social dynamics I’ll be exploring in this column. They have all influenced me greatly, and I’ll refer to them frequently. They are Andrew Lobaczewski’s Political Ponerology; Martha Stout’s The Paranoia Switch; and Paul Babiak and Robert Hare’s Snakes in Suits. Their work provides a solid foundation for understanding how the pathological relationship applies to every facet of our lives.

In this column I will not only analyze historical and contemporary examples of such pathology in high places, but also the similarities between the interpersonal dynamics and the sociopolitical dynamics. Whether in your own home or in the Whitehouse, pathological individuals use the same tricks. And, luckily, when their tricks are revealed, when they’re exposed for the petty tyrants they really are, they’re powerless.

(All articles are copyrighted and cannot be reproduced, however feel free to put a link to this page.)

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Harrison Koehli is an editor for the alternative news website http://sott.net, and Red Pill Press http://www.redpillpress.com), which publishes Andrew Lobaczewski’s important book, “Political Ponerology: A science on the nature of evil adjusted for political purposes.” An authority on its subject matter, Harrison’s writings deal with the influence of psychopathy on politics. He maintains the website http://ponerology.com, and is currently collaborating on a graphic novel entitled “When Psychopaths Rule.” He has appeared on Dr. Kevin Barrett’s “Dynamic Duo” radio program and Dustin Cantwell’s “Fane of the Cosmos”. He studied jazz performance and religious studies at Grant MacEwan College and the University of Alberta.