NEO-MARXIST FASCISM

Iain Murray at The Corner asks, Is Affluence the Root of All Evil?

So argue the new moralists of the left, especially the anti-consumer greens. A new book entitled The Challenge of Affluence: Self-Control and Well-Being in the United States and Britain since 1950 advances the idea that consumer choice, affluence and progress have brought us to a moral abyss. Prof. Christie Davies of the British think tank The Social Affairs Unit savages the thesis:

British sobriety was built at an earlier time of increasing affluence, indeed alcohol consumption fell in the last decades of the nineteenth century because the men's beer money was diverted into consumer goods. The problem today is that it has been diverted back again. Yet the worst of all alcohol problems, one that knocked several years off life expectations, was produced in the old Soviet Union - a land of rising money incomes, no consumer goods, high levels of personal saving, no advertising and a population that got fat on bread and spuds, stank of rank tobacco and rolled drunk in the snow. But according to Offer, it's all the fault of capitalism and advertising...

Offer does not suggest how we (and in their different ways the unhappy Americans and the shrinking childless peoples of Eastern and Southern Europe) get out of the pit of affluence but his snide remarks about Conservative politicians imply he likes leftist solutions incorporating the evils of social justice. Sensible people know that it is only through a return to a society based on our old loyalties, traditional values and primordial commitments that a solution could be found. Maybe there is no solution at all but this is the only path with any promise at all. You certainly won't solve the crisis by letting the economy collapse and setting up committees on happiness.

The new moralists of the left have erected a secular religion as fundamentalist and rigid as any in its belief system. Those who understand the etiology and purpose of postmodern rhetoric will recognize that the agenda of this book is to promulgate (whether consciously or unconsciously) the same old tired anti-capitalistic, anti-consumer slogans of socialism and communism under the new trappings of multiculturalism, political correctness, and radical environmentalism
(three of the four pillars of the 21st century's socialist revival )

It just so happens, that these tenets represent three of the four pillars that are the foundation of an evolving epistemological, ethical and political strategy that the socialist remnants in the world have developed and are using to prevent their ideology from entering the dustbin of history.

Because, even Karl Marx believed that wealth was a good thing. He was only delusional in thinking that socialism would be able to deliver the goods more efficiently and "fairly" than capitalism. Reality proved him terribly and catastrophically incorrect.

It is said that the only way to make a small fortune as a Marxist is to start with a large one--and this truth has been proven repeated all over the world where Marxist ideas have been applied to national economies.

Thus, Marx's decendents have been faced with a terrible ethical dilemma. Their ideology of choice is complete crap and is unable to deliver any of the material goods it promises--so what to do? Simple! You make one tiny little ethical change, and instead of touting that wealth is good, you convince people that wealth--and everything that is necessary to create it--is bad!

The new ethics of the neo-marxists have taken their beloved Marxist theory several steps further into the realm of delusion; dismissing wealth as anything worthwhile, since they aren't capable of producing it anyway. Meanwhile, the radical environmental wing of the party aggressively asserts that technology is bad and inherently evil because it destroys the earth.

All in all, in their anti-capitalist fervor, they have managed to conclude not only that wealth itself is bad; but producing wealth is bad, and that producers of wealth are bad. This has enormous implications, especially for the poor saps in the proletariat class (everyone but the revolutionary leaders and the damn capitalists).

But not to worry! Those benevolent leaders will tell you the best way to live as they control all that evil technology for you (just like they did in the old Soviet Union, for example; one of the worst polluters and destroyers of the environment in history); and as they control what makes that technology possible--the human mind.

They will heroically manage whatever wealth does come from your mind and work, for the happiness of all!

Siggy observes in his recent post on "The Patron Saints of Fascism" :

The new religion of the left, anti-Americanism, was founded for one reason and one reason only: to counter the incoming high tide of truth. Revolutions today aren’t about marxist or socialist agendas. Today’s revolutionaries cannot hide the truth any longer. Today’s revolutions are about power.

Today’s revolutionaries need to upend free societies, capitalism and market economies. That is what people want, from Africa to South America to Eastern Europe because those are the ideas that have liberated and empowered billions of people. The war of ideas is over and the socialist agenda has been soundly defeated on every front. The high tides of freedoms and the aspirations of free men can no more held be back than the high tides of the oceans. Todays’ leaders of ‘the revolution’ will be forgotten. Their proved excesses in death, destruction and the curtailing of human rights have guaranteed their legacy- and the legacy of their supporters.
[...]
The religion of the left is as bereft of ideas as it is of political integrity. The sloganeering of ‘No to Terror! No to War!‘ is as relevant as saying ‘No to Cancer! No to Radiation!‘
[...]
In fact, the most self absorbed and materialistic are the leaders of the most tyrannical regimes in Africa and the Arab world, where greed, corruption, excess and deceit are the defining adjectives of those regimes. Those levels of greed, excess, corruption and self serving attitudes rival the most fanatical religious extremists in their tenacious expressions by citizens of all strata in those countries- and these are the leaders the left reveres.

This is the new fascism; the latest postmodern ploy; the socialist dead-enders' last ticket to power over the masses. Their latest motto is: No to capitalism! No to the human mind! Happiness, they claim, can be found only in a lack of affluence--i.e., in poverty. This attitude is extremely convenient for them ideologically, particularly since that is precisely what the new socialists will create: poverty for all.

One truth that the left must deny with rabid ferocity is the fact that the greatest human advances--social, cultural, political and economic-- have all come about as the result of the human mind set free to explore every possibility and every potential.

Happiness , contrary to any and all propaganda, is hidden within the free and joyful exploration of your own potential. Look at any growing child learning about his or her world if you want confirmation of this.

Any psychologist worth his or her salt could tell you that happiness is not tied either to wealth or poverty per se; but is only a by-product that comes about when individuals take responsibility for their own lives; and when they are able to pursue thoses lives, relationships and goals freely, without undue interference from the state or collective.

In other words, in a politically and economically free environment, an individual retains responsibility for his or her own happiness. When the state and those who rule the state say they will take responsibility--then beware.

Happiness is not a gift that any economic or political system can bestow on you or guaranntee. The best any state or society can do with regard to happiness, is to strike down as many barriers that prevent a person from pursuing it in their own unique, individual way. The state can no more dictate what will make you happy, than it can dictate what would please your palate.

Nevertheless, as the Clare Boothe Luce once wisely quipped, "Money can't buy happiness, but it can make you awfully comfortable while you're being miserable."

At least under capitalism you can be comfortably unhappy. Under the benevolent fascism of the neo-marxists, you will be given endless opportunities to be miserably unhappy.

The neo-marxist fascists--the people who claim to know what is best for you and how to make you happy--will tell you that it is capitalism, materialism, wealth, money, affluence that is the root of all evil; but affluence is only a product of the human mind. As SC&A have remarked many times, utopia cannot be arrived at without the imposition of tyranny. When you try to control affluence--no matter how "good" your intentions might be--you must first enslave the human mind.

And there is no worse evil than that.

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From Atlas Shrugged via Capitalism Magazine:

"So you think that money is the root of all evil?" said Francisco d'Anconia. "Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?

"When you accept money in payment for your effort, you do so only on the conviction that you will exchange it for the product of the effort of others. It is not the moochers or the looters who give value to money. Not an ocean of tears not all the guns in the world can transform those pieces of paper in your wallet into the bread you will need to survive tomorrow. Those pieces of paper, which should have been gold, are a token of honor--your claim upon the energy of the men who produce. Your wallet is your statement of hope that somewhere in the world around you there are men who will not default on that moral principle which is the root of money, Is this what you consider evil?

"Have you ever looked for the root of production? Take a look at an electric generator and dare tell yourself that it was created by the muscular effort of unthinking brutes. Try to grow a seed of wheat without the knowledge left to you by men who had to discover it for the first time. Try to obtain your food by means of nothing but physical motions--and you'll learn that man's mind is the root of all the goods produced and of all the wealth that has ever existed on earth.

"But you say that money is made by the strong at the expense of the weak? What strength do you mean? It is not the strength of guns or muscles. Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think. Then is money made by the man who invents a motor at the expense of those who did not invent it? Is money made by the intelligent at the expense of the fools? By the able at the expense of the incompetent? By the ambitious at the expense of the lazy? Money is made--before it can be looted or mooched--made by the effort of every honest man, each to the extent of his ability. An honest man is one who knows that he can't consume more than he has produced.'

"To trade by means of money is the code of the men of good will. Money rests on the axiom that every man is the owner of his mind and his effort. Money allows no power to prescribe the value of your effort except the voluntary choice of the man who is willing to trade you his effort in return. Money permits you to obtain for your goods and your labor that which they are worth to the men who buy them, but no more. Money permits no deals except those to mutual benefit by the unforced judgment of the traders. Money demands of you the recognition that men must work for their own benefit, not for their own injury, for their gain, not their loss--the recognition that they are not beasts of burden, born to carry the weight of your misery--that you must offer them values, not wounds--that the common bond among men is not the exchange of suffering, but the exchange of goods. Money demands that you sell, not your weakness to men's stupidity, but your talent to their reason; it demands that you buy, not the shoddiest they offer, but the best that your money can find. And when men live by trade--with reason, not force, as their final arbiter--it is the best product that wins, the best performance, the man of best judgment and highest ability--and the degree of a man's productiveness is the degree of his reward. This is the code of existence whose tool and symbol is money. Is this what you consider evil?

"But money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver. It will give you the means for the satisfaction of your desires, but it will not provide you with desires. Money is the scourge of the men who attempt to reverse the law of causality--the men who seek to replace the mind by seizing the products of the mind.

"Money will not purchase happiness for the man who has no concept of what he wants: money will not give him a code of values, if he's evaded the knowledge of what to value, and it will not provide him with a purpose, if he's evaded the choice of what to seek. Money will not buy intelligence for the fool, or admiration for the coward, or respect for the incompetent. The man who attempts to purchase the brains of his superiors to serve him, with his money replacing his judgment, ends up by becoming the victim of his inferiors. The men of intelligence desert him, but the cheats and the frauds come flocking to him, drawn by a law which he has not discovered: that no man may be smaller than his money. Is this the reason why you call it evil?

"Only the man who does not need it, is fit to inherit wealth--the man who would make his own fortune no matter where he started. If an heir is equal to his money, it serves him; if not, it destroys him. But you look on and you cry that money corrupted him. Did it? Or did he corrupt his money? Do not envy a worthless heir; his wealth is not yours and you would have done no better with it. Do not think that it should have been distributed among you; loading the world with fifty parasites instead of one, would not bring back the dead virtue which was the fortune. Money is a living power that dies without its root. Money will not serve the mind that cannot match it. Is this the reason why you call it evil?

"Money is your means of survival. The verdict you pronounce upon the source of your livelihood is the verdict you pronounce upon your life. If the source is corrupt, you have damned your own existence. Did you get your money by fraud? By pandering to men's vices or men's stupidity? By catering to fools, in the hope of getting more than your ability deserves? By lowering your standards? By doing work you despise for purchasers you scorn? If so, then your money will not give you a moment's or a penny's worth of joy. Then all the things you buy will become, not a tribute to you, but a reproach; not an achievement, but a reminder of shame. Then you'll scream that money is evil. Evil, because it would not pinch-hit for your self-respect? Evil, because it would not let you enjoy your depravity? Is this the root of your hatred of money?

"Money will always remain an effect and refuse to replace you as the cause. Money is the product of virtue, but it will not give you virtue and it will not redeem your vices. Money will not give you the unearned, neither in matter nor in spirit. Is this the root of your hatred of money?

"Or did you say it's the love of money that's the root of all evil? To love a thing is to know and love its nature. To love money is to know and love the fact that money is the creation of the best power within you, and your passkey to trade your effort for the effort of the best among men. It's the person who would sell his soul for a nickel, who is loudest in proclaiming his hatred of money--and he has good reason to hate it. The lovers of money are willing to work for it. They know they are able to deserve it.

"Let me give you a tip on a clue to men's characters: the man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it has earned it.

"Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper's bell of an approaching looter. So long as men live together on earth and need means to deal with one another--their only substitute, if they abandon money, is the muzzle of a gun.

"But money demands of you the highest virtues, if you wish to make it or to keep it. Men who have no courage, pride or self-esteem, men who have no moral sense of their right to their money and are not willing to defend it as they defend their life, men who apologize for being rich--will not remain rich for long. They are the natural bait for the swarms of looters that stay under rocks for centuries, but come crawling out at the first smell of a man who begs to be forgiven for the guilt of owning wealth. They will hasten to relieve him of the guilt--and of his life, as he deserves.

"Then you will see the rise of the men of the double standard--the men who live by force, yet count on those who live by trade to create the value of their looted money--the men who are the hitchhikers of virtue. In a moral society, these are the criminals, and the statutes are written to protect you against them. But when a society establishes criminals-by-right and looters-by-law--men who use force to seize the wealth of disarmed victims--then money becomes its creators' avenger. Such looters believe it safe to rob defenseless men, once they've passed a law to disarm them. But their loot becomes the magnet for other looters, who get it from them as they got it. Then the race goes, not to the ablest at production, but to those most ruthless at brutality. When force is the standard, the murderer wins over the pickpocket. And then that society vanishes, in a spread of ruins and slaughter.

"Do you wish to know whether that day is coming? Watch money. Money is the barometer of a society's virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion--when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing--when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors--when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you--when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice--you may know that your society is doomed. Money is so noble a medium that is does not compete with guns and it does not make terms with brutality. It will not permit a country to survive as half-property, half-loot.

"Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men's protection and the base of a moral existence. Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owners a counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all objective standards and delivers men into the arbitrary power of an arbitrary setter of values. Gold was an objective value, an equivalent of wealth produced. Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it. Paper is a check drawn by legal looters upon an account which is not theirs: upon the virtue of the victims. Watch for the day when it bounces, marked, 'Account overdrawn.'

"When you have made evil the means of survival, do not expect men to remain good. Do not expect them to stay moral and lose their lives for the purpose of becoming the fodder of the immoral. Do not expect them to produce, when production is punished and looting rewarded. Do not ask, 'Who is destroying the world? You are.

"You stand in the midst of the greatest achievements of the greatest productive civilization and you wonder why it's crumbling around you, while you're damning its life-blood--money. You look upon money as the savages did before you, and you wonder why the jungle is creeping back to the edge of your cities. Throughout men's history, money was always seized by looters of one brand or another, whose names changed, but whose method remained the same: to seize wealth by force and to keep the producers bound, demeaned, defamed, deprived of honor. That phrase about the evil of money, which you mouth with such righteous recklessness, comes from a time when wealth was produced by the labor of slaves--slaves who repeated the motions once discovered by somebody's mind and left unimproved for centuries. So long as production was ruled by force, and wealth was obtained by conquest, there was little to conquer, Yet through all the centuries of stagnation and starvation, men exalted the looters, as aristocrats of the sword, as aristocrats of birth, as aristocrats of the bureau, and despised the producers, as slaves, as traders, as shopkeepers--as industrialists.

"To the glory of mankind, there was, for the first and only time in history, a country of money--and I have no higher, more reverent tribute to pay to America, for this means: a country of reason, justice, freedom, production, achievement. For the first time, man's mind and money were set free, and there were no fortunes-by-conquest, but only fortunes-by-work, and instead of swordsmen and slaves, there appeared the real maker of wealth, the greatest worker, the highest type of human being--the self-made man--the American industrialist.

"If you ask me to name the proudest distinction of Americans, I would choose--because it contains all the others--the fact that they were the people who created the phrase 'to make money.' No other language or nation had ever used these words before; men had always thought of wealth as a static quantity--to be seized, begged, inherited, shared, looted or obtained as a favor. Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created. The words 'to make money' hold the essence of human morality.

"Yet these were the words for which Americans were denounced by the rotted cultures of the looters' continents. Now the looters' credo has brought you to regard your proudest achievements as a hallmark of shame, your prosperity as guilt, your greatest men, the industrialists, as blackguards, and your magnificent factories as the product and property of muscular labor, the labor of whip-driven slaves, like the pyramids of Egypt. The rotter who simpers that he sees no difference between the power of the dollar and the power of the whip, ought to learn the difference on his own hide-- as, I think, he will.

"Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction. When money ceases to be the tool by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of men. Blood, whips and guns--or dollars. Take your choice--there is no other--and your time is running out."

THE SANITY SQUAD : Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid!

Don't be a deer caught in the headlights!

Listen to this week's podcast of The Sanity Squad at Pajamas Media Politics Central.

The Squad tears apart the conclusions of an article in this month’s Psychology Today that purports to describe what goes into the making of liberals and conservatives, and the motivations behind those who changed their affiliation after 9/11 . The article asserts in short, that conservatives are fearful, and liberals rational. And if you suppose that Siggy, Neo, Shrink and I are going to let that slip by without a having a lot to say, then you don't know your favorite four mental health professionals!

In fact, we can't help writing about the topic too, as both Shrink it as eI have posts up on the very same topic, and Neo was actually interviewed for the article--but for some strange reason, the author didn't choose to include her comments or expertise (see here to begin reading her excellent series , "The Mind is a Difficult Thing To Change").

In addition to debunking some of the major points of this kind of mushy, agendized social "science" research, we manage to make our opinions known on the difference between headlights and lamps; epiphanies, ambiguity, tipping points, and political paranoia.

Will you listen or stand paralyzed with indecision and blinded by the light, waiting for the oncoming disaster to strike? They're coming to take you away, ha ha--unless you shake off that stupor, and tune in to the fab four!

Join Siggy , Neo-neocon , Shrinkwrapped, and me as we opine, analyze, and free associate in the latest podcast!

Previous podcasts of The Sanity Squad can be found here; and you can also download them from iTunes.

(The Sanity Squad cartoon at the right is drawn by Eric Allie, whose collection of political cartoons can be found here and here).

And yes, we really do look like the people in the picture.

THE CRUX OF THE ISSUE

My fellow Sanity Squad member, ShrinkWrapped, has an excellent post up about the use and mis-use of psychiatry. We will be covering this issue on the next podcast of The Sanity Squad. As usual, Shrink cuts to the chase:

Those who are pathologizing Neo-cons believe that at best we are over reacting to a minor threat and at worst are creating the threat out of minimal evidence.

In other words, there is no real threat from Islamic fascism and by responding the way we have, we are actually creating the danger. There are two problems with this formulation and the manner in which it is promulgated. First, it may well be incorrect and the danger to the country if we are correct and Dr. X et al are incorrect is profound (as is the danger if we are incorrect and he is correct). Many people have written and argued in quite compelling terms that we are facing a clear and present danger from Islamofascism as dangerous as any ideological clash of the last century. Most recently, Victor Davis Hansen has presented the case Those who are pathologizing Neo-cons believe that at best we are over reacting to a minor threat and at worst are creating the threat out of minimal evidence.

In other words, there is no real threat from Islamic fascism and by responding the way we have, we are actually creating the danger. There are two problems with this formulation and the manner in which it is promulgated. First, it may well be incorrect and the danger to the country if we are correct and Dr. X et al are incorrect is profound (as is the danger if we are incorrect and he is correct). Many people have written and argued in quite compelling terms that we are facing a clear and present danger from Islamofascism as dangerous as any ideological clash of the last century. Most recently, Victor Davis Hansen has presented the case in War?—What War? Dr. X and Psychology Today's entire argument is rendered nonsensical if there is a real threat.

The second issue arises in ascribing psychological pathology to a political opponent, a practice much more often promoted by the liberal side of the political spectrum. By essentially resorting to sophisticated insults (and Dr. X's Part I is actually quite insulting), those who rely on such ad hominem arguments completely avoid grappling with the more difficult and more important question. Are we or are we not threatened by Islamic fascism? (emphasis mine)

And here we have the crux of the issue.

For, there is indeed some serious psychological pathology at work here, and it depends on which side of that question corresponds to objective reality. Which side is engaging in gross self-deception; and which side is denying and distorting reality and truth? Which side is constructing complicated conspiracy theories to shore up their view of the world and is refusing to process any information that contradicts that view?

How does a rational person decide which part of that question is true? Are we or are we not threatened by Islamic fascism?

How you answer that question will, of course, determine which political ideology you accuse of engaging in psychological pathology. Of course, psychological pathology is not--nor has it ever been--limited to one side of the political spectrum or the other. There is more than enough psychopathology, malignant narcissism and psychopathy to go around on both the left and the right.

Nevertheless, the answer to that specific question determines whether you are moving forward facing the realities of the 21st century, or have left reality in the rear-view mirror as you frantically retreat over the bridge back to the comfort of the 20th.

Did Islamic fascists plan and execute the mass murder of 9/11 ; or, was it a conspiracy of the Bush Administration and the US government (and/or the Jews)?

Have Islamic fascists declared war on the U.S. and the West; or, are their statements--made on a daily basis-- simply mere rhetoric and in reality pose little or no threat to our national security?

Are we involved in a global war against Islamic fascism that is being waged right now (in Europe, the Middle East, Russia, Afghanistan, Somalia, Sudan, Indonesia, the Phillipines etc.) against the fanatic religionists of Islam; or is this "war" a psychotic figment of neocons' imaginations?

Are Islamic fascists (both nationed and nationless) threatening to obtain nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction and do they intend to use them against their declared enemies (America, the West, and Israel) ; or, is their intent merely peaceful energy production for the betterment of their own populations?

Is violent Islamic fascism responsible for thousands of innocents murdered in depraved and cowardly acts of terror and violence all over the world; or is all this so-called "terror" simply a perfectly justified response to the aggressive and hostile policies of the U.S. and the West toward the oppressed peoples of Islam-- whose only recourse is to mount suicide attacks against their oppressors?

Are these Islamic nations deliberately fostering and nurturing a malignant and violent version of Islam in order to keep their own populations under control and direct that population's anger and rage externally toward the West and Israel; or, is this entire issue of "Islamic fascism" a clever plot concocted by oil companies, the US government, and political conservatives (i.e., neocons), to steal oil and oppress the people of Islam while advancing American imperialism and hegemony in the Middle East?

Go ahead, give those questions your best shot. I have an hour or two free on Thursday mornings if you find you are having trouble dealing with some unpleasant truths that make you question everything you believe.

But in the long run, reality and truth are essential for psychological health; and for effectively dealing with the problems of the real world.

I can't promise that everything will be okay--bad things do happen in the real world; innocents do suffer and evil does exist; in other words, I can't promise you a rose garden--but, you do have a choice: you can choose to face life with honor, integrity and dignity--fighting when necessary for those things that give meaning to human life; and standing up for that which is good; or, you can whine and whimper, cower and run from the unpleasantness of the real world--and just let yourself be a deer in the headlights waiting for that final crash to end the paralysis and self-deception.

It is your choice.

MEDIA OSTRICHES AND BUBBA MONKEYS

The ostriches of the MSM are trying desperately to ignore the saga of Sandy Berger, but it just won't go away. I asked in "The Beautiful Indifference About Berger":
What information exactly was in those documents that were destroyed by Berger? Why is there not more pressure being placed on this former National Security Advisor to reveal what was behind his bizarre actions--and who might have told him to do it? and why? How is it that Berger did not go to jail, when his offence was more than justification to throw the book at him? Why is it that four years after the event we are now only finding out about his incredible duplicity and quite deliberate actions? Why was the public given bemused testimony about his "absentmindedness"? Why is no one in the MSM actively pursuing the answers to these questions and hounding Berger day-in and day-out to get the answers? Why is the MSM completely blind to the implications of such a story and in a state of self-induced paralysis about following up on it?

Now, here is a must-read piece by Ronald Cass at RealClearPolitics

This story at bottom is about the security of our nation, about what was - or was not - done to protect us from the most shocking and deadly attack on American citizens by foreign agents in our nation's history. This story is critical not only to understanding our past but also to securing our future. It can help us understand what it is reasonable to expect can be done to keep us and our loved ones safe from harm. It is, in short, as important a story as there is.
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It is a story the news media should be desperate to explore, not desperate to avoid.

They should want to know the full story, no matter what the implications are for the legacy of a president much loved by an overwhelmingly liberal media or what the risks are for a former First Lady whose future is tied to her husband's past. Those risks loom especially large before a field of potential Republican presidential candidates with strong reputations in security matters - like R

It is said that we may never know what national security documents or notes Berger destroyed. But Berger knows. And it is extremely likely that Clinton knows, since he has deliberately gone about covering for his thieving National Security Advisor. Why not demand answers from all the relevant players (see photo below). And, if they resort to the "hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil" routine, then the American public will finally see them for the self-serving monkeys they are.

A MOST INGENIOUS PARADOX - Part II

PART I can be found here.

Gagdad Bob once wisely pointed out at One Cosmos that:

If truth exists, it seems that it is something that we would want to align ourselves with, no? For truth is what works, isn't it?

Not necessarily. With psychoanalysis, Freud articulated an entire system of thought that essentially comes down to a means for investigating the many ways in which human beings lie to themselves. Thus, in a sense, these lies "work" -- i.e., they have a function -- or they wouldn't have been erected in the first place.

For example, one routinely sees adults who were abused or neglected as children by their parents. This is the truth. But this truth doesn't "work" for an infant, because it would make living intolerably painful -- impossible, really. Therefore, in order to go on living, the child erects the lie, "my parents love me. There is something wrong with me." Interestingly, on some level, one must know the truth in order to erect the lie. Psychoanalytic therapy, in its broadest sense, is simply a search for truth, or what Bion called O.

Many brilliant therapists have noted that people engage in self-deception all the time (actually it doesn't take a brilliant mind to recognize that fact). Psychiatry and most psychotherapy is, indeed a search for the truth. Psychological health absolutely depends on being able to recognize reality and then to effectively deal with that reality.

As I pointed out in Part I, the psychological defenses are automatically deployed by the EGO to protect the SELF from the sometimes intolerable pain that reality brings. When an immature defense is put up to block the pain, while it may be extremely effective in the short-term, it sets in motion a cascade of psychological consequences that inevitably result in long-term misery for the individual. An analogy would be the clinical use of methadone--itself a highly and extremely addictive opiate, but with less painful and agonizing withdrawal symptoms--to help a person detox from heroin. The individual becomes addicted to the methadone and it must then be maintained for life.

In the example above that Bob uses, the child is able to retain his love for the abusive parent, but instead concludes that something is wrong with him. This incorrect conclusion, born of faulty psychological logic, will impact his life in all areas: relationships, work and will impede any chances he has to achieve success, personal fulfillment and happiness, or genuine intimacy.

It is not my intention to suggest that the only way to cope with stress is to use psychological defenses. On the contrary, there are many factors that come into play, such as the individual's temperment and inborn biological/physiological protections; the presence or absence of social or environmental supports, hope and faith and even luck or serendipity may play a role in helping someone get through difficult times.

In fact, all these factors--biological, social, cultural, religious--all interact together and, in times of stress, have a considerable impact on which psychological defense the EGO deploys to protect the SELF.

And it is all these factors that come into play when trying to understand why a supposedly mature person uses immature psychological defenses.

If a person experiences an overwhelming number of environmental insults without sufficient biological resiliency, he will fail; if he has enough of the protective environmental factors (e.g., love, health, education) he is relatively invincible to the vissictitudes of life. If he or she is born with normal resilience, but the culture is severely pathological and thus the environment is not conducive to the development of psychological maturity, then the individual will go down with the culture, unless he is able to escape from its influence.

Let us for the moment say that all biological factors being equal (and, of course, they are not) then the primary determinants will be the degree to which those environmental factors control the life and activities of the person. While it is true that even healthy people may transiently use the immature psychological defenses, they do so only as a transient, temporary measure; until they psychologically prepare themselves to deal with the threat (see the example about the reflexive response to hearing about the death of a loved one in Part I). They are able to do this because the confluence of factors in their life has led them to psychological maturity. Their egos are able to handle a painful reality--they suffer, they grieve, they grow, and then they are able to move on.

This does not happen in some cultures or societies.

Environmental factors can encourge individuals to deploy mature defenses; or they may encourage the deployment of the immature and primitive defenses. As I mentioned in Part I, the immature defenses are infectious. They can spread like an epidemic through a population--particularly if they are culturally or religiously sanctioned. This is because they offer the simplest and most gratifying explanation for an individual's or a society's problems ("It's all the Jews fault!", "If it weren't for those Blacks!", "Republicans hate the poor!" and so on).

From The Wisdom of the Ego:

The capacity to use social supports involves the ability to metabolize, as it were, other people once they are found. This capacity is inextricably bound to potential for psychosocial maturation....

In order to treat the experience of being loved as if it were a gift and neither a danger nor a right, we need the ego capacity of being able to absorb those who love us. If we marry someone much richer than ourselves, shall we feel grateful or envious? If our tennis partner always beats us, doues our game improve or does our self-esteem plummet? If our father is in some was a disaster, are we determined to avenge ourselves by becoming really good fathers, or do we do unto other as was done to us?
[...]
...the process of metabolizing social supports is far more subtle. We can teach people ideas. We can teach someone to view a glass as half full rather than half empty; we can teach people to have positive attributions. But how to teach people to treat an onrush of love as a gift and not a threat is a more daunting task, one that requires grace or at least consummate skill.

EGO maturity, and the ability to deploy the healthier, more mature defenses comes about as a result of one's experience with the problems of life and the increasing ability to tolerate paradox. Vaillant recounts this brief story, which is very telling:

...a College man who was both a model for mature defenses and a distinguished career diplomat to the Arab world told me that he was on his way to address a B'nai B'rith group. I asked him what he planned to say about the dilemma of Palestine. He replied that he would quote the wise man who observed, "When in a conflict both parties have the moral right on their side, that is the meaning of tragedy." A paradox. Yet Eugene O'Neill suggested that the tragic alone has that significant beauty which is truth. A second paradox. But where does the capacity to tolerate such paradox come from?"

Let us look for a moment at the tragedy that is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. One side of that conflict has attempted to come to terms with this paradox multiple times; and has acknowledged that there is moral right on both sides of the conflict. That side has repeatedly and earnestly tried to make peace by giving the other side what it says it wants. That side is Israel, who has given the Palestinians everything they need to create their own state and to make a life for themselves and their people.

It is the completely dysfunctional Palestinians, whose envy and hate (societally, culturally and religiously inflamed,) have led them to repeatedly refuse the gift given freely by the Israelis. Instead, they cling to their denial of the reality of Israel; they resort to a barbaric and primitive paranoia and projection blaming the Israelis and the Jews for their own squandering of billions of dollars, their own choice to spend that money on weapons and arms instead of schools and institutions that might make the future brighter. Indeed, the homicidal and suicidal rage encouraged by the culture is the only behavioral choice that allows them as a culture to keep their distorted grasp of reality intact.

The social, cultural and religious supports for the individual Palestinians have abjectly failed them and cannot facilitate emotional maturity. And the external social/environmental supports (such as they are) for the entire culture continue to enable the culture's dysfunctional behavior by never permitting them to suffer the consequences of their actions (the enabling by the intellectuals of the West); and by maliciously using their plight for the purpose of oppressing and controlling other middle east populations (the so-called "friends" and fellow muslims of the Islamic world).

Thus, the Palestinians are trapped forever in the grip of an immature, barbaric, and primitive cultural ego; their plight cynically manipulated by their "friends" and fellow muslims; and their dysfunctional behavior rewarded monetarily and excused by the "superior" intellectuals of the West. Homicide and suicide are the lifestyle of choice. [Note: that is why it is especially sickening that the enabling selfless psychopaths in the West, who see themselves as "antiwar" and "peace" activists have chosen to use the headscarf of the Palestinian people as some sort of a fashionable peace symbol. It is indeed a symbol, but not of what they imagine.]

In this sick and pathological environment, Palestinian children have practically no chance whatsoever of growing up to achieve any degree of emotional or psychological maturity. The environment is far too toxic to support ego maturation. And when they are physically mature, they will pass the psychological toxicity onto their own offspring. Hence, generation after generation will miss the opportunity to break out of the cycle of violence and death to make a better life for themselves and their children.

This is what happens when the environment encourages the development of seriously immature psychological defenses.

Meanwhile, the Israelis quietly go on; growing economically, building universities and engaging in civilized behavior, using their psychological and spiritual wisdom as a motivation to keep trying. Surrounded by those who want only to exterminate them, the Israelis have, time and again, refrained for the most part, from giving back what they are receiving. As a society, culture, and a religion, they have achieved a degree of maturity and wisdom that allows them to be dispassionate as well as compassionate, and not indulge in the kind of mass hysteria and dysfunction that is seen daily in their fanatical enemies. As a people they keep on trying and hoping for a breakthrough; because fundamentally, they want to bring about a better life for their children--a simple goal that Jews have always and in all places desired.

SC&A recently touched on these issues here and here and rightly points out:

Now, let’s think about that for a minute. Does anyone seriously believe that there are any Jews, anywhere, that are fixated (read: obsessed) on the Arab world? Does anyone really believe that the vast majority of Jews wake up every morning and ask themselves, ‘What can I do to screw an Arab today?’

Does anyone really believe that Jews- like everybody else- put aside concern for their family, jobs, community and whatever needs they might have, just so they might focus on undermining the Arabs and Arab world?

What could Jews- or anyone else, for that matter, anywhere, do to Arabs what their own dysfunctional political and ‘religious’ leadership haven’t already done to insure the failure of Arab society? As it is, according to the UN Human Development report, the Arab world already has just about the lowest levels of education in the world, save for sub Saharan Africa

What do the Palestinians want? They encourage their children to blow themselves up and die so that the adults can maintain their "honor" and continue on their dysfunctional path of destruction and death. This is not behavior compatible with either individual or cultural health. In fact, it is a culture that is inexorably pursuing death with a breathtaking single-mindedness.

In order to grow psychologically and develop the ego strength to live in a civilized world, the children of Palestine requre a different environment. If some Pied Piper could lead them away from the broken and severely impaired adults; or if someone called those adults to account for the irrational, culturally sanctined malignant narcissism that is cloaked in religious sanctimony--then there might one day be a resolution to the tragedy and a future for today's Palestinian children.

A healthy environment--one that encourages healthy relationships between men and women; and between all individuals--is essential so that children can learn to deal appropriately with loss, sorrow and all the unbearable unfairness of life that characterizes the human condition. In such environments, the individual thrives and both the SELF and the EGO mature and gain the wisdom necessary to change what is able to be changed. In such environments, there is no need to encourage denial, paranoia or projection, because the resultant psychological maturity permits access to those emotional defenses that give meaning and bring satisfaction to life.

Each of the mature defenses which help the mature adult resolve the ambiguities and paradoxes of his or her life, has an inherent paradox associated with it (see the Table below).

It is a most ingenious paradox of life that most civilized societies and cultures encourage and support the individual in the pursuit of his or her own life, happiness and psychological growth. These societies do not lay claim to an individual's life for the glory of the state; and in turn all members of the societey benefit as the culture's productivity, wealth and benevolence all increase.

In other words, paradoxically, those political, economic, cultural and religious factors that encourage what is best for individual growth and maturity, are exactly what encourage the positive evolution and maturation of societies and cultures.

Psychological maturity (which includes both a mature SELF and a mature EGO) makes all the difference in the world between war and peace. Mature psychological defenses enable a creative solution to conflicts in ways that are positive for both the individual and his or her society. This is exactly what the immature defenses--such as denial, projection, paranoia do not do. On the contrary, such defenses almost always in the long run cause not only damage to the individual's developing self, but they also eventually destroy the fundamentals of civilized behavior that can hold a society together and give it a future.



UPDATE: Yesterday, Fausta went to a lecture by the head of the Palestine Liberation Orgaization Mission to the US. She tells me his speech can be summed up in four words: "It's all Israel's fault."

And so it goes.

A MOST INGENIOUS PARADOX - Part I

Over the years it has occurred to me that one of the principal not-quite-conscious reasons I decided to specialize in psychiatry was my attempt to understand and cope with the chaos and unhappiness that many people experience when they are young.

What fascinated me about psychiatry and psychology were the many ingenious ways that people (myself included) attempted to restructure reality and truth to make the world around them a more comfortable and less threatening place. That this was a basic survival strategy for some people seemed very obvious to me.

This is why I have always been particularly interested in psychological defenses, both the mature and immature varieties.

In Narcissism and Society, I discussed the normal and pathological development of the Self, and how defects in narcissism have a profound impact on the both the individual and society.

This essay begins with a somewhat related topic: the EGO and its relationship to the SELF and to interpersonal relationships. It is important to understand these relationships if you hope to understand why some individuals and groups routinely use immature psychological defenses, instead of the mature variety. The former are, at best, only temporarily successful against the onslaught of a relentless reality, and thus are only used by very young children or by adults whose sense of self is so threatened that they revert to earlier and more primitive coping strategies.

Often the concept of the SELF is confused with that of the EGO, but the two are significantly different--in much the same way that the body differs from a particular organ system.

The SELF is able to experience subjective thoughts, feelings and physical sensations. It is represented in the mind in the same way that a person's significant others are represented.

In contrast, the EGO can be thought of as a dispassionate, organizing mental apparatus (sort of like how the immune system is conceptualized as an organizing “anti-infection” apparatus). The EGO is a system of the SELF that deals with external and internal reality. It is merely an abstraction and does not have a physical reality ; and it is concerned with the adaptation of the SELF and coping with the world. As such, the EGO integrates central nervous system functioning for the SELF, and is automatically deployed to cope with stress (much the same way that the immune system is automatically deployed to combat infection).

The EGO's job is to deal with stress for the SELF and it does this through the use of unconscious, involuntary psychological processes which are referred to as "defense" mechanisms". These psychological defenses seek to obscure or distort reality in order to protect the SELF from psychological trauma; and it is able to achieve this by altering the individual’s thoughts, feelings and behaviors in order to keep the offending or threatening reality at bay.

Psychological defenses may be difficult to detect by the user unless conscious thought and emotional honesty are applied to the problem; but they are often fairly obvious to a disinterested observer who can clearly see the distortion of reality that is being displayed. Sometimes the observer may be truly flabbergasted by the degree to which an individual is able to deceive him or herself.

One example of this self deception is the extremely paranoid and bizarre individual with complicated and convoluted conspiracy theories that explain some aspect of his or her life that is intolerable. You might think the fear induced by the paranoia would be counterproductive, but the individual's ego has weighed the balance and found the paranoia is far preferable to the aspect of the person's life being avoided. In fact, the very existence of the paranoia itself may be gratifying--imagine how important a person would have to be to have the CIA in hot pursuit; or to have super powerful aliens from another planet singling them out for special treatment.

I have witnessed this type of paranoia many times in my career. Paranoia (and it's little brother psychological projection) become bizarre and completely out of touch with the real world (say what you will, the CIA is at least a real entity as opposed to aliens who put secret bugging devices in your brain to listen to your thoughts!), when an individual’s brain physiology is abnormal (either because of genetics, toxins, infection, etc.). In such a case, the EGO must rely on a defective brain to deploy its defenses.

Yet, there are people considered perfectly normal who firmly believe that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a blueprint for an International Jewish Conspiracy to take over the world. In fact, there are large populations and nations that believe this as a matter of national policy. This kind of projection and paranoia on a large scale is an extremely interesting phenomenon and will be discussed later.

Psychological defense mechanisms are important because they help people to deal with--and defend against--otherwise unacceptable internal and external thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. In other words, they are psychological strategies to preserve the SELF. These defenses can be observed being used by groups of individual and even nations. Group factors (such as group identity and cohesiveness) can encourage the development of certain defenses--especially the immature/primitive ones which are incredibly infectious--and lead to groups of individuals and even entire nations or religions adopting paranoia or projection or denial in order to cope with an unacceptable reality that threatens the group image. We see this group phenomenon clinically in "Folie a deux" or in mass hysteria, for example.

In a previous post on psychological defenses , I wrote:

A healthy person will use many different defenses throughout life. A defense mechanism becomes pathological when it is used persistently and leads to maladaptive behavior that will eventually threaten the physical and/or mental health of the individual. Having said that, there are psychological defenses that are:
1) almost always pathological - when they prevent the individual from being able to cope with a real threat and obscure his/her ability to perceive reality;
2) immature - used in childhood and adolescence, but mostly abandoned by adulthood, since they lead to socially unacceptable behavior and/or prevent the adult from optimal coping with reality;
3) neurotic - common in everyone, but clearly not optimal for coping with reality since they lead to problems in relationships; work; and problems in enjoying life; and finally,
4) mature defense mechanisms - used by "healthy" adults, they optimize one's ability to have normal relationships; enjoy work, and to take pleasure in life.

Let me make one thing perfectly clear: everyone uses defense mechanisms. We can no more prevent their use by the EGO to respond to a psychological threat, than we can prevent our immune system from responding to a physiological threat. A perfect example that almost everyone can relate to is the natural response people have when they hear some really painful news—such as the death of a loved one. “NO!” is the involuntary response. “It’s not true!”

This is DENIAL, and its purpose in this situation is to give an individual time to come to grips with a terrible, painful reality. As an initial response, it is completely normal. But, if six months go by and the person still refuses to believe that their loved one is dead and behaves as if that loved one is still alive; then it becomes pathological.

An individual’s level of development; the depth and breadth of his interpersonal relationships, and the intensity of the perceived threat both combine to determine which psychological defense the EGO might deploy in a given situation. A child, for example, does not generally have either the life experiences or the internal wisdom to use one of the more mature defenses in a traumatic situation. But as life is lived and mild, moderate and severe trauma is survived; as the individual learns from his or her mistakes and gains mastery over the world; then the EGO has more options (i.e., more possible defense mechanisms available—from the most immature to the most mature) that can be utilized.

As a child matures, he or she also must deal with the quite natural pain and trauma associated with all interpersonal relationships. Even the most loving relationship can have tremendous pain associated with it, particularly when it is abruptly taken away due to the inevitability of separation and death. The child not only must learn to cope with physical trauma, but must learn to cope with this type of inevitable emotional trauma, also. Those whom he loves must be taken in psychologically and incorporated--both the bad and the good parts-- and fully digested into his own self. Thus, does a person learn to accept that those they love and tend to idealize are not perfect and are "good enough." Such fully digested individuals are never completely lost when death or separation happens, and the pain is mitigated so that the grieving process ultimately leads to a person's individual growth, rather than threatening his very sense of self.

The loss of someone who has not been fully psychologically digested and processed (i.e., someone who is loved but whose bad qualities are so overwhelming that full digestion is difficult, if not impossible) can thus lead to so much internal conflict and misery that the grieving person's life and maturation may be severely impeded from going forward.

By the time adulthood is reached, psychological maturity requires that a modicum of self-awareness, self-reflection and insight have been achieved; and that the individual is aware of their own vulnerabilities and biases--which might impair an optimal response to reality.

There can be profound consequences for the individual-–up to and including even death—-if reality is denied or distorted; so this is a powerful motivator to acknowledge it as it really is. when it is denied or distorted by religious beliefs or dogma, it is an incredibly powerful motivation--but that is the topic of another post). We are all aware, however, of those individuals whose unwillingness to deal with reality surpasses even the basic survival instinct. The suicide bomber who expects to be rewarded with 72 virgins comes to mind; so does the alcoholic who insists his reflexes are fine as he gets into his car intoxicated. Both not only are willing to sacrifice themselves, but also others for their delusion.

A question that comes up all the time is, "Why do grown people use immature defenses?"

In reality, people vary considerably on the degree of psychological maturity that is reached even after physical maturity. In order to answer the question we must first understand how and why people use psychological defenses to begin with.

UNDERSTANDING STRESS

These days we hear a lot about "coping with stress"; and about how "stress" is behind all sorts of medical and psychological problems. Of course, what is really meant by this is that there are many situations in life--some of the common and some not so--that we must respond to in order to live our lives. Stress can be understood as a frustrated "fight or flight" response.

Our bodies, which have not changed much since the days of the caveman, are hardwired to respond to danger in certain ways. Either we gird our loins and fight (Republicans?); or we take flight and run away (Democrats?). These two strategies covered pretty much everything for our ancient ancestors had to deal with to survive, and they lived or died depending on how effectively these strategies were utilized.

In our modern world, it is no longer appropriate or even civilized--most of the time and in most situations--to do either. Imagine if you will, the office worker called on the carpet by the boss, who reacts to this threat to his livelihood by punching the boss; or by running screaming from the boss's office. Neither response would be considered very stable.

We hear on the news fairly frequently of such occurrences; e.g., the postal worker who comes in and shoots his superior, and--as long as he's at it--a few coworkers he holds grudges against.

The point is, that our body's hardware is designed to respond to perceived danger in this way, whether we like it or not. Of course, the boss yelling at us is not the same degree of danger our ancestors used to deal with, but our bodies aren't able to tell the difference and our physiological repertoire is limited. Hence, as we became civilized and our interactions with others and with our environment became more complex, the normal physiological responses of our bodies to danger remained the same, but the behavioral expectations -- i.e., how we acted on the physiological imperative -- changed significantly.

And so, the concept of "stress" was born. We can't often fight; and we can't often run away; and when we do, significant problems can arise for us and for society. Our bodies still physiologically respond, but the usual behaviors that discharge the built-up toxins and return us to physiological normality are gone. Psychologically and physiologically, this tends to take a toll on our bodies; either as physical or emotional problems.

Most people are aware when they are experiencing stress and the physical and emotional discomfort can be a powerful reason to change whatever behavior is causing the sensation. Stress can also be a source of extra energy (for example in sports; or exercise of any kind, which are socially acceptable ways to manage stress) if the physical and emotional aspects of it can be converted to a less destructive form. This is where the concept of psychological defense mechanisms comes in.

COPING WITH STRESS
From George Vaillant’s The Wisdom of the Ego: Sources of Resilience in Adult Life:

The "right stuff" epitomized by the famous American test pilot Chuck Yeager was
not just a function of willpower, stress management, and skillful flight instruction. Many of us could never tolerate becoming pilots, and many pilots could not tolerate becoming test pilots. Even test pilots marveled at Yeager's reflex "cool." For had Yeager paid full attention to his inner and outer reality, he too would have been afraid. But had he ignored such reality for even a moment, he would have died. The wisdom of his ego lay in creating an optimal balance between self deception and accurate appreciation of inner and outer reality. In the language of every day such a delicate balance is called coping, but it is coping of a very special kind.

Before we turn to the defense mechanisms, it is important to realize that there are other ways (i.e., non-psychological ways) of coping with stress. The first are the myriad of cognitive and conscious coping strategies that are available to us. The office worker yelled at by the boss can decide consciously that he will correct whatever it is that is upsetting the boss. He can deliberately and consciously decide to look for another job, if he thinks the boss is being unreasonable. He can decide to go back to school and obtain the skills necessary to be promoted to somewhere else in the company; or to another job inside or out of the company. He can consciously place "work" lower on his priorities. He can read books on how to deal with difficult bosses. As you can see, there are many cognitive and conscious options or choices open to him. All of the strategies above can be effective in the right situations.

But let us say that our worker--let us call him Mr. Smith--lacks the resources to go to school; or that he cannot afford to lose his job; or doubts he could find a better one. Well, in that case, Mr. Smith can use a second powerful way to cope with the stress in his life: he can use his social support network. He can go home and complain to his wife. He can complain and bitch about his situation with his buddies. He can spend more time with his children. He can submerse himself in his friendships and clubs. In short, he can find support and empathy from the interpersonal relationships he has surrounded himself with. (This is why married people in general are reported happier, and tend to live longer).

But, what if Mr. Smith doesn't have many friends; doesn't have a wife or much of a social life at all. Well, if both the cognitive and social strategies of coping with stress are not used, then there is a third way, and that way is using involuntary, unconscious psychological strategies to cope.

HOW DO DIFFERENT PSYCHOLOGICAL DEFENSES WORK?

Vaillant summarizes the different ways that defense mechanisms might disguise an internal conflict. I will paraphrase his example:

Let us suppose that the underlying conflict (expressed as a conscious idea, feeling or behavior) is, "I hate my father." The following examples are how that specific feeling might be altered when different defense mechanisms are used by the person experiencing it:

DEFENSE / Conscious Representation of thoughts, feelings or behaviors

No defense - I hate my father

Psychotic Defenses
Denial - I don't have a father.

Immature Defenses
Projection - My father hates me.
Passive Aggression - I hate myself (or a suicide attempt).
Acting Out - Gets into fights with authority figures
Fantasy - Daydreams about killing giants or monsters

Neurotic (Intermediate) Defenses
Dissociation - I tell my father jokes.
Displacement - I hate my father's dog.
Intellectualization - I disapprove of my father's behavior.
Repression - I don't know why I feel so hot and bothered.
Reaction Formation - I love my father; or I hate my father's enemies .

Mature Defenses
Suppression - I am angry at my father, but I won't tell him.
Sublimation - I beat my father at tennis.
Altruism - I comfort father haters
Humor - I make gentle fun of fathers with jokes that make others laugh!
(note that not all humor is mature, but when used appropriately it is one of the most effective coping skills. Sadistic humor, for example arises from projection and is immature, bringing no pleasure)

Each one of the above defense mechanisms (except for the mature ones) can, under the right circumstances, be taken to pathological extremes and result in a psychiatrically diagnosable condition.

For example, the use of projection ("My father hates me") if used persistently as a coping mechanism against all "father" figures in a person's life can lead to a paranoid personality disorder. Or, use of the passive aggression defense (I hate myself) can lead to dysthymia or depression. Repression might lead to an anxiety disorder.

There is a clinical correlate for each of the less mature defenses listed above, and the expression of that clinical disorder is dependent on a variety of factors such as the age/developmental stage of the user; the genetic, biological or physiological vulnerabilities of the user; the environment of the user, etc.

Valliant observes:

It is noteworthy that the denials and self-deceptions that result from the deployment of mature defenses result in no diagnosis--not everyone who practices self-deception appears ill to others. The oyster, after all, deals with the irritation of a grain of sand by creating a pearl.

Many people seem to think that ALL stress is bad for you and must be eliminated from your life. But this position fails to understand the importance and necessity of stress in our lives.

Where once our stress response existed merely to protect us from extreme danger (and still does); today it is a key biological element that can promote and and encourage psychological growth and development and help us to learn mastery over ourselves and our environment.

So this is the good thing about stress. Stress, our perception of it and our response to it, can help us to mature and expand our capabilities. Without stress, there is little motivation to change or improve either ourselves or our environment. Too little stress and we stagnate. Too much, and we are at risk of falling apart. But just the right amount of irritation can encourage us to create a pearl!

Perhaps the greatest stress an individual can feel comes when they must deal with the loss of a loved one. Sadly, such an occurrence is inevitable in the course of life, and how each person deals with the losses he or she experiences has a significant impact on the psychological defense mechanisms they will use.

Love and interacting with other people are not pain or stress-free. Frequently the pain involved in interpersonal relationships can be the impetus that helps us learn to psychologically assimilate (as in digest) others, a process that is integral to healthy human development.

Vaillant again:

We, too, sometimes forget that, contrary to folklore and psychiatric myth, loss in itself does not cause psychopathology. We forget that healthy grief hurts but does not make us ill. Grief produces tears, not patienthood. It is never having anyone at all to love that cripples us. It is the inconstant people who stay in our lives who drive us mad, not the constant ones who die. It is failure to internalize those whom we have loved, not their loss, that impedes adult development (emphasis mine.)

Basically, the elusive process of psychological maturation requires the capacity to sustain and tolerate paradox, or ambiguity.

In Part II, I will show how the mature psychological defenses--humor, anticipation, suppression, sublimation and altruism--do exactly that: help the individual achieve a reconciliation with the painful ambiguities and paradoxes of his life by maintaining "a creative and flexible tension between irreconcilables" and by allowing "conscience, impulse, reality, and attachment all to have places at center stage."

BLAME BUSH

Bad news for the Democrats, who can't possibly take credit for this since the clock has barely started on their "100 hours".

Economists are hastily upgrading their forecasts for the US economy after a series of surprisingly strong reports suggesting the so-called "soft landing" may be over and growth is accelerating.
Over the past week, surprises have come in stronger-than-expected reports on US job creation, the trade balance and retail sales -- all key contributors to economic activity.

Lehman Brothers chief US economist Ethan Harris on Friday boosted his forecast for fourth quarter 2006 growth to an annualized rate of 3.3 percent, a leap from the firm's prior call for just 2.0 percent growth.

"After slowing in November, the economy seems to have regained its stride," Harris said.

"With the last of the major data in, we are now revising fourth quarter GDP to an above-trend 3.3 percent. A wide range of indicators have been stronger than expected. Most important have been the strong consumption data and the surprising improvement in the trade balance."

The latest data defy predictions that the slump in real estate would filter into other areas of the economy, notably consumer spending.

The latest data showed US employers added a healthy 167,000 new jobs in December, with unemployment holding at a low 4.5 percent. Average wages were up 4.2 percent annually.

A separate report Friday showed US retail sales increased 0.9 percent in December.

Personally, I think we should blame Bush.

UPDATE: Bizzyblog has more on the story.

A CERTAIN SHARED DERANGEMENT

Victor Davis Hanson responds to furious email asking, "War, what war?"

So one reoccurring topic is the controversy over just how serious is the threat of radical Islam. I get a great deal of furious mail, suggesting that Bush & Co. for a variety of reasons (fill in the blanks: oil, Halliburton, etc.) have created a bogeyman out of a few ragtag terrorists, and dangerously and gratuitously set us on a path of war in the Middle East.

Such critics are emboldened by the luxuries of relative world peace. Remember, we enter into year six without an attack on the United States homeland comparable to September 11. That fact, taken together with the absence of a clearly-identified enemy nation state, has suggested to many that there is hardly a present threat comparable to dangers posed by Nazis, fascists, Japanese imperialists, or Soviet and Chinese communists of the past.

But how true is that really?

I. -Isms and –Ologies Are More Deadly

Global ideologies pose greater threats than particular bellicose states. Nazism, for example, was more dangerous than Prussian militarism because it much more easily appealed across national boundaries.

The same was true of communism versus, say, Japanese militarism that was predicated on unique thoughts about racial superiority rather than Pan-Asian communitarian solidarity. Bushido appealed to few non-Japanese.

Jihadism, however, resonates with Muslims in Pakistan, the Arab World, the Philippines, or Indonesia. Race, language, landscape, or nationality are not always predictable in our enemies, only a certain shared derangement guided by the idea that the West and its modernization have eclipsed Islam and are in some way responsible for radical Muslims’ current sense of inferiority and lost entitlement.

Read it all.

Meanwhile, sharing the derangement--at least the portion where the West, i.e. America, and its modernization are bad for the world--the Democrats have developed a knee-jerk response that will serve as their take on all future speeches by the President (see here):

CARNIVAL OF THE INSANITIES

Time for the weekly insanity update, where the insane, the bizarre, the ridiculous, and the completely absurd are highlighted for all to see! This has been a week of rare idiocy (as always!). So, if you want to remain sane, the best thing is to poke some fun at the more egregious absurdities.

Send all entries for next week's carnival to Dr. Sanity by 8 pm ET on Saturday for Sunday's Carnival. Only one post entry weekly per blogger, please. And you might read this before submitting an entry.

Thanks for all the submissions. I try to use as many as possible! SO MANY INSANITIES! SO LITTLE TIME!!!

1. Wow! This could be the inspiration for the Munch painting.

2. Felix was catblogging Saddam's execution.

3. Cindy Sheehan gives Al Qaeda's response to Bush's Iraq speech. Never let it be said that the MSM isn't fair and balanced! As for this guy, hold on to your last shreds of sanity!

4. Extra! Extra! Read all about it! Leftwing Bloggers Traumatized by new Bush Policy toward Iran and Syria. Let's face it, You can look for terrorists, or you can look for things. Looking specifically for terrorists will traumatize them even more.

5. Congressional leadership, baby. It’s back. Yeah right. The Idiot's Guide to the 110th Congress: Volume II...and the handy-dandy, invisible Democratic war plan -- as told to our undercover secret agent.

6. Clearly, this guy will have to run for Congress. He's got all the qualifications.

7. Tempted by the One Ring? Gollum, gollum... Just wait until no one's paying attention, then....

8. A "New Direction" means what exactly?

9. 10 things to think about in 2007.

10. New York stinks? What else is new?

11. North Korea has been loaning out its speech writers to Iran, I see. When it comes to these two regimes, nothing is too insane. Another example: Iran is probably composing a valentine to Israel.

12. Harsh words about a president...but in this case, well-deserved.

13. Left and right Isolationism defined.

14. Lions and tigers (cat fight!) and bears Klingons, oh my! Oh, and sheep. Lots of sheep.

15. Wind vs. Water damage in Katrina...a perspective you don't hear much about.

16. You can shop, talk and fall in love....but please, please don't r e a d in here--it's a library for goodness sake!

17. This is exactly why they need training. And a great deal of it, apparently.

18. This year's must-have swimming fashion for Muslim women! The big question though: Does this burqa make me look fat?

19. Scientific progress goes boink in the Islamic world. It ain't so intelligent here, either.

20. Impossible is the opposite of possible--or, as I would title it: The Impossible Arrogance of Youth.

21. The new Ford Lipodiesal ! Targeting the morbidly obese.

22. You can't win if you don't play. Thank goodness.

23. "Ah, geez" perfectly sums up my response, too.

24. Writer's Block and a dance retrospectacle !

25. Phallus 101. Why didn't they have easy, suck-up courses like this when I was in college?

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THINK ABOUT IT

She is accused of having no children and of being a traitor to her race because she's a Republican and holds one of the highest postions in the nation.

Think about it.

Think about it, and consider how completely irrelevant, counterproductive, and utterly pathetic today's so-called women's and civil rights movements have become.

RELATED POSTS:

The Intellectual & Moral Bankruptcy of Today's Left

The Political Paranoia of The Left

Dr. Sanity's Practical Guide to Victimhood

UPDATE: Boxer's [Freudian] slip is showing. But, she only spoke "truth to power"; so, if I called Nancy Pelosi a "brainless white girl" I, too, would be speaking truth to power and it would be acceptable to the left? Just asking.

STANDING AGAINST THE SPREADING DARKNESS

Continuing the theme of my last post, I am going to quote from William Kristol in a forthcoming issue of The Weekly Standard :

Say you're an average congressman. How do you react to President Bush's Iraq speech? You suspect, deep down, that he's probably doing more or less what he needs to do. We can't just click our heels and get out of Iraq--the consequences would be disastrous. And the current strategy isn't working. You have said so yourself. Last fall you called for replacing Rumsfeld. You've complained that there weren't enough troops. What's more, you've heard good things about General David Petraeus from colleagues with military expertise. So now Bush has fired Rumsfeld, put Petraeus in command, and sent in more troops. Maybe this new approach deserves a chance to work?

But, hey . . . look at those polls! And those op-ed pages! You didn't come to Washington to support an unpopular president conducting an unpopular war. And the Bush administration is doing a crummy job of explaining this change in strategy. The path ahead in any case is going to be tough, and the new strategy might fail. Besides which, being for "escalation" sure doesn't sound good. Wasn't that a problem in Vietnam?

So you work on your talking points: You understand the president has a tough set of choices. You've got doubts about the path he's chosen. You've got lots of questions. But perhaps we should give it a chance . . .

Read it all. Kristol is correct in asserting that, what I call the nothingness of the Democrats, has spread and become a bipartisan affliction. He calls those suffering from it "Boneless Wonders" for good reason. These so-called "leaders" would rather do what is easy and popular, rather than do what is right.

I touched on this in a post I did in November, 2005, relating to Harry Potter. There is a reason JK Rowling's Potter series has become the metaphor for our times in much the same way that JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings was a metaphor for World War II--and still has enormous relevance for today's conflict with the Islamofascist barbarians:

When Dumbledore says to Harry at the end of the movie (paraphrasing), "Dark and difficult times lay ahead. Soon we will have to decide between doing what is easy and what is right." [In the book, Dumbledore tells all the Hogwarts students: "Remember Cedric. Remember, if the time should come when you have to make a choice between what is right, and what is easy, remember what happened to a boy who was good, and kind, and brave, because, he strayed across the path of Lord Voldemort. Remember Cedric Diggory."]
[...]
Meanwhile, yesterday also saw a heated debate in Congress and voting on a resolution that forced the Democrats to put their money where their mouth has been for the last year. It overwhelmingly failed.In short, it failed because the Democrats--who have been whining about Iraq and undermining all progress there since before last year's presidential election--also know the value of public opinion. They have been catering to their base for some time instead of doing what needs to be done to win this war.

The Democrats always want to go the easy way. That's why they put such stock in opinion polls. Doing what needs to be done is not always popular. The hard choices; the right choices are beyond them--unless they feel the polls are with them, then it becomes easy for them.

Last night, Congress did what was right; and finally stopped sliding toward what was easy.

But this isn't the end. There will be many such choices in the next couple of years both for Congress and for the American people. How to wage this war is up for debate. But no sane person can still be debating on whether to wage it. It is all around us--in Paris, Germany, England, Indonesia, Africa, Pakistan....not just in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The evil we are confronting in the world is not going to go quietly away. Thousands and perhaps millions (if Zarqawi, Zawahiri, and Bin Laden have their way) of innocent people will continue to stray into the path of this evil and they will suffer and die because of it.

It would be easy to pretend that this danger to life; to peace; to civilization did not exist.

Dark and difficult times lay ahead. I hope we will continue to choose what is right.

President Bush has made it clear that he will stand against the spreading darkness, no matter how many revile him for it; and as long as someone like him is President, a person who--for all his flaws and mistakes, and despite all the hatred and vitriol directed at him--continues to choose what is right; then I continue to have hope that we will prevail in the dark and difficult times ahead.

If it were left to the "boneless wonders" of our Congress, the spreading darkness of Tolkien's Mordor; as well as the vicious malice of Rowling's Voldemort would most certainly be unopposed.

UPDATE: Jules Crittendon definitely gets it:

Ironically, here is a U.S. president at longlast doing what Jimmy Carter refused to do, take tough action on Iranian Islamists, against the advice of his National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, a failure that kicked off our 28-year-war with Iran and Islamic extremism. But who is Zbig criticizing today?

They laugh at him because he doesn't speak well. Makes funny faces and looks like a chimp. Made mistakes in the execution of this war, a war his short-sighted critics say never should have happened. But he gets it and finally, he's acting on it.

THE DEMOCRATS EXPLODE

"In the beginning, there was nothing, which exploded". -Terry Pratchett

Pratchett was, of course, talking about the universe. I am going to talk about the Democrats, who will henceforth be referred to as the Party of Nothing.

For months, these nothings have yelled, screamed and demanded that the President do something new in Iraq; that he "change course". Never once during all the accompanying histrionics did they propose anything constructive, except the usual surrender/cut-and-run tripe, occasionally disguised under the rhetoric of "radical redeployment".

Apparently the only "course" acceptable to Democrats is retreat.

Not once have they suggested any other strategy to deal with the situation in Iraq--except to beg for some sort of diplomatic "help" from our good friends the Iranians and Syrians, and let them assist in quelling the violence--despite the fact that even a moron ought to be able to comprehend that Iran and Syria are the ones actually fueling it.

Then, when the President and his advisors develop something new with the object of achieving victory, the Democrats and their leftist base explodes with anger, rage, and the usual duplicity and meaningless posturing. They were for a surge before they were against it. They mimicked despair at the thought that the military was "stretched too thin" in Iraq to be able to deal with the additional problem of Iran; and prided themselves on how patriotic they were because they didn't believe professional soldiers should never ever have to risk their lives for their country--even as they blithly increased that risk for them by releasing classified documents and encouraging and abetting the very people those soldiers were fighting. This type of behavior they call "supporting" the troops.

Their fear, denial and paranoia are all palpable as they enable and provide constant entertainment for the jihadists in their high-tech caves; and as they provide legitimacy for the tyrants in their palaces.

Daniel Henninger has this to say (hat tip: Betsy):

Immediately after the president's speech, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said, "I heard nothing new." Nothing? When Gen. David Petraeus takes command of U.S. forces in Iraq, it will mark the start of an historic turn in military strategy in Iraq and perhaps in U.S. war-fighting doctrine.

The U.S.'s primary problem in Iraq, manifest across 2006, has been an urban insurgency in a 30-mile radius around Baghdad and in Anbar province. The Petraeus command is the overdue beginning of the counterinsurgency.

This isn't a one-off effort as at Fallujah, but counterinsurgency as daily U.S. military policy. It is the product of an enormous amount of self-criticism and analysis done by military and civilian analysts in and out of government. It does not mean, as often suggested the past 24 hours, that 20,000 U.S. troops are now going to run out and look for gun battles with insurgents in back alleys.

As Betsy comments, It is insulting to our military to dismiss this as nothing new. The U.S. military is far more professional and competent than the shrill leadership of the Democratic majority in Congress. And, they are far more aware of how "new" the proposals in the President's speech truly are. For one thing, the U.S. is finally taking off the gloves in dealing with Iran's activities in Iraq as recent events demonstrate. For another, the "political correctness" that has tied the military's hands behind its back on this mission has (hopefully) finally been abandoned.

Furthermore, the President has made it clear that the Iraqi leadership must stand up for the rule of law in their own society and demand that all militias (including Sadr's) be disarmed. America cannot be held responsible for the kind of ongoing moral toxicity that allows that leadership to deliberately ignore a new form of sectarian tyranny instead of freedom and democracy. Indecision and conflicted loyalties that lead to inaction is nonetheless a decision to embrace tyranny and welcome in the overlords from Iran.

In fact, the President has given the Iraqis a timeline and benchmarks to which they will be held accountable.

But the truth is that the Democrats and the left never intended at any time to go along with anything that Bush suggested. As Harry Reid so disingenuously pointed out the other day, he completely understands that it is the President's responsibility to set policy. Apparently he believes his own responsibililty is merely to carp, undermine and destroy anything that the President might suggest.

The Democrats have made crystal clear that their goal is nothing less than complete and total defeat and American humiliation in Iraq, which they mistakenly and eagerly seem to believe will be a defeat only for the President. They couldn't be more incorrect.

Mort Kondracke notes:

Iraq will not be the last theater of combat between radicalism and moderation, but wherever the next confrontation is -- in Lebanon, Egypt, Iran or Saudi Arabia -- the United States will be at an automatic disadvantage if it loses in Iraq.

It will be all the worse if the U.S. loses because Osama bin Laden is proved right in saying that the United States lacks the tenacity for any long and difficult struggle.

So, if there is any chance that the Bush administration can succeed in bringing security to the blood-soaked neighborhoods of Baghdad and in suppressing the Sunni insurgency in Anbar province, it ought to be given a last try.

But even after 9/11 and numerous terrorist attacks around the world, the Democrats and the left don't really believe in the reality of a wider war with Islamofascist jihadists, either. If only we could get rid of BushHitler and his evil sidekick, then all this nastiness would magically go away. Hence the knee-jerk hostile and negative response to the U.S. actions in Somalia the other day.

You can easily imagine these frail, demented old ladies of the left falling into a swoon if the U.S. ever takes decisive action directly against Iran to halt their nuclear ambitions once and for all. They will undoubtedly "forget" that they once acknowledged the threat that Iran posed to the U.S. and international community in the same way they have "forgotten" about their rhetoric concerning Saddam's threat when Clinton was POTUS.

Rich Lowry asks a pertinent question:

I know I'm naïve...

...but wouldn't the honorable thing be for the Democrats as a party basically to say, "This administration has made tragic mistake after tragic mistake in Iraq. We oppose this surge. We don't think it will work. But we really, really hope it does work. We will give it a year and anything we can do at the margins to help make it work, we will."

But, they can't even let themselve hope that America could win in Iraq, when the only enemy they really care about remains in charge of the executive branch; nor can they permit themselves to actively do anything constructive to contribute to an American victory.

UPDATE: Yes, the Dems do always seem to want the US to move in a "new" direction:



See here for other cartoons by Eric Allie.

THE BEAUTIFUL INDIFFERENCE ABOUT BERGER

Hysteria, a term not much used clinically anymore, is a form of psychological dissociation, wherein specific internal mental contents--such as memories, ideas, or feelings-- are unavailable to, or dissociated from, conscious awareness. When an individual comes into contact with certain unpalatable ideas; or experiences feelings or perceptions that are in severe conflict with his or her view of the world or sense of self, it can be quite psychologically traumatic for the individual.

When that happens, the individual's psyche will deploy a variety of psychological defense mechanisms which are designed to protect the person's deeply held beliefs about the world and the self, and to give them time to metabolize and digest the more unpleasant aspects of reality.

These psychological defenses isolate and dissociate the unacceptable memory or perception or idea or feeling from conscious awareness and may have a significant impact on the individual's awareness and behavior.

In the case of classical hysteria--or conversion disorder as it is now known--the impact takes the form of functional neurological deficits, i.e., physical symptoms that make no medical sense, and seem to have no discernable physiological or anatomical correlation, e.g., hysterical blindness or paralysis. (I have written about a classic case of hysteria here)

Often, one of the hallmark symptoms of such cases is a rather unusual--or even inappropriate-- lack of concern expressed by the patient about the very symptoms that have brought them to see medical professionals in the first place. This phenomenon is referred to as "la belle indifference", literally, "beautiful indifference."

Let me give you an example from one of my own cases. A middle-aged woman was referred to the psychiatric emergency room when a rather thorough medical examination could not explain the sudden onset of a complete paralysis below the waist. Additionally, the Resident was concerned because her "affect" was rather strange. It seems that, despite what one might normally consider a rather devastatingly traumatic event--the loss of one's ability to walk or to experience any sensation below the waist--the patient was laughing and joking with the medical Resident.

Mrs O'Hara (we will call her that for reasons that need not concern you) was indeed cheerful for someone who was suddenly paralyed and in a wheelchair. She was also not particularly concerned that she had been referred to a psychiatrist. "Oh!" She told me cheerfully when I asked her how she felt about it, "I suppose you will all sort it out after a while!"

As it turned out, Mrs. O'Hara was eventually admitted to our inpatient unit (yes, they actually used to admit patients like this back in those days). I did not follow her closely, but it turned out that her husband of many years had recently left her for a much younger woman. They were in the middle of a nasty divorce, fighting over how much money she was to get. The whole situation would have been quite upsetting to anyone, but Mrs. O'Hara insisted it didn't bother her at all--and, as long as she insisted such was the case, she was unable to use her legs. She literally "couldn't stand on her own two feet" and didn't seem to much care ("la belle indifference") until one day in a family meeting where her soon-to-be-ex-husband was also present. During this session, Mrs. O'Hara became enraged at something he said and suddenly stood up to confront him angrily. This seemingly obvious evidence of the health of her legs completely unfazed her, however, and she regained her good humor--and her paralysis--at about the same time.

I tell this story merely to demonstrate "la belle indifference" and to segue into a discussion of the curious, but beautiful indifference of our own MSM.

Curiously, because they are journalists, and I would think that journalistic instincts are easily aroused by curiosity, many of today's journalists seem to suffering from a type of mass hysteria. Their journalistic instincts; their curiosity; their "nose" for a story is severely impaired--almost paralyzed or blind you could say--and yet they don't much seem to care.

I could document numerous cases of this indifference--from Kerry's "Christmas in Cambodia" "magic hat" stories and the amazingly uncurious attitude of the press toward his military discharge, to the almost daily rantings and detailing of Republican corruption while practically ignoring equally egregious instances of Democratic misdeeds; from obsessions about incidents like Abu Ghraib and Haditha; and places like Gitmo, to complete indifference about the institutional abu ghraibs,hadithas and gitmos of the totalitarian regimes of the middle east--but the instance that concerns me today relates to the sad and incredibly curious case of Sandy Berger's theft and destruction of national security documents related to Clinton administration activities prior to 9/11..

The report released this week by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee shows, as ranking Republican member Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia put it, how former Clinton National Security Adviser Berger "compromised national security much more than originally disclosed."

The conventional wisdom is that Berger took and tried to destroy four documents. Fact is, we don't know all Berger took and all he destroyed.

As Davis points out, "Working papers of National Security Council staff members are not inventoried by the Archives. Consequently, there is no way to ever know if the 9/11 Commission received all required materials."
[...]
The 9/11 Commission was naturally curious about how the Clinton administration handled prior terror threats and what it knew, and when, about potential threats. So, it asked Berger to testify. Clinton, we know now, signed a letter authorizing Berger's access to classified documents in the Archives as preparation for his testimony.

A report by the National Archives and Records Administration says Clinton signed an April 12, 2002, letter designating Berger, and another individual whose name was redacted, as "agents on his behalf to review relevant NSC documents regarding Osama bin Laden/al-Qaida, Sudan and presidential correspondence from or to (Sudanese President) Omar Bashir, contained in the Clinton presidential records."

According to the NARA report, a subsequent letter from a National Security Council official dated May 14, 2002, said Berger was repeatedly briefed that "he was not allowed to remove any documentation from NARA." But he did. Now we know that we don't know how many documents he may actually have taken and what was in or on them.

The "Archives staff's failure to contact law enforcement immediately and their contacts with Mr. Berger about the missing documents compromised the law enforcement effort," said Rep. Davis. Because Berger "had access to original documents that he could have taken without detection," he added, "we do not know if anything was lost to the public or the process."

No one in the mainstream media seems to care.

What information exactly was in those documents that were destroyed by Berger? Why is there not more pressure being placed on this former National Security Advisor to reveal what was behind his bizarre actions--and who might have told him to do it? and why? How is it that Berger did not go to jail, when his offence was more than justification to throw the book at him? Why is it that four years after the event we are now only finding out about his incredible duplicity and quite deliberate actions? Why was the public given bemused testimony about his "absentmindedness"? Why is no one in the MSM actively pursuing the answers to these questions and hounding Berger day-in and day-out to get the answers? Why is the MSM completely blind to the implications of such a story and in a state of self-induced paralysis about following up on it?

Why? La belle indifference.