Twilight of the Psychopaths

This article is borrowed in its entirety from "The Canadian" (a new Canadian national newspaper. You can support it if you like what you see by clicking on this link and scroling down to the bottom of the page. I can't endorse the author's enthusiasm for Ron Paul as I don't know enough about him but everything else he says I whole heartedly agree with. ed.)

Twilight of the Psychopaths by Dr. Kevin Barrett

“Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we're being run by maniacs for maniacal ends and I think I'm liable to be put away as insane for expressing that. That's what's insane about it.” – John Lennon, before his murder by CIA mind-control subject Mark David Chapman

When Gandhi was asked his opinion of Western civilization he said it would be a good idea. But that oft-cited quote, is misleading, assuming as it does that civilization is an unmitigated blessing.

Civilized people, we are told, live peacefully and cooperatively with their fellows, sharing the necessary labour in order to obtain the leisure to develop arts and sciences. And while that would be a good idea, it is not a good description of what has been going on in the so-called advanced cultures during the past 8,000 years.

Civilization, as we know it, is largely the creation of psychopaths. All civilizations, our own included, have been based on slavery and “warfare.” Incidentally, the latter term is a euphemism for mass murder.

The prevailing recipe for civilization is simple:

1) Use lies and brainwashing to create an army of controlled, systematic mass murderers;

2) Use that army to enslave large numbers of people (i.e. seize control of their labour power and its fruits);

3) Use that slave labour power to improve the brainwashing process (by using the economic surplus to employ scribes, priests, and PR men). Then go back to step one and repeat the process.

Psychopaths have played a disproportionate role in the development of civilization, because they are hard-wired to lie, kill, injure, and generally inflict great suffering on other humans without feeling any remorse. The inventor of civilization — the first tribal chieftain who successfully brainwashed an army of controlled mass murderers—was almost certainly a genetic psychopath. Since that momentous discovery, psychopaths have enjoyed a significant advantage over non-psychopaths in the struggle for power in civilizational hierarchies — especially military hierarchies.
Political Satire

Military institutions are tailor-made for psychopathic killers. The 5% or so of human males who feel no remorse about killing their fellow human beings make the best soldiers. And the 95% who are extremely reluctant to kill make terrible soldiers — unless they are brainwashed with highly sophisticated modern techniques that turn them (temporarily it is hoped) into functional psychopaths.

In On Killing, Lt. Col. Dave Grossman has re-written military history, to highlight what other histories hide: The fact that military science is less about strategy and technology, than about overcoming the instinctive human reluctance to kill members of our own species. The true “Revolution in Military Affairs” was not Donald Rumsfeld’s move to high-tech in 2001, but Brigadier Gen. S.L.A. Marshall’s discovery in the 1940s that only 15-20% of World War II soldiers along the line of fire would use their weapons: “Those (80-85%) who did not fire did not run or hide (in many cases they were willing to risk great danger to rescue comrades, get ammunition, or run messages), but they simply would not fire their weapons at the enemy, even when faced with repeated waves of banzai charges” (Grossman, p. 4).

Marshall’s discovery and subsequent research, proved that in all previous wars, a tiny minority of soldiers — the 5% who are natural-born psychopaths, and perhaps a few temporarily-insane imitators—did almost all the killing. Normal men just went through the motions and, if at all possible, refused to take the life of an enemy soldier, even if that meant giving up their own. The implication: Wars are ritualized mass murders by psychopaths of non-psychopaths. (This cannot be good for humanity’s genetic endowment!)

Marshall’s work, brought a Copernican revolution to military science. In the past, everyone believed that the soldier willing to kill for his country was the (heroic) norm, while one who refused to fight was a (cowardly) aberration. The truth, as it turned out, was that the normative soldier hailed from the psychopathic five percent. The sane majority, would rather die than fight.
Political Satire

The implication, too frightening for even the likes of Marshall and Grossman to fully digest, was that the norms for soldiers’ behaviour in battle had been set by psychopaths. That meant that psychopaths were in control of the military as an institution. Worse, it meant that psychopaths were in control of society’s perception of military affairs. Evidently, psychopaths exercised an enormous amount of power in seemingly sane, normal society.

How could that be? In Political Ponerology, Andrzej Lobaczewski explains that clinical psychopaths enjoy advantages even in non-violent competitions to climb the ranks of social hierarchies. Because they can lie without remorse (and without the telltale physiological stress that is measured by lie detector tests) psychopaths can always say whatever is necessary to get what they want. In court, for example, psychopaths can tell extreme bald-faced lies in a plausible manner, while their sane opponents are handicapped by an emotional predisposition to remain within hailing distance of the truth. Too often, the judge or jury imagines that the truth must be somewhere in the middle, and then issues decisions that benefit the psychopath. As with judges and juries, so too with those charged with decisions concerning who to promote and who not to promote in corporate, military and governmental hierarchies. The result is that all hierarchies inevitably become top-heavy with psychopaths.

So-called conspiracy theorists, some of whom deserve the pejorative connotation of that much-abused term, often imagine that secret societies of Jews, Jesuits, bankers, communists, Bilderbergers, Muslim extremists, papists, and so on, are secretly controlling history, doing dastardly deeds, and/or threatening to take over the world. As a leading “conspiracy theorist” according to Wikipedia, I feel eminently qualified to offer an alternative conspiracy theory which, like the alternative conspiracy theory of 9/11, is both simpler and more accurate than the prevailing wisdom: The only conspiracy that matters is the conspiracy of the psychopaths against the rest of us.
Political Satire

Behind the apparent insanity of contemporary history, is the actual insanity of psychopaths fighting to preserve their disproportionate power. And as that power grows ever-more-threatened, the psychopaths grow ever-more-desperate. We are witnessing the apotheosis of the overworld—the criminal syndicate or overlapping set of syndicates that lurks above ordinary society and law just as the underworld lurks below it. In 9/11 and the 9/11 wars, we are seeing the final desperate power-grab or “endgame” (Alex Jones) of brutal, cunning gangs of CIA drug-runners and President-killers; money-laundering international bankers and their hit-men, economic and otherwise; corrupt military contractors and gung-ho generals; corporate predators and their political enablers; brainwashers and mind-rapists euphemistically known as psy-ops experts and PR specialists—in short, the whole sick crew of certifiable psychopaths running our so-called civilization. And they are running scared. It was their terror of losing control that they projected onto the rest of us by blowing up the Twin Towers and inciting temporary psychopathic terror-rage in the American public.

Why does the pathocracy fear it is losing control? Because it is threatened by the spread of knowledge. The greatest fear of any psychopath is of being found out. As George H. W. Bush said to journalist Sarah McClendon, December 1992, “If the people knew what we had done, they would chase us down the street and lynch us.” Given that Bush is reported to have participated in parties where child prostitutes were sodomized and otherwise abused, among his many other crimes, his statement to McClendon should be taken seriously.

Psychopaths go through life knowing that they are completely different from other people. They quickly learn to hide their lack of empathy, while carefully studying others’ emotions so as to mimic normalcy while cold-bloodedly manipulating the normals.

Today, thanks to new information technologies, we are on the brink of unmasking the psychopaths and building a civilization of, by and for the normal human being — a civilization without war, a civilization based on truth, a civilization in which the saintly few rather than the diabolical few would gravitate to positions of power. We already have the knowledge necessary to diagnose psychopathic personalities and keep them out of power. We have the knowledge necessary to dismantle the institutions in which psychopaths especially flourish — militaries, intelligence agencies, large corporations, and secret societies. We simply need to disseminate this knowledge, and the will to use it, as widely as possible.

Above all, we need to inform the public about how psychopaths co-opt and corrupt normal human beings. One way they do this, is by manipulating shame and denial — emotions foreign to psychopaths but common and easily-induced among normals.

Consider how gangs and secret societies (psychopaths’ guilds in disguise) recruit new members. Some criminal gangs and satanist covens demand that candidates for admission commit a murder to “earn their stripes.” Skull and Bones, the Yale-based secret society that supplies the CIA with drug-runners, mind-rapists, child abusers and professional killers, requires neophytes to lie naked in a coffin and masturbate in front of older members while reciting the candidate’s entire sexual history. By forcing the neophyte to engage in ritualized behaviour that would be horrendously shameful in normal society, the psychopaths’ guild destroys the candidate’s normal personality, assuming he had one in the first place, and turns the individual into a co-opted, corrupt, degraded shadow of his former self — a manufactured psychopath or psychopath’s apprentice.

This manipulation of shame has the added benefit of making psychopathic organizations effectively invisible to normal society. Despite easily available media reports, American voters in 2004 simply refused to see that the two major-party presidential candidates had lain naked in a coffin masturbating in front of older Bonesmen in order to gain admission to Skull and Bones and thus become members of the criminal overworld. Likewise, many Americans have long refused to see that hawkish elements of the overworld, operating through the CIA, had obviously been the murderers of JFK, MLK, RFK, JFK Jr., Malcolm X, ChÈ, AllendÈ, Wellstone, Lumumba, Aguilera, Diem, and countless other relatively non-psychopathic leaders. They refuse to see the continuing murders of millions of people around the world in what amounts to an American holocaust. They refuse to see the evidence that the psychopaths’ guilds running America’s most powerful institutions use the most horrific forms of sexualized abuse imaginable to induce multiple-personality-disorder in child victims, then use the resulting mind-control slaves as disposable drug-runners, prostitutes, Manchurian candidates, and even diplomatic envoys. And of course they refuse to see that 9/11 was a transparently obvious inside job, and that their own psychopath-dominated military-intelligence apparatus is behind almost every major terrorist outrage of recent decades.

All of this psychopathic behaviour at the top of the social hierarchy is simply too shameful for ordinary people to see, so they avert their gaze, just as wives of husbands who are sexually abusing their children sometimes refuse to see what is happening in plain view. If deep, deep denial were a river in Egypt, American citizens’ wilful blindness would be more like the Marianas Trench.

But thanks to the power of the internet, people everywhere are waking up. The only obvious non-psychopath among Republican presidential candidates, Ron Paul, also happens to be the only candidate in either party with significant grassroots support.

If “love” is embedded in the Revolution Ron Paul heralds, that is because Dr. Paul — a kindly, soft-spoken physician who has delivered more than 4,000 babies — implicitly recognizes that government is the invention and tool of psychopaths, and therefore must be strictly limited in scope and subjected to a rigorous system of checks and balances, lest the psychopath’s tools, fear and hatred, replace love as the glue that binds society together.

The decline in militarism since World War II in advanced countries, the spread of literacy and communications technology, and the people’s growing demands for a better life, together represent a gathering force that terrifies the pathocracy, (those alternately competing-then-cooperating gangs of psychopaths who have ruled through lies, fear and intimidation since the dawn of so-called civilization).

Since nuclear weapons have made war obsolete, the pathocracy is terrified that its favourite social control mechanism — ritualized mass slaughter — is increasingly unavailable. And if war was the great human tragedy, the pathocrats’ pathetic attempt at a war-substitute — the transparently phoney “war on terror” — is repeating it as sheerest farce.

Truly, we are witnessing the twilight of the psychopaths. Whether in their death throes they succeed in pulling down the curtain of eternal night on all of us, or whether we resist them and survive to see the dawn of a civilization worthy of the name, is the great decision in which all of us others, however humbly, are now participating.

About the writer:

Dr. Kevin Barrett, co-founder of the Muslim-Christian-Jewish Alliance for 9/11 Truth, LINK, has taught English, French, Arabic, American Civilization, Humanities, African Literature, Folklore, and Islam at colleges and universities in the San Francisco Bay area, Paris, and Madison, Wisconsin. Barrett became a 9/11 truth activist in 2004 after reading David Griffin's The New Pearl Harbor and conducting follow-up research that convinced him Griffin had accurately summarized evidence indicating 9/11 was an inside job.

In the summer of 2006, Republican state legislators and Fox newscasters demanded that Barrett be fired from his job teaching an introductory Islam class at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, but the University refused to buckle, and Barrett got high marks from his students. He has appeared in several documentary films, lectures widely on 9/11 and hosts three radio programs on three different patriot networks.
Click to make a donation-pledge herein

Comments

Thanks James. Great read.

Thanks James. Great read. Sounds about right to me. I so hope he is correct, about it being the twilight of the psychopaths. knowledge is of course important. which is why Mr Conroy is trying to take away our access to it. Who would have thought we would be first to censor the net. Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, indeed smiling

Ta!

Astute observation, Debbieanne. Australia labours under a false myth about itself every bit as much as the US does, unfortunately. The resulting collective hubris leads to the sort of bullshit you mention.

McJ's picture

Ditto

Ditto for Canada. The Harper government is repeatedly trying to control the internet here with the introduction of crime bills and copyright infringement bills etc. which would pretty much make anyone using the internet, music players, DVD recorders etc. a criminal. He keeps shutting down parliament before the bills make it thru the house and senate. However, during this latest shutdown he has stacked the Senate (by appointing 5 new right wing lackeys) which will give Conservative Senators a majority and make it much easier for his minority government to ram through unpopular legislation.

"The most unpleasant truth in the long run is a far safer traveling companion than the most agreeable falsehood." Emerson

newjesustimes's picture

This is kinda big

Washington Times is a relatively mainstream publication, apparently they published this article today

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/feb/22/inside-the-beltway-70128...

EXPLOSIVE NEWS

A lingering technical question about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks still haunts some, and it has political implications: How did 200,000 tons of steel disintegrate and drop in 11 seconds? A thousand architects and engineers want to know, and are calling on Congress to order a new investigation into the destruction of the Twin Towers and Building 7 at the World Trade Center.

"In order to bring down this kind of mass in such a short period of time, the material must have been artificially, exploded outwards," says Richard Gage, a San Francisco architect and founder of the nonprofit Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth.

Mr. Gage, who is a member of the American Institute of Architects, managed to persuade more than 1,000 of his peers to sign a new petition requesting a formal inquiry.

"The official Federal Emergency Management [Agency] and National Institute of Standards and Technology reports provide insufficient, contradictory and fraudulent accounts of the circumstances of the towers' destruction. We are therefore calling for a grand jury investigation of NIST officials," Mr. Gage adds.

The technical issues surrounding the collapse of the towers has prompted years of debate, rebuttal and ridicule.

He is particularly disturbed by Building 7, a 47-story skyscraper, which was not hit by an aircraft, yet came down in "pure free-fall acceleration." He also says that more than 100 first-responders reported explosions and flashes as the towers were falling and cited evidence of "multi-ton steel sections ejected laterally 600 ft. at 60 mph" and the "mid-air pulverization of 90,000 tons of concrete & metal decking."

There is also evidence of "advanced explosive nano-thermitic composite material found in the World Trade Center dust," Mr. Gage says. The group's petition at www. ae911truth.org is already on its way to members of Congress.

"Government officials will be notified that 'Misprision of Treason,' U.S. Code 18 (Sec. 2382), is a serious federal offense, which requires those with evidence of treason to act," Mr. Gage says. "The implications are enormous and may have profound impact on the forthcoming Khalid Shaikh Mohammed trial."

Times not Post

When I first saw your comment, NJT, I thought WTF! But I see it is the WashingtonTimes not Post. Though I'm sure it is a breakthrough, none-the-less. It still leaves me wondering "Why?" Has this article been picked up anywhere else or followed up in the WashingtonTimes?
I read the comments section and glad I did; lots of intelligent and informed comments there.

newjesustimes's picture

Thanks James

I don't mean to stomp on your post without a "thank you"
I did enjoy the article from The Canadian; I found Marshall’s discovery hard to believe and I intend to research that further. When reading books such as "All Quiet on the Western Front" I always imagined that, were I in that situation, I'd fire on the enemy. Maybe I'm really a psychopath? Or maybe I wouldn't actually fire if in that position? I also feel like my perspective on morality has changed quite a bit over time; at 19 I might have been more liable to do someone in than at twice that age.
Anyway great food for thought... smiling

McJ's picture

Psycopaths and Christmas Stories

"Maybe I'm really a psychopath?" - If you were a psychopath you wouldn't be asking yourself that question. smiling

I don't believe we would have wars if the psychopaths were not in control of the military and I'm actually inclined to believe Marshall's discovery, especially if you consider it is estimated that psychopaths make up somewhere around 6-8 percent of the population (Marshall says 5%). As the author suggests, that percentage would be larger in the military where these individuals would naturally gravitate. Remember also, that although many soldiers during WW II were volunteers there was also forced conscription and during the middle of a war, the military did not have the time or resources to brainwash them and "turn them...into functional psychopaths". So I think, 15 - 20% 'killers' is a reasonable sounding estimate of the percentage of natural psychopaths plus the number of 'functional psychopaths' they were able, with limited time and resources, to create. The remaining 80 -85 % would have been normal human beings, unwilling and/or unable to pull the trigger and kill another human being.

I don't know why but your comment made me think about this remarkable story from WW1. Maybe it was the reference to 'All Quiet on the Western Front'. Anyways, it's about the Christmas Truce that lasted from Christmas Day 1914 until Jan. 3, 1915, along the front line trenches of the battlefield of Flanders. This story has a curious way of 'popping up' around our Nov. 11, Remembrance Day Celebrations in Canada. The truce was initiated by the Germans who were dug into muddy 6 - 8 ft trenches during the winter of 1914. Across the way, (a 'no-man's land' that separated them) were the trenches of the British and French troops. They were close enough they could here each other singing and on Christmas Eve the Germans sang Christmas carols and put up Christmas trees, lighted with candles, outside their trenches. Then on Christmas day they put up signs all along the line that were written in English' many reading something like 'you no fight, we no fight'. The English responded with Merry Christmas banners. Although there are many different versions of this story, basically the soldiers on each side of the battlefield then agreed to a Christmas truce. They met in the middle of no-man's land where the first order of business was to bury the dead. After that, they exchanged gifts of food, cigars, cigarettes, chocolates etc., sang songs and played soccer games. After Christmas the soldiers still didn't want to fight so both sides maintained the truce, shooting rounds of ammunition into the air whenever their commanders would show up. Eventually, the unofficial truce was officially ended when a German officer approached the British lines and informed a British officer that ordinary conditions of war must be resumed in 1 hour. You can read a first had account of the truce in the Sailly - Armentiers sector, manned by the 6th Btn, The Gordon Highlanders, at the link. http://www.kinnethmont.co.uk/1914-1918_files/xmas-truce.htm. "During the following Christmases of the Great War the Military Authorities were to ensure that these unique events were never repeated."

"The most unpleasant truth in the long run is a far safer traveling companion than the most agreeable falsehood." Emerson

McJ's picture

Video games

I would also note that in today's high tech military the % of 'killers' in the military would be driven higher than may be normally expected, from the simple fact that in many instances the soldier is not pulling the trigger on what his mind (conscience) believes is another human being. He/she is shooting an electronic figure on a screen. Something most would already be trained for from childhood, through the playing of violent video games.

"The most unpleasant truth in the long run is a far safer traveling companion than the most agreeable falsehood." Emerson

newjesustimes's picture

Great story McJ

I could see that being rather nice after weeks of scurrying in trenches. But why'd they have to return to hostilities - maybe they should have organized and hunted down the guy giving that order and thrown him in the brig... Can you imagine?

War as aberration

I think part of what makes Marshall's report surprising is that we take war for granted, that it is a 'natural' consequence of being human. So we see the soldiers' behaviour as aberrant. But the fact that soldiers from every war suffer from ptsd and all sorts of other mental problems testifies to the fact that we as humans are not designed this way. War is the aberration; killing people you have never seen before and have no argument with is the aberration.

If one is a Darwinian or evolutionist believing we are driven by DNA that seeks to survive and thrive from one generation to the next, you have to ask yourself why would we as a species have a self destructive, non discriminatory urge to kill the most able and fertile members of our species and for no personal gain most of the time? And how did we manage to get to this stage of evolution with that inherent in us?

If on the other hand, one believes we were made as we are now, or have been guided through evolution by God, then you have to ask why would God make something with this self destruct mechanism in it? Why create something that seeks to destroy itself? And why do all the founders of religions agree on the tenet of not killing each other? Do none of them understand God? And in particular, do Christians believe that Jesus did not understand "The Father" nor himself as God?

Either the soldiers who wouldn't fire their guns are aberrant or societies leaders who promote war are the aberration. My vote is for the later as it fits the evidence far better. That we think otherwise is testament to one the effects of mind control that we are blissfully unaware of.

newjesustimes's picture

War is the aberration?

Well it may be an aberration but it's also been a critical part of human history - violent invasions into foreign lands by non-native or competing races have shaped human civilization on every continent (excepting Antarctica of course).
Or compare to the animal kingdom, animals of the same species must compete over limited resources, and will fight sometimes to the death for territorial or breeding rights.

> why would we as a species have a self destructive, non discriminatory urge to kill the most able and fertile members of our species and for no personal gain most of the time?

There is a book "The Selfish Gene" that I read some years ago. The basic theme is that animals behave in a way that is most likely to ensure the survival of their own DNA. Through this perspective a number of otherwise illogical behaviors, both animal and human, are explained.

If you, as an ancient leader, are trying to completely wipe out the "other" tribe then the loss of half your men might seem well worth the eradication of your competitors. Or as a warrior you know that you may die but your brothers will survive to carry on. Or if your people are starving and a neighboring nation of foreign-looking people have stockpiles of food, raping and pillaging might come natural to some folk.

> And how did we manage to get to this stage of evolution with that inherent in us?
Could it be that our ancestors were among the most murderous underhanded bastards of the lot? I mean, I don't think those neanderthal died off of natural causes... and like i was saying about all the continents, I don't know your heritage but odds are you're not indigenous. Maybe our ancestors weren't the psychopaths but maybe they didn't mind that the psychopaths cleared the way. Then again, maybe they did, but there wasn't much they could do about it but keep their mouths shut?

just playing devil's advocate here. i think the psychopaths can perhaps be marginalized, but then there's that whole overpopulation thing we need to consider at some point or other.
.000000000000000000002 smiling

Civilization

Civilization is the history of psychopathic leaders enforcing a psychopathic system of hierarchical specialisation and control and has itself led to the population explosion and the 'need' for war. Now I understand that is a major head scratching statement. It's meant to be, anyway, in the hope of stimulating your interest to beg, borrow or buy a copy of Daniel Quinn's, "Ishmael". You won't regret it, NJT, I assure you.

Great story, McJ, and thanks for the link. smiling

More civilization

To expand my earlier too brief reply, NJT, I'll add the following-
You said-
Well it may be an aberration but it's also been a critical part of human history
Yes it has. But “history” extends for only a few thousand years as does 'civilization” and it's not a coincidence that they go together. There was, though, a period that is now called “Pre-history” (which is an oxymoron if you think about it!). This Pre-history dwarfs the 'historical', 'civilized' period. This Pre-history has extended into the the history of civilization in the form of tribal societies. 'Civilization' has practiced genocide on these remnants of prior times. These prior times went for hundreds of thousands of years. They could only do so by being sustainable, by and large. Our present age of 'civilization is clearly not sustainable. Therefore it is not evolutionary but devolutionary. Which is what you would expect with psychopaths in charge instead of any smart DNA; or perhaps the invisible glue of love and compassion that ensures the survival of human groups. The idea that by giving to others in need in your society is a way of ensuring your own longevity is totally lost on the psychopaths and, so, equally lost in our society because the psychopaths control how we are educated and think.

During the hundreds of thousands of years of tribal society, there was ample opportunity to overpopulate the planet as we are doing so now, but it didn't happen. So therefore is it reasonable to postulate that over population is somehow a product of civilization? Looking closer at civilization we see that overpopulation is not a problem everywhere. Indeed, in prosperous 'western' countries we are seeing declining populations. We note that overpopulation is present where there are desperate social conditions; life is tenuous. It's tenuous because of 'civilizations' penchant for being decidedly uncivilized; exploiting to the hilt the vulnerable segments of the populations of vulnerable countries. How do they do this? Lack of money is not it; that's secondary. The masters of our societies lock up the food in lots of ways and then restrict access to it and impose conditions. Think about it. So large families are peoples own little social security systems and the only answer that is apparent to them.

The animal kingdom is overwhelmingly co-operative particularly intra species. The ”law of the Jungle” is actually one of order and regulation and this characterised tribal societies. Fighting to the death for domination against other members of a pack or whatever is rare in nature. And like animal groups, tribal societies fought over territorial boundaries but only 'civilised' populations wage war to the point of genocide or displacing another people entirely. Normal people fight but only psychopaths wage war.

That's a 'sampler' of what Mr Quinn has to say, NJT. He'll give you new glasses through which to see the world.

McJ's picture

Glasses for everyone...

Thanks for that James. I really enjoyed reading your comment. Now can we get some of those glasses for everyone??

"The most unpleasant truth in the long run is a far safer traveling companion than the most agreeable falsehood." Emerson

newjesustimes's picture

Did you read the book

"Ishmael" already McJ? I intend to look for it - I've been distracted for a couple days with company.
Thanks for the recommendation James!

McJ's picture

More reading...

No I haven't NJT. This is the first I have heard of it - and I see it has been around for some time now.

It's a good thing James isn't my teacher 'cause I would be getting a 'D' on keeping up with all the great reading assignments he sends our way. smiling

You can download the ebook at link - http://ebookstore.sony.com/ebook/daniel-quinn/ishmael/_/R-40000000000000... if you are inclined. You will need to download Sony's free Reader Store Software first. The software allows you to either read the book on your computer or to transfer it to a Sony e-reader (two of my daughters have an e-reader). It's quick, easy and relatively inexpensive to buy books this way. I'm not sure if you can print the books you purchase from here because I haven't bought a book from them yet. I know there are other e-book sites when you can download books in several different formats, including in pdf - which you can print. The site 'ebooks.com' is one of these and is selling Ishmael for $18.00, however the Sony store has it on sale right now for $12.60.

"The most unpleasant truth in the long run is a far safer traveling companion than the most agreeable falsehood." Emerson

newjesustimes's picture

Reading....

the user reviews at Amazon about Ishmael, could take a while
they are pretty good wink

McJ's picture

A turning point in Europe

From the World Socialist Website:

A turning point in Europe
26 February 2010

Wednesday’s general strike in Greece, involving 2 million workers in the public and private sectors, marks a turning point in the political situation throughout Europe. It represents the most significant manifestation of a growing movement of resistance to the attempt by Europe’s governments and corporations to make workers pay for the economic crisis and the multi-billion-euro bailout of the banks.

At the very onset of this new movement of the working class, two fundamental characteristics have emerged: the movement assumes a cross-border and international character, and the workers immediately come up against the bankruptcy of their old trade union and political organizations—all of which are wedded to a nationalist program.

Indeed, austerity measures are being imposed by governments of the official “left” no less than those of the “centre” and “right.”

more at link http://wsws.org/articles/2010/feb2010/pers-f26.shtml

"The most unpleasant truth in the long run is a far safer traveling companion than the most agreeable falsehood." Emerson

The Rub

Aye, and here be the rub, lads and lasses; it be in the last paragraph-

"There is no national solution to the crisis facing workers in Greece, Spain, Portugal or anywhere else. They are being thrust into a common struggle against globally-organised capital. The fundamental question facing the entire European working class is the adoption of a socialist and internationalist program as the basis for a new political leadership and new mass organizations to wage the class struggle in opposition to the nationalist and pro-capitalist organisations of the official labour movement."

So lets have one large European Trade Union movement that you won't possibly have a chance of controlling. The present trade union movement isn't ineffective because it is a national body rather than transnational. It's ineffective because it has been corrupted as has been the 'left' governments by international banks and their hanger-on corporations using bribes and blackmail. These international banks would just love to have only one big union movement to corrupt and control. So much less chance of reform that way.
All that's really needed to return to prosperity is a functioning sovereign government. (Is that an oxymoron?)

The other hidden truth is that the budget cuts are really about paying the interest on the flood on money that came into these countries on joining the EU and soften them up for voting the 'right' way on EU referendas. Now its time to pay the piper as was always going to be the case. Indeed, it was the point of all those loans in the first place. It's called debt slavery and it is as simple as it is old.

The way out is equally simple (if the proponents can stay alive long enough, that is). And that is for each national (sovereign) govt to-

1. Establish its own government owned central bank and create its own money debt free.

2. Ban banks from credit creation which effectively turns them into the equivalent of building societies and credit unions. (Known formally as financial intermediaries which the now falsely claim to be)

3. Remove legal "personhood" or identity from corporations.

4. Government to buy back all infrastructure (Telcos, power, ports, railways etc) and utilities and disbar private individuals and corporations from owning same in the future.

5. Government would also establish businesses in critical areas to provide genuine competition such as retail banking and all areas of insurance

End result - removal of parasites = prosperity.

What's being proposed is similar to someone saying to people waist deep in mud, "the way out of the swamp is to go deeper in".

It's certainly good that there be protests aboard the good ship Bountiful but I fear there are certain Mr Christians on board who would steer this ship on to the rocks of the bankers EU which is the cause of all the navigation errors in the first place.

McJ's picture

Indian law would make criticizing GM crops imprisonable offense

http://aftermathnews.wordpress.com/2010/02/26/indian-law-would-make-crit...
Indian law would make criticizing GM crops an imprisonable offense
February 26, 2010 · Leave a Comment

Criticising GM crops may land you in jail

expressbuzz.com | Feb 26, 2010

by Imran Khan

"BANGALORE: Criticising Genetically Modified (GM) products could land you in jail — if the draconian draft Biotechnology Regulatory Authority Bill (BRAB) of 2009, which will be tabled in the current session of the parliament by the UPA government, is passed.

In an unprecedented muzzle on the right to freedom of speech of the citizen, Chapter 13 section 63 of the draft bill says, “Whoever, without any evidence or scientific record misleads the public about the safety of the organisms and products…shall be punished with imprisonment for a term that shall not be less than six months but which may extend to one year and with fine which may extend to two lakh rupees or with both.” The BRAI Bill drafted by the department of bio-technology under the Ministry of Science and Technology comes on the heels of a moratorium on Bt Brinjal announced by the Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh."

"The most unpleasant truth in the long run is a far safer traveling companion than the most agreeable falsehood." Emerson

Can somebody fill me in on

Can somebody fill me in on what this book is Ishmael, though I don't think I can read another one at this time, but, in an odd quirky sort of coincidence, I have heard this name twice, in the past two days.
which gives me pause for thought.
And hey james!

oh and james, looked for that political ponerology book and it is quite pricey, so I may have to be patient on that one.

McJ's picture

Apologies Penny!

Apologies Penny for not approving your comment sooner. I just checked today and found it amongst a big pile of spam comments. I don't know why but this place attracts some of the most bizarre spam. Anyways, I guess NJT (the site's owner) hasn't been around the place lately and I just forgot to look.

Re: Political Ponerology - you can buy it from The Rabbit Hole (Red Pill Press) for 14.95 USD plus shipping. You can find it at link: http://therabbitholeusa.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath...
Or at Canadian Red Pill Press for 20.95 CAN plus shipping at link: http://redpillpress.com/retail/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1&...

PS - If you create an account you won't have to wait for comment approval. smiling

"The most unpleasant truth in the long run is a far safer traveling companion than the most agreeable falsehood." Emerson

newjesustimes's picture

Thanks McJ, account creation...

Hey - thank you for clearing out the comment spam McJ! Yes it is bizarre, and equally bizarre are the requests for new accounts that trickle in at about 5 or 10 per day - at some point about 6 months ago, i stopped scrutinizing and just started deleting all of them.

So if you have applied for an account, and not heard anything, please post an anonymous comment with subject "WinterPatriot Account Request" and the username you had signed up with and I (or possibly McJ or another admin - WP? james, or the long lost Kira...) will approve your account. This goes for not just you Penny but any other would-be users out there.

And sorry I haven't been keeping up lately, I've been a little stressed over work for no good reason and it's occupied all my attention for most of the past week. Hopefully I will be checking in on a daily basis for the impending future.

Best regards smiling

Post new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
By submitting this form, you accept the Mollom privacy policy.