Om kommunister, socialister eller när det slår slint i huvudet på människor…

Paul Krugman i bloggpostningen ”Ett konstigt vansinne” i min något fria amatöröversättning:

”Eftersom jag har en hygglig internetanslutning för några timmar [han är ute på semestertur tror jag :)] låt mig blanda mig i diskussionen när det gäller den galenskap som sveper över USA.

Joe Klein rapporterar om ett stadhusmöte där människor hävdade att Obama har späckat regeringen med kommunister [*se avslutningen av länkad artikel nedan]. Bisarrt – men jag har fått liknande bisarra påståenden i många av de brev som jag fått. Och vad som är slående är intensiteten i dem.

Jag har tidigare nämnt att hatmejlen har nått nivåer som jag inte har sett sedan 2004 eller så. Men då var hatet förståeligt. Människor, som jag, ifrågasatte Bush bona fide (goda tro eller att han var erkänd) som den stora beskyddaren mot terrorism, med påståenden att han avsiktligt missledde landet in i ett onödigt krig. Detta var starka anklagelser och på ett sätt kan man förstå att människor som idoliserade Bush (tro det eller inte, det fanns en massa sådana) var upprörda.

Men nu får jag spottande, fräsande och osammanhängande raseri över artiklar om, hmmm, sjukvårdsekonomi eller makromodeller [vet inte riktigt vad det är]. Vad kan det vara som retar upp folk så till den grad över dessa alster? Vanligtvis är det omöjligt att veta – jag har en känsla av att dessa upprörda korrespondenter faktiskt inte har läst det jag har skrivit alls. Men det är okej – de vet att jag är korrupt och en lögnare, en nazist, och att jag har spytt ut min ondska i mina skriverier.

Det som är intressant är att det som driver allt detta inte har något samband med de realiteter som jag, eller, det som är ännu viktigare, Obama pratar om eller gör. Obama skulle ha kunnat komma med förslag om en agenda som är identiskt med Bush och han skulle fortfarande vara en socialist/kommunist/fascist, tillsammans med dem av oss som inte ser det på det sättet [därför] att vi är lögnaktiga nazister själva.

Någonting har slagit helt slint i huvudena på ett påtagligt stort antal amerikaner.”

Läs också Dagens Arena om ”Privatiseringen läcker” och ”Big Brother Berlusconi –makten och härligheten” samt ”Labour failure on climate change a 'political crime', says Green leader Caroline Lucas."

Och läs också Krugman i “How Did Economists Get It So Wrong?”

Se ”Husmarks bro - en mörken spång till ättestupans kant.”

* "Could I just say that the intensity of this getting pretty scary...and dangerous? We are heading toward a cliff and the usual brakes of civil discourse are not working. Indeed, the Republicans have the pedal to the metal--rushing us toward a tragedy far greater than the California health care forum finger-biting Karen describes below.

I'm usually not one to panic or be overly worried about the state of our country--even when we do awful things like invade Iraq and torture people, we usually right our course before long--but I have a sinking feeling about where we're headed now. I hope I'm wrong."

George Monbiot...

Apropå föregående inlägg om "Kompetensrädsla": Om George Monbiot, hans hemsida. Och om “Unsentimental Education” där det bland annat står i inledningen:

“If only the government would justify the paranoia of the ruling classes. They believe, as they have always believed, that they are under unprecedented attack. All last week the rightwing papers rustled with the lamentations of the privileged, wailing about a new class war. If only.”

Översatt blir det något i stil med (i min snabba översättning):

”Om bara regeringen ville rättfärdiga (dvs. försvara) paranoian hos de ledande klasserna. De tror, som de alltid har trott, att de är under exempellös (ny och enastående) attack. Hela förra veckan rasslade högerns tidningar av klagosånger från de privilegierade, jämrande sig över ett nytt klasskrig. Om bara.”

Ja, stackars överklassen!!?? Arkiv med Monbiots artiklar i the Guardian här.

The enemy inside (and/or outside) us...

Morning thoughts triggered by something I read…

A well-known Swedish journalist here has written a book whose title in English would be something like ”The enemy inside us” (refered to in the linked blogpost), about how we and the world in the name of combating terrorism treats people. But he is probably not writing about the underlying causes and mechanisms to this. I haven't read this book. It is new.

From where does paranoia come? I wonder silently.

What is the enemy inside us? What are real threats in the environment? And what are not? How do we protect ourselves against people and circumstances that are damaging or even dangerous and how do we recognize people and circumstances that aren’t damaging or dangerous, so we protect ourselves against the right persons and things?

Now political leaders are playing on people’s needs to find scapegoats. In a way that reminds of what Hitler did once (and as many other leaders have done during history, causing a lot of harm really). And that Hitler was able to succeed in the way he did was because what the people in Germany had in their baggage, Miller for instance writes… The raising style then: to obey the authoritarian father for instance. And absolutely not question him. And it was shown in the surrounding world too, where many refused to see what happened. And this in turn was the result of a raising-style in many other countries similar to the one in Germany.

In the readers’ letter on Millers web I linked to in the previous blogpost a person writes about the supposed internal perpetrator. That a person has a father and a mother etc. inside, that he/she is having a whole family system inside, which his (her?) therapist suggest he (or she?) shall use to understand him(her?)self. A concept the writer thinks is destructive…

I have the book “Stalking the Soul” by Marie-France Hirigoyen…

How does one protect oneself the best way against a psychopath?

By concentrating (entirely) on the psychopaths traits? Isn’t the risk you then get stuck with the psychopath instead of being free from him/her? A more successful path would that be to understand oneself, and thus be able to protect oneself adequately against a perpetrator? But maybe you need to protect yourself immediately, here and now first, so it can certainly also be!!!

Bosch writes somewhere about fleeing or fighting the right person!!??

But I can’t help wondering how people become psychopaths? Isn’t the society still in Denial about the causes here? And from the little I have read Hirigoyen’s book I think she too is still caught in the old psycho dynamic (psychoanalytical?) ideas… And does ideas like hers go on playing on people's paranoiac tendencies in fact (which have roots)? Does she contribute to real enlightenment and thus to solutions that would be even better and long lasting andto a change in a lot of things? Or what are the actual benefits of her book (and similar or even worse) books?

Does she too contribute to manipulative treatments? I am silently wondering... And questioning her (quite a lot to be honest, I couldn't finish her book, because I thought so already then)... But maybe I should read her book again now, and would then see it in another light now, compared to when I started to read it two years ago exactly I see now!!! (but I doubt I would read it more positively, but I may be wrong). I don't know exactly how to express this, feelings I have, strong...

Yes, it is valuable to understand how a person has become a psychopath?? But even better to understand oneself to deal constructively with a/the psychopath one encounter?? Without resorting to a childhood state? Not easy!! And if one doesn’t succeed it is important not to blame oneself…

Books like Hirigoyen’s what does it contribute with? To clearing out things, or to even more confusion? To blocking the truth?? In fact even to cover it up?

Yes, I actually read the first 64 pages thoroughly!!! At page 23 in the Swedish edition she writes about deliberate violence, in the aim to attack the other person’s identity and deprive him or her of all individuality.

If one behaves like that where are the roots??

And the one that is victim what has hat persons been through? Has her/his abilities to protect her/himself been hurt or even destroyed? Isn’t it possible to restore these things? To work on them to be able to protect oneself better?

With this said I don’t want to blame the victim, and not excuse the perpetrator.

And can the perpetrator be entirely unconscious about what he/she is doing?? Is he/she deliberately mean? Would it be possible to try to communicate how you experience the way you are treated? Or is it no idea? The tricky thing to know when to leave actually??

Who is the most common perpetrator?? And the most common victim?

It seems as it is most often men that gets this diagnose (!!! This about diagnosis. The linked blogposts mirrors the different ways diagnosing takes, and can take). And it is more common in the lower classes. Probably depending on that people in higher classes have means to hide things like these!!! Yes, I think that can be really true!

One interesting thing that stood in one of the articles was that the psychopath has a high tolerance what concern stress (which also can be the result in some with a heavy workload for a long time).

Here another article about psychopaths.

It stood in one of the linked articles about psychopaths that:

“they are uninterested in everything that is in long term. Many are lacking interests for cultural and intellectual values, policy, ideologies and political choices."

A one working extremely hard on her/himself, trying to develop skills, as for instance when it comes to learning to play an instrument (which demands real stamina)...

Am I a bit angry? Now I HAVE to prepare the day!!!

Addition September 7: I think I am going to write more about this, and about the ideas that still exists among therapists etc. concerning for instance impulse control etc. Lacking or functioning impulse control... What are the impulses that has to be controlled actually?