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Previous part Part 4a Introduction to "The System"

Part 4b INTRODUCTION TO “THE SYSTEM” (cont)

A friend asked me the other night what I meant when I said this current financial fiasco was deliberately engineered. I started to think about gearing and derivatives (such as I understand them) and the bundling of dodgey loans with good ones and onselling them to unsuspecting (but greedy) investors, lending policies and the “Gnomes of Zurich”. (You never hear about the Gnomes anymore. I miss them!). But I quickly realised that what was needed was a foundational understanding about what money is, what it is supposed to be and how it comes into being and by whom. It had to be short and simple explanation, too, because it really is simple and a long explanation would lose that. If you can grab the simplicity of it, you will never be bamboozled by any schtick. So I said, “let me think about it and I'll get back to you”. So on to the computer I went and hit the Google button (actually the Cuil button) to find what I was after. I didn't find it. Then I thought I need to write about the “Moneychangers” anyway, so why not set out the banking system as simply as I could in that essay. So here it is. I hope old hands at this stuff will bear with me.

In Medieval times, Christians weren't permitted to lend money at interest. This was called usury and was a sin. Jews weren't permitted to lend money at interest to fellow Jews but they could lend and charge interest to outsiders, read Christians. So, the religious law from two religions created an industry and a market and a captive one at that. (Later when Christians began to lend money at interest, usury was redefined to mean charging interest at exorbitant rates rather than any rate). This arrangement created some animosity, as you would expect. Shakespeare's “Merchant of Venice” with its depiction of the Jewish moneylender, Shylock, is a good example of it. In fact, it added a word to the lexicon, shylocking, as an alternative to the term loansharking. Jews seem to be associated in history with moneychanging and moneylending in the popular imagination and with some reason.

What makes shylocking or loansharking so insidious is not just the high rate of interest charged but the fact that the interest is compounded i.e. interest is charged on interest. The debt explodes exponentially and soon threatens to devour the hapless debtor. Where did this poisonous notion of compound interest originate? Where else but Babylon! Yes, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon is credited with inventing compound interest. And it was during his reign that the Jews were in exile there. Judaism was a literate culture and so Judean slaves were sought after as administrators. It is reasonable, I think, to assume that some of the Jewish slaves worked with the system and became very familiar with it. I think it reasonable to assume also that it was the Jews who brought the concept, and indeed the practice, of usury with its compound interest from Babylon through to more modern times.

The problem with compound interest, as I said before, is that it grows exponentially and, also, that it is infinite in nature. But this is a finite world. Certainly our hapless debtor has a finite amount of time and energy to devote to paying off his debt. The finite time limitation of a debtors life has been gotten around in some countries through the practice of inheriting debts from the previous generation. It is also achieved when a government enters into debt as a government lives on from one generation to the next. There is still, though, the finite resources of people and raw materials. So, we now have an infinite variable in a finite equation. This will not lead to a happy ending.

Usury (and I use the word in its original and correct sense) is mostly the province of banks these days. In Medieval times it was largely the province of goldsmiths who were most often Jewish and who were the forerunners of our present day bankers. They started what would become known as the Fractional Reserve Banking system only in those times it would be more accurate to call it fraud. People who had gold in any sizable amount would leave it with goldsmiths for safekeeping, literally, i.e. to keep it in their safes. The goldsmiths would sometimes offer to lend the gold out at interest and charge a margin for doing so. This was fine and dandy (even if it was a sin for the gold owner and now lender). Sometimes a gold depositer would travel and to save the danger of being robbed while en route with his gold, he would avail himself of the practice that goldsmiths had evolved for themselves of dealing in gold receipts or what we might now call cheques. The goldsmiths kept accounts with each other and would settle any differences after a period of trading in these receipts (or cheques) periodically. A traveller could put his gold on deposit with one goldsmith and receive a receipt for it and “cash it in” with another goldsmith upon arrival at his destination. Pretty neat system, yes? Yes, but there's a twist and here comes the fraud.

After a while the goldsmiths found that not every depositor came on the same day to withdraw all his gold. In fact, they discovered that all they needed was about 10% to cover claims and most of the gold wasn't physically lent out anyway but rather the loans took the form of receipts backed by the gold on deposit. All this amounted to a golden opportunity (sorry about the pun) for the goldsmiths. They could use all the gold on deposit as the 10% cover for claims. In other words, they could lend out ten times the value of gold they actually had. So if a goldsmith had 10 million shekels worth of gold in his safe, he could make one 100 million shekels worth of loans and if he paid 3% to the depositor and charged 6% to the lenders he was in clover. 100 million at 6% is 6 million less 10 million at 3% which is 0.3 million leaves a profit of 5.7 million or 57% per annum. This really is a goldmine! Modern bankers essentially do the same thing except they don't even need gold now. So if you ever wondered how the Rothschilds, for instance, got so rich, now you know.

To explain how the modern bankers do it without gold, I will use an example involving the cheque book system. A cheque is a promisory note or simply a promise to pay. It's not the money itself. Suppose you want to buy a new car. You go to the bank and they approve a loan for you. They don't hand over a bag of cash. The give you a line of credit or the same thing by another name. What they do is allow you to overdraw your account. So you can write out a cheque for say $20k and they won't bounce it. They will honour it, in other words, with someone else's money, you think. But not so.

OK, you've selected your car and write the nice car salesman, Honest John, out the cheque for $20k and hand it over. You may think you have spent your money but you haven't yet. Nothing has changed with your account at the bank. The Honest John takes your cheque to his bank and deposits it into his account. His balance goes up by $20k and at that point the money supply i.e. the total amount of money in the nation (which is made up of all the credit balances in all the bank accounts) available to purchase goods and services has just increased by $20k. Money has been created. John's bank then sends the cheque to your bank and your account is now $20k in the red. At this moment the national debt which includes all the debit balances in all the bank accounts in the nation has just gone up $20k, too. The new money has been created by new debt and the banks' Double Entry bookeeping systems (collectively) balance and everything looks hunky-dory. Nobody's money was borrowed. The new money was created by a bookeeping entry, out of nothing, out of thin air, if you like. Isn't that neat? Bankers think it's beautiful because they get to charge interest on that money which costs them virtually nothing because the interest they pay on credit balances in chequeing accounts such as Honest John's amount to bugger all, to use the technical term. Nearly all the money of a nation is created in this manner and so it attracts interest. How would you like to issue the money supply, the currency, of a nation, all of it, and get paid interest on all of it? Now, that's really neat. And it's legal now (well, sort of). But it is still fraud.

It's fraud because the backing for the money supply (the nation's currency) that gives it value is not gold (fictitious or otherwise) in a safe somewhere any more but the GDP of the nation; the value of the production, the wealth created in any given year by the population as a whole. None of it is produced by the bankers. They didn't produce it so don't own the backing of the currency and therefore should not be paid the interest on it. The interest belongs to the producers, the people who provide the value for it, or their representative government. If governments received the interest on the Money Supply, you could probaly forget about taxes. They would be very drastically reduced, at any rate. This is an immense scam perpertrated on the public. What lengths do you think the psychopaths running this scam will go to to protect it and keep it going? If history is anything to go by, any length at all. This scam, by the way, is unconstitutional both in the US and in my country, Australia. Both countries' constitutions charge the government with the responsibility of issuing the country's currency. So it's arguably legal but only arguably. It doesn't seem to bother them, though, and you'll see why shortly if you can't see it or don't know it already.

But first there are a few more wrinkles to explain. The banks create and lend money and they also control who they lend it to. They play favourites and this is how an elite class grows up around the bankers and how they keep much of the hoi-poloi struggling. They need to do this to keep labour competing for the demeaning jobs in their overbearing corporations. The poor aren't poor because the rich are rich, by the way. The poor are poor because the rich choke down the economy to maintain scarcity for a sizable section of the community. This gives them power.

The other thing they control is the overall level of production in the nation. They do this by varying the amount of the Money Supply, the money in circulation that we need to spend to buy things, through the amount of loans they make day to day, month to month and creating booms and busts in the process. The money is created through loans and is similarly extinguished when they are paid back so new loans have to be created of a similar amount to maintain the level of the money supply. If they are not, then the money supply shrinks over time and that means there is less money to buy the nation's production and therefore production is wound back and unemployment is created instead. This is the bust and is exactly what is being experienced around the world at the moment and for this same reason. The US government, in particular, is throwing money at the banks but they are not lending it on and thereby deliberately creating this recession, soon to become depression. They are shrinking the Money Supply even while all this money is being thrown at them. If the government lent the money directly to the public and businesses, there would not be a problem any longer. It's that simple.

Always before a bust, there is a boom. The psychopaths that run our banks periodically lend money seemingly without restraint but always covered by mortgages or titles over assets. Everybody gets busy building products and businesses and lots of wealth is created inspite of the interest that is charged on the money that enables all the exchanging going on. This extra interest is, of course, a boon to the bankers. When everybody is loaded to the maximum with debt, the banks start shrinking the new loans rate and often raising the interest rate as well. Though, not this time. Money gets “tight”, literally. It's one big game of musical chairs now as people scramble to get increasingly scarce cash to make their payments. Some lose out and lose their homes and businesses. The bankers and their surrounding clique get to buy up some cheap assets now. So, through boom AND bust, they win.

It's like a big economic suction pump. When the loans are freely flowing it is like the upstroke of the pump. It is being primed with the wealth from the toil of the public and the interest from the wealth goes to the bankers. When the loans and therefore the Money Supply shrink, it is like the down stroke of the pump and a goodly proportion of that wealth itself is squeezed up to the bankers and their surrounding elite who have done nothing except provide a bookeeping service. This is psychopathic behaviour.

There is one last nasty direct consequence of this system. When a loan is issued, the money comes into being and so the loan principal can be paid back in full. However, the loan attracts interest and must be paid with money but the money to pay the interest has not been created through a loan and so doesn't exist. The debt now is larger than the amount of money in existence and so cannot be paid unless a further loan to cover the interest is made. But this is just putting off the inevitable day and, in fact, making it worse because now there is interest due on the interest! This is the reason why any nation's national debt is far, far larger than it's Money Supply. If all the money was used to pay off bank debts, there would still be debts owing. It is not a sustainable system, to say the least.

I mentioned before that this activity of creating the nation's Money Supply is illegal, or at least unconstitutional, and yet they don't seem to worry about it. Here's why. This corrupt process delivers massive wealth into the hands of these psychopaths and they use it to corrupt the whole system of society. They buy off the politicians and the judiciary to pass and interpret the laws that cover the unconstitutionality of their practice. They buy the lawyers and the media to be their mouthpieces and give them respectability. They buy the police and the security agencies both directly and through the government to harrass and otherwise deal with any credible threats to their position. They buy the government and create bogus oversight commissions. They buy and sell anything and anybody. Welcome to the machine!

Of course, changing the form of government to a totalitarian one would remove any potential to correct this questionable legality and unquestionable immorality. Welcome to the future (if they can pull it off which is by no means certain).

Here endeth Part 4, the description of the three pillars of our all pervasive “System”; Religion, the Law and the Banks and the two mechanisms which facilitate it, the hierarchy and debt money with compound interest, ironically brought to us by the two religions of our culture. Needless to say, all three pillars dominate through employing fear and deceit. But with knowledge, deceit is dispelled and fear also. At least, the fear that is programmed in. They still have fear that can be induced by violence but that will not be enough to save them. They tell us that through their behaviour because if violence was enough they wouldn't invest all this effort to deceive and programme us. Now there's a somewhat happy thought to end this Part with!

Next Part - Part 5a. On Becoming a Formidable Foe

Previous Part 3 here

Part 4a Introduction to “The System”

Part 1 focused on the enemy being the psychopaths in our societies and not the people the psychopaths point us at. That these psychopaths create and market wars for their own profit and that the wars are ultimately against the rest of humanity who are largely uneducated to this ruse.

Part 2 sought to expound a little on how psychopaths think; how they are fundamentally different from the rest of us; how they have no conscience and what that means. I probably should have included in Part 2 how people generally become enamored with power and how this can lead to psychopathy. I will make amends for that now and will then look at how these psychopaths leverage their corrupt mindset into real power over our society by looking at the three main institutions or professions and the two mechanisms they use. But first, power.

We have lots of sayings in our culture that show a common knowledge of the effects of power but these are never acknowledged by those in power who, of course, are the very ones suffering from them. Some of these sayings are: “He's drunk with power”; “The power has gone to his head”; and my favourite (of Scottish heritage, I believe), “The working class can kiss my arse, I've got the foreman's job at last”! We know instinctively what they are conveying; that people exercising power over others change. Their attitudes, politics, priorities and even worldviews change and change for the worse. Arrogance goes up and compassion and common sense goes down. They become immature and insufferable yet they would have you think they are now superior. What is going on here? Where else or in whom else do we see this metamorphosis?

During my life, from early childhood onwards, I have had to deal with many alcoholics both within and without my family. Similarly, I have also had to deal with many psychopaths also both within and without my family. I am very familiar with both groups. It was a memorable day, indeed, the day I realised there was a striking similarity between the two and what that meant. And it was this; that both groups ended up with upside down priorities and engaging in behaviour that was destructive to both themselves and others and being seemingly totally oblivious to or caring about the consequences. Upon further thought, I realised that they both got to the point of their seemingly insane behaviour by the same process; incrementally, bit by little bit. At each step losing sight of where they had come from, the change that had occurred in themselves. I realised that the same delusional process was at work in both groups.

Deep sea divers can sometimes suffer from what is called “rapture of the deep” where narcosis sets in and the diver experiences this state of euphoria and thinking he is blissfully safe and in control when, in fact, he is in deep and imminent danger. This process of narcosis is the path trod by all substance abusers and addicts. I was very familiar with this phenomenon in alcoholics and now I saw that it happened with psychopaths as well. Psychopaths have the same pathology as addicts.

If you have a tendency to dismiss psychopathy because you cannot imagine people behaving like that, then just think about addicts and their behaviour. It happens.

So if psychopaths behave like addicts, what are they addicted to? The answer seems obvious, doesn't it? Power, power over other people. To quote “The Oracle” again, “What do men with power want? More Power”. Quotes such as this from the movie “The Matrix” hit you because you already know the truth of them.

I have argued previously that we are not given power over others. This is God's province and he has granted us free will so even he is not exercising power over us. “That all men are created equal” is pronounced as self evident and is accepted as such because it is (if that's not too circular). Exercising power over others finds its ultimate expression and ultimate offensiveness in torture. Torture, pared down to its essence, is an attempt on the part of the torturer to replace God in the life of the tortured with himself. I will return later to this subject of torture and talk of its ability sometimes to bring about psychopathy, particularly in children.

Exercising power over others is addictive and also narcotic i.e. it may feel good but it induces a delusion. It affects the mind's ability to accurately perceive reality and to exercise control over itself, to restrain itself. It slowly shuts down the voice of conscience. Life becomes the singular pursuit of the addictive substance, power over others, and woe betide anybody who gets between and addict and his life's desire. If pursued far enough and long enough, psychopathy is the outcome. As we are all susceptible to drug addiction, so are we also susceptible to power addiction but we restrain ourselves. We choose not to commit to this dark path. Somehow, I think that most people have an appreciation of this destructive process. Yet all of our institutions in society are structured as if this didn't happen. The hierarchy is the dominant structure used and not only does the hierarchy not encourage restraint, it rewards the opposite, dominance and exploitation. A look at these institutions and particularly the ones that are the pillars of “The System” is next. To start, I would like to briefly return to the New Testament Gospels.

Jesus paid out big time on three groups, the priests, the scribes (lawyers) and the moneychangers. These three groups conspired together in Judean society to exploit most of the people. Nothing has changed! These three groups down through the ages have manufactured misery and fear when none was necessary so as to gain privilege and power over others for themselves. They did it by working on peoples' minds. This is a crucial point because in it lies the key to our liberation from these same groups who are still doing it to this day.

First, the priests. Our dominant Christian culture was fostered first by the Catholic Church and it still remains a powerful force in our society. Various reformations caused rival denominations to be established and these denominations seem to be forever splitting. Each time saying the “old” denomination was wrong. No argument there from me! But, unfortunately, the new group always takes the really bad part with them; the desire to dominate and the structure to do it with.

Though Christianity was persecuted by the Jews and the Romans, it flourished for three hundred years. Christianity took the form of many small regional churches. They co-operated with each other but were autonomous. Then the Emperor Constantine came along. He had two problems. The first one was that he didn't have enough troops to maintain the level of control he wanted over his empire (and, anyway, to do so would have bankrupted his treasury). Constantine set about resolving this problem by instituting his own church, or religion to be more accurate. He reasoned that it was more effective to control people psychologically through religion than physically through the use of soldiers.

He started out by putting all church leaders on the state payroll making them psychologically and financially dependent on the State and thus separating them (in their own minds) from their flocks. Next he announced the Council of Nicea whereby all church leaders were required to attend. Money buys compliance. Constantine promptly locked them all up and said they weren't getting out till they had formed themselves into a monolithic church and agreed on a common set of beliefs (this became known as the Nicene Creed). This resulting church would be given the authority of the State, be financed by the State and take its direction from the Emperor. Again, money buys compliance. For more information on this, I suggest you read Malachi Martin's, "The Fall and Decline of the Roman Church".

According to the Gospels, Jesus was given a similar offer by Satan when he was tempted in the desert, "All this", he said, indicating “The World”, "I will give to you if you but bow down and worship me". But Jesus rejected the offer. However, the church elders when faced with the same offer rather unwisely did not. That wasn't the end of it, either. There were many other religions in the empire which couldn't be left to themselves as this would frustrate Constantine's plan for a “Universal” religion, a one stop God-shop for the whole empire. Constantine was into centralisation. The largest one of these other religions was Mithraism. Mithraism worshiped the sun god Mithra. So, in fact, Constantine formed a new religion out of these two. For sure, Christianity was dominant but it took on a new character, one of dominance and power. The Mithraism was included through adoption of their winter solstice festival (birth of the new sun in the heavens and the birth of Mithra which was witnessed by shepherds and Magi bearing gifts!). This became Christmas (birth of God's Son on Earth and the Christmas story) and the spring fertility celebration (bunny rabbits laying eggs!) worshiping Astare (there are various spellings) which became known as Easter. The head would be known thereafter as “Pope” presumably after “Pater Patratus” the title of the head of Mithraism (both titles mean “father”). The title "Pontiff" belonged to the Emperor but was later appropriated by the RCC. The day of worship became Sunday in deference to the Mithraists. Churches (the buildings, that is) were thereafter oriented East-West to face the dawn sun and the whole occult fascination with magical thinking, magical rituals and playing dress-ups came along for the ride. Mithraism was a warlike religion and this spirit seems to have carried over into the new offspring, the RCC. And we now had a priest class which didn't exist previously (King James version of the Bible with its insertion of words such as “bishop” and “deacon” notwithstanding).

Christianity was back to the good-old bad-old days of the Pharisees complete with their violent, genocidal and exclusivist Old Testament. The New Testament was assembled using the four main Gospels and the writings of Paul, largely. Paul, being a Jewish scribe (lawyer), was very familiar with the Books that would later form the Old Testament and was fond of quoting them, thus, tying the two books together. The focus shifted subtly but significantly to include the earthly authority both of government (the Emperor) and the priest class. Books or scriptures that didn't accord with that were left out and were, indeed, rounded up and burnt. Knowing this, it is quite easy to see how Christianity has the dominating and often warlike spirit it has today which is quite at odds with the spirit of Jesus evident in the Gospels. It is also quite easy to see why psychopaths would be attracted to this new religion now; this Roman (Empire) Catholic (Universal) Church.

Just to rub salt into the wound, the Roman Catholic Church (RCC) was structured using the hierarchical model of the Roman army and Roman bureaucracies. So the RCC has brought down to us through the so called Dark and Middle Ages, not only the spirit of the Roman Empire with its obsession with centralism and power (empire) but also the mechanism to manifest it, the hierarchy. All breakaway denominations have taken with them this same attitude and structure.

I mentioned before that Constantine had two problems. The second one was that he had a lot of Christian soldiers in the ranks who were there for economic reasons and who weren't too keen on killing. He would soon be also facing a significant battle against his rival, Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge just outside Rome and would be outnumbered. Fortunately, Constantine saw a sign in the sky. It was a cross and he heard Jesus say to him, “With this sign, go forth and conquer”. Lucky for Constantine, Jesus, upon re-entering heaven from earth had apparently done a 180 degree rethink on his policy of non-violence and decided war and killing were good things (provided you are a Christian, presumably). Also fortunately, the priests were on board now and could endorse this new policy and they had authority because being priests, they could talk with God; an ability the punters in the pews had suddenly lost. The short of it all was that we now had the phenomenon (indeed, the oxymoron) of the Christian Soldier gleefully killing for Jesus.

They won, by the way, which proved that Constantine was a godly man and saw and heard correctly. Either that or that he was one cunning SOB. History tends to the latter interpretation. Little wonder, then, that the Pope had his own army in later years and waged his own wars. Little wonder also that Popes and other churches' leaders have not stopped wars by simply reminding their adherents that they are not supposed to go and kill people and instead, you know, love your enemies. The RCC cannot come out in opposition to wars because they fear being seen as partisan politically. The only way not to be seen as such and to still oppose wars would be to do so in principle. But it cannot do that because fighting wars for God is part of its foundation myth. Other churches cannot do so either because they borrow the RCC history to trace themselves back to Christ. Which is ironic because the RCC cannot trace itself back to Christ in the way it claims, anyway. It claims that Peter was the first Bishop of Rome and therefore the first Pope. He was neither. This is a matter of historical record. He wasn't a bishop anywhere, not even in Jerusalem. After Christ's death, James, his brother, became the head of the Christians in Jerusalem.

The Christian faith was co-opted by Constantine and turned into an instrument of power and dominance and given the tools (hierarchy and State authority) to use and abuse. So what's not for a psychopath to love about religion?

Next, the Lawyers. The situation is particularly bad in Common Law countries. Down through the centuries the Law has been shaped by the lawyers. They run it and they run it for their own benefit. If you have enough money, they will get you acquitted. It's that simple. Eighty percent of defendants in serious criminal trials go free in Australia and yet innocent people are found guilty and jailed. The figures vary but estimates of between five and ten percent have been made. It is similar in England and the US, I believe. With privatised prisons, the situation has become a real nightmare. (see here) – over incarceration is inevitable.

Though there is a judge presiding, he doesn't run the case. The lawyers do. The judge is reduced to an umpire. Two lawyers battle it out in front of the jury and the best legal team wins. It has become a sporting contest whereby the best team wins and justice loses. A whole legal hurdy-gurdy has grown up around admissibility of evidence. It gets truly bizarre and is the main reason criminals with deep pockets go free. Truth and Justice are not the issues. Money and style are. And don't forget the judge is a trained lawyer. Judges (lawyers) make case law. Lawyers are over represented in any government and they legislate laws. The lawyers in government are deferred to by non-lawyer politicians, especially in this area. These lawyer/politicians make ambiguous laws and full of loopholes requiring judicial adjudications and lots of appeals. It's good for business. The lawyers control everything from the training institutions in universities to the making of the laws through government and from the Bench, to pimping for the crooks and fleecing you and me. They stifle any reform be it of their own profession or reform in government. It is their very own Sacred (Cash) Cow. They mystify the whole process and create the helplessness which then creates the demand. Too easy!

The Law Profession is at the heart of institutionalised corruption in our society. The legal fraternity will actively discourage a member from following their conscience and insist they follow the letter of the law as written (and interpreted for them) no matter how bizarre the result. By doing so, they institutionalise corruption and advance its cause. Because almost all of the profession is driven by money and the highest bidder, be it in court or in government, this exaggerates class privilege and all the corruption and abuse that goes along with that. It owes no allegiance to truth. It is a cancer.

Police corruption is exacerbated by the lawyers. Because they make it so hard for police to get a conviction, the police are encouraged to fabricate evidence and frame suspects. Pretty soon this becomes routine and necessary for promotion and next comes framing completely innocent victims. Hence the high wrongful incarceration rate.

From Bernard Chazelle at A Tiny Revolution-
In 1998, Judge Keller rejected the request for a new trial for a mentally retarded man convicted of rape and murder, even though DNA tests after his trial showed that it was not his semen in the victim.

“We can’t give new trials to everyone who establishes, after conviction, that they might be innocent,” she later told the television news program “Frontline.” “We would have no finality in the criminal justice system, and finality is important.”

The people in this article from the New York Times have so much wrong with them, I really wouldn't know where to start. But suffice it to say that all the characters had significantly more power than the hapless inmate who lost his life because none of them, despite the excuses and apologetics, in the end cared enough. Power anaesthetises you to others' pain. This situation does not perturb the ultimate controllers in our society (subject of the next institution) because it adds to the pervasive atmosphere of helplessness and arbitrariness which, as we've seen, contributes to triggering obedient behaviour.
At present, the Common Law system rewards people without conscience. It is tailor made for psychopaths.

I have talked about two of the three institutions, religion and law, and one of the mechanisms, the hierarchy. This essay is getting long, so I'll continue with the third institution that has grown up around the “Moneylenders” and the second of the mechanisms, compound interest, in a further installment.

Next installment - Part 4b

I put a link from a myspace profile to winterpatriot.blogspot.com and got to a page with the following information:

The link you are trying to visit has been disabled.

You have reached a link that is no longer in service. That means the link was very naughty, and, much like head lice, had to be eliminated before it spread.


You may be asking yourself, 'Hey, what was it about that link that got it in trouble?' An excellent question! Usually, it's one of the following reasons:

-     

The link was spam! No one likes spammers, and we don't like their links.

-     

You almost got phished! There are people out there who want to steal your MySpace password. They want to log in as you and send spam, harass your friends, change your profile, and generally run amok. Phishing pages are usually designed to look like MySpace to trick you. Other sites may also ask for your MySpace login information to customize your profile, insert videos or slide shows, track visitors, or any number of other things.Don't make it easy for them. ONLY USE YOUR MYSPACE LOGIN INFO ON
WWW.MYSPACE.COM!!

-     

Viruses are not fun! Neither is adware, spyware, or malware. We cut the links to places that are known sources of infection.

If you really did want to check out some spam, viruses, or phishing pages, we're really sorry to have interrupted. We're sure you can find it elsewhere. There's plenty on the Internet

Juan Cole informs us that Clinton is in for a mess of critical emails from far rightwing Revisionist-Zionists because she 'slammed Israel' on their planned demolition of 88 Palestinian houses in Jerusalem. She said, "Clearly this kind of activity is unhelpful and not in keeping with the obligations entered into under the 'road-map'... It is an issue that we intend to raise with the government of Israel and the government at the municipal level in Jerusalem."
Well, I'd hardly call it 'slamming', more like whimpering, but then any sliver of a hope for that promised change we've heard so much about is a good reason for us to "[send] her a supportive message for daring to speak out on the issue." Right?
What she didn't dare to speak out on was Israeli's atrocious actions in Gaza. In fact, she didn't even bother to go there. I think it was because she was totally excited to see her bff Zippy. Check it out - what do you think?

Previous Part 2 here

Part 3. UNDERSTANDING the VICTIMS (that's you and me)

This is a big one, folks. There's a lot of links and a couple of exercises to do. Should keep you off the streets for a while! Sorry about the length but there is a lot of ground to cover and I don't think I could make it any shorter and do it any sort of justice. Take your time, particularly if this stuff is new to you. It will be unsettling. Be warned, I am trying to turn your view of your world upside-down or perhaps right-side-up! So let's into it-

Our psychopathic leaders and opinion shapers like to blame us for all the damage to the world and for the state that it is in, which is nice given that they are in control and we are not; that the actions that are popularly supported are never included in the managed “two-party” debate that substitutes for choice and voter control. Never-the-less, they are right in one sense. We may be being lied to and we may realise this to varying degrees but we go along with it. Why? This is what I hope to answer, at least in part, in the following essay. Once we understand what the problem is in our society and in ourselves and who is really causing it and why, we are halfway to the solution.

If you have grown up in any “civilised” society, i.e. non-tribal, that I can think of, you will suffer from two related afflictions caused by the preceding generation watering the seed that lies within them and, indeed, within us all. This seed, the desire for power over things we simply are not given power over, principally other people, leads to damaging consequences and psychopathy in some. The two afflictions affecting us all to varying degrees are Learned Obedience and Learned Helplessness. Both lead to a restricted life through a very stunted view of our own autonomy and to a very distorted view of God, if you happen to be spiritually minded.

For my understanding of Learned Obedience, I am greatly indebted to Alice Miller . . (and here) for her writings which have so illuminated my understanding of the human condition as we find it today. While there was much I was aware of before I came to her books, it was Miller's words that lined all the ducks up in a row, so to speak, and gave them a context. A context that showed the dynamic relationship between the desire to love and be loved, the desire to please and to physically survive in the child on the one hand together with the parents' and authorities' desire for control out of their own insecurities, on the other hand, in a way that came alive for me.

I am also greatly indebted to Arthur Silber for not only introducing me to Miller's books through his own writings but also for expounding them and emphasising the need for acceptance and belonging that bedevils us all and makes tools and fools of us so much of the time. I can thoroughly recommend Arthur's Tribalism series and his essays on Alice Miller's work. You might also consider reading these two very valusable essays here and here

(If you read his essays and find them valuable, please consider supporting him and his writing via the Paypal botton on his site!).

This insistence on unthinking, unquestioning obedience by all those in authority over us as children causes untold damage not only at the time but also later throughout our lives and all too often into the next generation. The damage and methods are elegantly explained by Arthur Silber so I wont repeat them here. But suffice it to say that we are blamed and shamed into thinking that we are defective human beings and can only win back acceptance and acceptability and avoid physical and emotional pain through dutifully following orders. This mental conditioning not only sets us up to be manipulated later by authority figures and con artists (which will necessarily have a large proportion of psychopaths amongst them) but will also colour how we view our fellow human beings both within our own tribe (us) and those outside (them). What is ironic is that our psychopathic leaders are always presenting themselves as part of “us” when, in fact, they constitute the entirety of “them”. The people we have been taught to see as “them” are really part of “us”. This is the mother of all “bait and switch” scams. This is the fundamental misperception held by people in our society that leads to wars, exploitation and an untold amount of generalised, non-specific fear that permeates our lives. It's the psychopaths in every society against the rest of us. We accept an enormous amount of restriction in exchange for perceived safety from perceived dangers and enemies all enumerated by our “betters” and “authorities” who are most often psychopathic but always exploitative. We do it reflexively and on demand now.

If you want to know how much you do this (and scare everyone else around you), spend one whole day saying “no” to every “request”, “suggestion” and direction. See if you don't cause some problems for all involved! I'm serious. Try it (that's an order!).
“Just say no” and don't explain it. You don't have to explain yourself. You don't need their permission to say “no”. You're autonomous, remember. (OK, it might not be prudent if you work in an hierarchy to tell your “superior” no. But you might consider asking why. Do a little questioning. Push back. Push the norms.)

If you have a reflex to explain yourself, it will go back to this following orders conditioning and the attendent notion that it is what “good” people do. And being “good” is a moral injunction and morals are to do with God (supposedly). So when you say “no” and refuse to explain it, a little person inside you is going to get scared because you are rebelling against God and everybody knows that God will get you for doing that. Either that or Santa won't bring you anything at Christmas (depending on your particular upbringing). I'm being a little flippant here but most people will find there is validity in what I say if they observe their own feelings when not complying with others. This inbuilt monitor will inhibit our freedom both in what we don't do for ourselves and in what we comply with which often further restricts us.

If anyone thinks it is right to comply with the wishes of those who presume authority over us and that to rebel against them is to rebel against God's order, then they can explain to me why God gave us all freewill. Patriarchal Christians are fond of quoting Romans 13:1-2 saying that God ordains all governments and authorities.

(Romans 13:1-2 NKJV – “Let every soul be subjected to the governing authorities. For there is not authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God.
Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God and those that resist will bring judgement on themselves”).

Not only does this offend common sense (think various Georges) but it is a very wrong translation of the original Greek scripture. “Governing Authorities” in the NKJV translation and others has been extrapolated from the words “higher powers” (presumably to sound like “powers that be”) and "power" which is one interpretation of the Greek word “exousia” used in the original. But even then it is a partial translation because to be correct it should read “power to choose”. The word “exousia” is elsewhere in the New Testament (and by the same author, Paul) translated as “liberty” and “freedom to choose”. So this should read that the authority is from God to ourselves over ourselves and only over ourselves To assume authority over others is to invite God's judgement on us.

This now makes sense of God giving us freewill for without it we can't be ultimately accountable nor can we freely choose God's Way. Without freewill, there is no way we could be described as being “made in the likeness of God”. We would be little better than robots. Having authority over ourselves rather than by our governments is also in accordance with Jesus saying that Satan is the ruler of this world. Now if this is so, whom is he going to rule through? Well, those with power over others. This is the reverse of what we have been taught by our “Authorities” and you can readily see why. And we know what having power over others does to the human mind. Power corrupts, period. We have a bit more internal consistency now. Have you ever wondered why a king would commission an “Authorized” version of the Bible?

I could go on further with supporting quotes from the New Testament but I don't want to turn this into a theology lecture. I also don't want to restrict this to Christians, so called or otherwise. I mention the New and Old Testaments as much as I do because they are extremely influential over our thinking (even over those whom have never read it!) whether we realise it or not. They have been used (misused) to give authority to the leaders and remove it from the led of this predatory western culture with its long and bloody history of exploitation. This is particularly true today in America and Israel. Our world view is largely a product of our culture so these two books are extremely relevant to our discussion, I believe.

Let us now consider Learned Helplessness. I think it would be fair to say that most people have considered the fact that they would not survive for long outside our society i.e. “in the wild”. We are fond of describing self sufficient tribal people as “primitive” which is code for “stupid”. Yet, they are masters of their own lives in their physical environment. We, in comparison are helpless, totally helpless and we know it. This is what a specialised society does to you. It makes you dependent on the organisers, the go-betweens, the controllers, the psychopaths that control our food distribution and our energy supplies to mention just two areas. (When this same process is foisted on whole nations it is called Globalism.) How are you feeling? Secure? This is relatively real helplessness. What is more troubling ironically, I believe, is the unreal helplessness; the stuff that doesn't exist in the real world; the stuff that has been programmed into our brains to make us feel helpless and hopeless over things that are very much under our control, or could be.

Learned Helplessness is far more insidious in its implantation and its outcome than Learned Obedience which is taught through constant application of “Do this or Else” (to quote Silber). Helplessness comes from conditioning that impresses on you that you are powerless over your circumstances; that no matter what you do or decide it will not work or will not be right, whatever that is. The object is for you to give up your autonomy, your freewill and follow whatever you are told as in Learned Obedience. But you are much more likely to do so willingly because you will believe you need help. So, if the prison door is left open, you will stay because you wont believe you will survive “out there”. You become your own jailer. It doesn't always work, of course. This is what the Israelis are attempting to do to the Palestinians and have been for many years but it is not working as evidenced by the tunnels for smuggling past the prison walls and the skyrockets they are firing over the prison walls. This is what is infuriating the Israelis and this is what I suspect is the meaning of the skyrockets to the Palestinians (at least to those firing them).

But it is very hard to resist the programming when you are young and there is no one to encourage you to resist. How is it done, this programming? It is accomplished often unwittingly by parents who push their children to do things they are clearly not ready to try. The child fails and often, of course. This imprints the failure of their efforts into their mind. Our culture encourages us to “throw them in at the deep end”. The parents, of course, are quite used to doing things they are instructed to do without all the information they need; to do better; to “strive for excellence” whether capable or not; mostly not. They have normalised all this and so see nothing wrong with behaving in like manner to their children. This “swimming in the dark” links fear with learning and accomplishing. We, as children, no longer want to learn or if we do we are constantly battling fear which makes everything that much harder. In Australian Aboriginal culture, the child is free to watch the adult do something for as long as it likes and the child chooses when it will attempt the task for itself, if at all. There is no pressure. The child is respected and granted freedom and autonomy. Certainly in this regard, at least. This culture was sustainable for thousands and thousands of years and was doing fine until interfered with by Western culture which is a relative infant and is looking for all the world as very unsustainable and is far more worthy of the derisive use of the word “primitive”.

Our culture constantly praises competition. But competition creates one temporary winner and a lot of losers. We are also constantly presented with exceptional athletes and artists as models to emulate. Not much chance of that, speaking for myself! The News is full of stories of disasters or atrocities we can do little about particularly as they never identify the causes. At the end of all this, you may feel like you should apologise for taking up space on earth. Many do.

The next level of Learned Helplessness comes when parents, and subsequently any other “authorities”, act erratically and without explanation (because you are just supposed to obey). With inconsistent behaviour comes confusion for the child. How are you supposed to know what the “right” thing to do is when the “right “ thing is always changing? This is a very common cause of children “acting out”. It is very distressing. Eventually, one way to ease the distress is to simply stop trying to work it out whatever it is and just give up and do what you are told and suffer any consequences. The more erratic and inconsistent the parents' or caregivers' behaviour, the worse it is for the child. This is then repeated and reinforced later in life through the behaviour of police, courts, governments and corporations. How often do you hear, “What can I do? It's just the way it is”!

Addictions in the parents amplify inconsistency immeasurably. Children of alcoholics, for instance, suffer a myriad of problems such as Complex PTSD and Dissociation but also this Learned Helplessness. Drug addiction is at epidemic proportions. It is both an effect and a cause of this pervasive helplessness. It's self fuelling.

Children grow up thinking the world is as it is because of their behaviour. They literally see themselves as the “centre of the universe”. So they attempt (or think they should attempt) to do things to stop the bad consequences of their parents' behaviour. When the behaviour and the consequences don't change they blame themselves and feel helpless. Nothing they do is right, nothing works. And because this stress is attended by pain and fear, and lots of it, it gets ingrained very deeply. (Incidentally, that is what torture is all about). So when later in life some cop or other fearful authority figure who can inflict pain starts ranting and raving, many of us are frozen with fear or behave in a way that will placate the bully. I believe this is one explanation for the reception of silence through to nervous laughter that Bush got after his infamous speech about extrajudicial killings around the world - “Lets just say, they're not a problem any more”!
Or the boss starts yelling at you and in front of your co-workers. What are the chances of you shooting back reflexively, “You fucking insolent prick. How dare you insult me in this outrageous manner. Now go to your office and think about what you have done and don't come out until you are ready to apologise”!
The chances would be pretty close to zero of that happening, I guess. Yet, by my reading of Romans ch13, it would be far closer to what God would have us do than being struck dumb and cowering.

I would like to insert into this now an example of what I believe is learned helplessness from our own recent history and the importance of knowing the truth of history not some alternate history. In 2002 there were popular demonstrations around the world against the then impending invasion of Iraq. The invasion went ahead and demonstrations faded away. People had high hopes but were left feeling helpless after thinking they could make an impact against war. The confusion, I believe, was built on the confusion suffered and internalised from their childhood. It all got triggered again. If you suffer from learned helplessness then it is extremely important to find out the truth of your situation to avoid reinforcement through repetition of failure which is inevitable if your plan is not based on reality. The Vietnam war ended not because of citizen demonstrations as is popularly believed but because the United States Army could no longer fight it. There were widespread mutinies taking place within its ranks. Officers were being killed through “fragging” wholesale. The hierarchy had broken down. This has further lesson for us later on.

I have been listing ways that learned helplessness had affected almost all people. The list takes a decidedly dark turn now. For some children and also some adults the programming is done through brutalisation. Many children are sexually assaulted. The figures are one in three girls before the age of eighteen and one in six boys. That's a quarter of our population. For many the abuse is systematic and prolonged. Sexual abuse leaves the victim feeling helpless because they weren't able to stop it and also to blame, which is the other side of this helpless coin, by again not stopping it. They become their own judge, jury and jailers. This state of mind leaves victims open to, and indeed attracts, further abusers. This is not good for the victims and survivors, of course, but it is also not good for the whole society (though good for the controllers) when you have this high number of citizens battling this level of Learned Helpessness. While this abuse is across the whole spectrum of our society, it is more prevalent in environments where there is patriarchal and domineering control such as in religious and state environments.

From here we go deeper again into the world of torture, terror and mind control sponsored throughout the last few hundred years through to the present day by some religions and governments. Though it only directly affects a small minority, it indirectly affects the whole society by adding to the pervasive sense of fear and helplessness. It corrupts the torturers who are then placed in positions of authority over many people. It is where organised paedophilia, torture, the making of psychopaths, learned obedience and helplessness, World Wars (against the “rest of us”), religions, cults, security agencies and the TeeVee come together (whew!). I am not looking forward to writing about this. So this might be a good point to leave off, I think.

Perhaps before I do finish here, though, I will leave you with one more challenge. Earlier in this Part, I suggested that you practise saying “no” to everybody for a day and to be alert to your own and others' reactions of fear. If you are up for it (but not on the same day!), you can also ask yourself whenever a thought occurs about something you think you know to be true, ”Is this something I have just accepted unthinkingly?” And, ”How do I know, in fact, that this is true?” I think you will be surprised at how little you actually KNOW to be true. It might be worthwhile to carry a notebook and jot down the thoughts when they occur to you for a more lenghty consideration later when you might have the time.

This has all been bad news so far, I'm sorry. But there is some good news coming, I promise! But first, Part 4.

Peace, James.

Part 4a here

Previous Part 1 here

Part 2. UNDERSTANDING THE ENEMY

In Part 1 I spoke about the enemy being the psychopaths. The term “psychopath” is outmoded in the psychological and psychiatric communities as a diagnostic term and has been replaced with “sociopath”. I don't use “sociopath” because it doesn't convey the same meaning both popularly and medically. In my reading of psychiatric literature, sociopathy tends to look at behaviour that is obviously antisocial in that it is a rejection of or a disregard for society's laws and mores. It tends not to cover those people who shape society's laws and thinking for their own malevolent interests. “Psychopath”, I think, conveys this generalised malevolence better and so I use it for preference.

Psychopathy is all about power, power over others. Psychopaths make up about five percent of our population and given that they are attracted to power, they end up in our governments and professions such as law, police, medicine, religions, military and media. In short, anywhere there is money, status and power. They have a huge influence in shaping and running our (Western) society. In fact, if psychopaths could design a society, this is pretty much what it would look like! We have a society whereby we all as individuals find ourselves competing with each other in nearly every aspect of our lives. We have a society that is based on hierarchies as the organising principle. Hierarchies are designed to abuse. Hierarchies take power and autonomy away from everyone but the leader. Those at the higher levels are compensated by being given some power over those below but they still lose their autonomy.

It behooves us, then, to understand and identify these malevolent actors. No change of any lasting benefit is going to happen without this knowledge, I believe.

Psychopaths have no conscience or, at least, have irretrievably buried it. They have no feelings of empathy for anyone else on this planet, though they can mimic empathy quite well, but not perfectly. They are incapable of making real friends. They see other people only as resources to be used and they consider it their right to use everyone. All antagonism towards them or non co-operation with them is viewed as unreasonable, even outrageous. They lie and deceive consantly. They see nothing wrong with it for two reasons.
Firstly, they don't really understand the difference between right and wrong, only what's right and wrong for them and that is intimately connected to what they want. They are unable to self-reflect. (I read once that “a psychopath doesn't know who he is. He only knows what he wants”. I think this is very accurate and accords with my regretably extensive personal experience.)
Secondly, they do not understand what “truth” is. That may sound bizarre but it's true (no pun intended!). “Truth” is about what is real, what exists, what is factual. Given a chance, psychopaths behave as if they were God; that they create reality. When they lie, they are creating an alternate reality, they believe. And all too often, for a while, it may appear that they have, provided they can convince enough people, that is (think 911/War on Terror). But reality, Truth, sooner or later makes itself felt. Insanity is being disconnected from reality. In this sense, psychopaths are insane. They are highly functioning, yet insane.

So, because of this reality disconnect, not only will they use and abuse us at every opportunity, they will also lead us and themselves into disaster. Even if you are in the priviledged inner circle, disaster awaits you because you are following someone whose map doesn't reflect reality. It doesn't reflect the truth and while ever you (or a nation) can't see the truth for yourself, not seeing the world as it actually is, you will suffer. Hence, “and the truth will make you free”! (Truer words never spoken. Couldn't resist it, sorry!). I think it is worth while to pause for a moment here to consider, again, the authors and adherents of religious scriptures that call for war and genocide.

The sad part is that because we have all grown up in a society that may as well have been designed by psychopaths, we can't see the truth for all the layers of lies and misconceptions we have been fed since birth and we pass them on unwittingly. And we suffer and we cause suffering. We are like fish who cannot perceive water even though it is all around us. We don't have a point of comparison. We have always been in it. Anyway that's the subject for another part. This part is about understanding the perpertrators rather than the victims. I have been debating with myself whether it is worthwhile discussing how psychopaths get to be the way they are. We'll see. But one thing that is definitely worthwhile discussing before I leave this part is the difference between fighting and war.

Everybody fights but only psychopaths wage war. Fighting is short term “argy-bargy” whether it is a punch-up in the local pub on Saturday night or tribes going on raids and indulging in a little raping and pillaging. But it is short term and the aggressor leaves (albeit with a few slaves, maybe). War is far more serious. It's total. The aggressor does not leave unless he is taking everything of value or has firmly emplaced a comprador class to do its bidding (20th century colonialisim, Israel excepted). There's no possibility of a return stoush next Saturday night. War is designed to destroy a whole culture; to subsume it; to enslave it; to squash the life out of it. To illustrate the difference, The American government waged war on Vietnam but they were, through it, fighting (indirectly) the Russians first and then the Chinese who were supporting North Vietnam. Only Vietnam was at risk of not surviving. Only Vietnam was suffering from war. This has significance further down in the essay. Again, only psychopaths wage war. They are the only ones who have the insatiable need. They are the only ones disconnected enough from reality and from any feelings for fellow human beings to dismiss the appalling consequences for others and even themselves. They are the only ones with no sense of proportion. To slaughter a whole people to have even more money when they couldn't spend in ten lifetimes what they have already. You can only order around a certain number of servants. You can only wear one pair of shoes at a time. (Where are you Imelda?)

Colonialism was war waged by psychopathic European (and American) rulers against indigenous peoples all over the world. The indigenous peoples were defeated often in cases where they needn't have been because they didn't understand that the Europeans meant to exterminate them. They responded to the Europeans as they did to their neighbours when they fought with them and presumed they were just being muscled for a bit of territory, not the whole lot. They made treaties with the Europeans and gave more weight to what they said rather than to what they did. Basic mistake. Psychopaths lie and there is absolutely no advantage or point in making deals with a liar.

These indigenous peoples didn't fight genocidal wars with each other because had one tribe done so it would have found itself fighting all the neighbouring tribes. They would have had to combine to preserve themselves against this people that opted for extermination. They didn't realise that the European invader was waging war on them and that they would have to respond accordingly to survive (or perhaps they were just hoping against the evidence, as happens all too often). Had they done so they would have combined to fight together. The North American Indians eventually did this but by then it was too late. If they had combined much earlier, they would likely have prevailed. This is why the Europeans, then the Americans and now the Israelis place so much effort into setting one tribe or faction against another and the central role of false flag attacks in facilitating this. They do this same thing but on a psychological level with their own domestic populations (911/London/Madrid notwithstanding) and for the same reason. Because if we could see them for what they are and combine we could easily throw them out.

This has a direct implication for the coming war against Iran. When Bush (or more correctly, his puppet masters) declared war on Afghanistan and then Iraq, to those that could see, he was actually declaring war on the whole planet. If Russia and China can see this, that they are next, that the people behind US/UK/Israel aim to be the world's masters, then you can expect them to attack with full force the moment Iran is bombed. They will see that their survival is at stake and that moment will be their best chance. If that is what they are planning, then I would expect them to remain relatively quiet and not be issuing belicose warnings to the US/Israel so as to maximise the surprise factor when they do attack in response. And that is, indeed, how it is playing out. I would also expect that Russia and China would see that these wouldbe world masters are disconnected from reality and would therefore promote similarly disconnected types into positions of power and would be nowhere near as formidable as they present themselves to be. Recent exampes of this incompetence and hubris are Lebanon 2006 and Georgia 2008.

Up till now, the US and the UK have been playing “argy-bargy” with Russia and China through so called proxy wars such as Vietnam. These were about markets and political influence. They weren't about survival. At least, not for Russia and China or the US. But all that has changed with the attack on Afghanistan and Iraq. This is about access to oil and strategic positioning for “First Strike” capability. This is about survival. And both Russia and China are very experienced at surviving.
So the psychopaths in and behind the US/UK/Israel governments are leading us all off the cliff thinking they will be all right because they can fly. Reality is about to teach them (and everybody else) a hard lesson.

This may seem an overly pessimistic conclusion to some but when the stakes are high and the downside is great, it is prudent to be pessimistic rather than optimistic. Besides it accords with reality. And the reality is that psychopaths are driven on their destructive paths and they never change. Hoping they will have a change of heart is worse than a waste of time. Negotiating with them is similarly pointless. They will never understand our point of view, our world view. Their condition is irreversible. This makes their motives and goals (our exploitation if not destruction) and to some extent, their methods (fear, threats and violence) very predictable. Certainly, if a strategy has worked for them in the past, they will repeat it.

Actually, there are three basic strategies that are used. First they try the charming lies routine. Then if this doesn't get them what they want, they use threats and violence. And finally if overcome by the victim or confronted by others, they play the victim. This holds true for both governments such as Israel and for individuals such as your average wifebeater and/or child abuser. The constant throughout is lying.

The only effective strategy is to accept that they are as they are (liars and destroyers) and to deal with them. I'll get to dealing with them after the next part, Understanding the Victims (that's you and me).

Next part here