They Live, 1988 John Carpenter Movie

Social Psychopathy and Tyranny

Source

journal-neo.org

Author: Gordon Duff

06.07.2019

Something spoken of only in whispers is talk of a military coup in Washington. Few are aware of the factions in America’s military such as “Dominionists” who run the Air Force or did until former Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and Chairman JCOS Marty Dempsey “eliminated them.”

You see, since the 1980s, religious extremism took root in America’s service academies and today’s most senior Pentagon brass is deeply infiltrated with members of an apocalypse cult that took root in America’s South during the 1930s, now thinly disguised as “Evangelical Christianity.”

Though most at the head of this movement are simply charlatans and deceivers, among their number are some who could accurately be described as psychopaths, a term that a number of medical professionals have applied to Donald Trump.

The issue of Trump is more complicated than many would have it, with power bases inside the US that few if any ever see manipulating Trump, playing on his fears and grandiosity. Trump well recognized that the CIA could not be trusted and turned to the conspiracy media, perhaps not recognizing that it too was under the control of intelligence agency factions, though not necessarily American in origin.

America has not been made “great” again, no parade can undo the blithering, the incompetence, the embarrassing idiocy and the generous dose of insanity that now is the American “brand.”

To succinctly describe the point, we turn to America’s most defining July 4th event, the year is 1863, the place is Gettysburg, a town in Pennsylvania, where a battle ensued that made the world we know today. Here, a fictional quote attributed to General Longstreet, one of General Lee’s corps commanders:

“Southern women like their men religious and a little mad.” 
― Michael Shaara, The Killer Angels

Let’s go back to the Bush 43 presidency and an incident pushed from the history books, now veiled in lies or simply censored out of existence. Lies are the norm in America, the USS Liberty, the Tonkin Gulf, the search for imaginary WMDs or the equally imaginary “underground terror cities” former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said existed “in dozens” across Afghanistan.

Today, we think “Skripal” or “MH17.” No lie is too big. Thus, we are drawn to the summer of 2007 when an engineered try for Armageddon nearly succeeded.

On August 29, 2007, in an America at war with the world under neocon rule, an America deeply influenced by a Washington awash with Southern men, very religious and more than a bit mad, an incident now forgotten, occurred.

A B 52 aircraft, loaded with 6 AGM cruise missiles, each tipped with a 150-kiloton thermonuclear warhead, simply disappeared. It had taken off from Minot AFB in North Dakota, a base that also commanded much of America’s ICBM strike capability as well.

It was next spotted over Puerto Rico, heading for the Middle East, and sources tell us the eventual target was Iran.

The plane was intercepted by F15’s and turned back, landing at Barksdale AFB in Louisiana.

Eventually, in response, all nuclear missile crews were replaced and all nuclear authority for the entire United States Air Force was removed and placed under the US Army. Those involved, some were “retired,” others demoted, transferred, some charged with crimes like fraud or sexual assault. Others died in accidents or killed themselves, or so we are told.

Under Donald Trump and John Bolton, a war within the military command structure is now underway as presidential orders to use nuclear weapons against Syria and Iran have been countermanded by the military. Reports that “Trump changed his mind” are false.

July 4, 2019, America celebrates its independence. Along America’s borders, as the public is seeing in the endless photographs hitting the media, families with small children are piled into cages, fed garbage, taunted and abused, not a few people but thousands. We call this tyranny. Those who allow this are evil.

Some time ago, however, those who do such things, medical professionals intended to cure or those of us trained in “profiling,” created a methodology for expression of paradigm, a tool of analysis of what we call the “spectrum of social psychopathy.

In the business of intelligence and forecasting, such tools were applied to leaders. Which ones are crazy? How can we force this or that leader to self-destruct, using the controlled press, false flag terrorism, sanctions or even covert administration of psychotropic drugs. The few interested in such things, often self-proclaimed watchdogs, know of MK Ultra or Operation Northwoods, two names of hundreds of such endeavours.

At the heart of the problem is the nature of those who see themselves as leaders. Truth be told, no natural leader would choose American politics or even the military where “sucking up” and “selling out” is the only path to succeed. There have been exceptions, like George Patton or John Kennedy, but wait, weren’t they both murdered?

Natural leaders coach sports teams, some excel in commercial ventures. More likely, however, they will remain unseen and unknown. Perhaps there is no one worth leading and no place worth leading anyone to anymore.

This brings to mind the term Colonel David Hackworth used to describe America’s military leadership, “the perfumed princes of the Pentagon,” their chests bestrewn with medals and award for honors achieved at cocktail parties.

Crazy is as Crazy Does

As we have set things forth here, we then turn to behavioral analysis, the pseudoscience of predicting the future based on analysis of the unstable and incompetent and their actions when faced with chaos.

The toolsets used by such individuals, and I assure you there are detailed profiles out there, endless millions spent compiling them, blind rage, guesswork, blaming others, pathological deception and, as we see in Trump, likely early stage dementia.

Who are the “crazies?”

There are some notoriously sane leaders out there, Putin for one, Netanyahu for another. Many won’t like what they do or say but they aren’t insane.

Theresa May, Boris Johnson, certainly no overt signs of personality disorder but analysis of their historical reactions to issues yields a very different answer.

In the US, we find fertile ground, even Donald Trump cites Bolton and Pompeo as delusional.

With Bush 43 there were factors of substance abuse and a private life rumored to be very much at odds with his espoused values, this and extremely limited ability.

As for Trump, despite his endless efforts to prove himself unstable every time he speaks, his moments of clarity, his attacks on the press, the CIA and obvious inequities in the world’s economic system, are among the few accurate statements ever to come out of Washington.

Those who would have him turn to the “real leaders” instead of his son in law and daughter are themselves obviously insane.

“You want a friend in Washington? Get a dog.” Harry S Truman

Conclusion

Would the military overthrow Trump to prevent a war with Iran that all military experts around the world agree that America would lose? Who gains if America is pushed into obscurity, Russia, China or even Israel?

America’s fragile economy, ever accelerating levels of debt, declining standard of living, rising taxes, internal strife, this is not a nation capable of a ground conflict in the Middle East with a nation whose military is a thousand times stronger than Iraq was in 2003.

Yet there are even those in America who would see their own nation laid low, stripped bare. There is nothing more dangerous than a wounded predator, in this case, a nation in collapse with a massive arsenal of strategic nuclear weapons.

These are the “mad” we speak of, they infect Washington like a virus and no institution remains that can stand against them, perhaps a “cult of sanity” in the military that none have seen or can prove exists?

To what extent do Putin and Netanyahu influence Trump? Neither are guided by love of America and little is known of their vision of a world with America “on the ropes.”

The fear many Americans have is that a powerful America may well not be such a good thing, that whatever “Americans” are, the control of America long ago fell under what is now termed the Deep State.

Past this is the real “wild card,” the madness that manifests itself each day wherever we turn.

Gordon Duff is a Marine combat veteran of the Vietnam War that has worked on veterans and POW issues for decades and consulted with governments challenged by security issues. He’s a senior editor and chairman of the board of  Veterans Today, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”

The Corrupt System Will Never Police Itself

” The core problem is that the system is not only run by corrupt people, it has also been built by them.”

Source

http://www.zerohedge.com

by Tyler Durden

Fri, 07/12/2019

Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.com,

False hope breeds crippling apathy – This is what I have to think to myself when I see the news media fervor over the second arrest of billionaire Jefferey Epstein, or similar events which in most cases end up fading into the background and forgotten. The public’s favorite distraction has always been to watch high profile people kicked out of their castles in the clouds, but I would point out that even when the globalists sacrifice one of their own in the public eye it is usually only to satiate the masses and their hunger for justice for a very short time. The system is not designed to root out evil; it is designed to obscure and perpetuate evil.

Epstein is a perfect example of this. He was already prosecuted on pedophilia charges over 12 years ago and received a “sweetheart” plea deal which allowed him to serve a mere 13 month sentence. How many child rapists get that kind of treatment in our court system? And what about the vast array of people (including political leaders) that were close friends and associates with Epstein during his “Lolita Express” days? Are we really to believe they knew nothing about what was going on? That they visited his island and never saw any wrongdoing?

Why didn’t they come forward immediately? Why did they wait until Epstein was already being prosecuted before they publicly admonished him? Is it because they were involved in the same activities? And if so, why have they not been prosecuted as well?

My point is, people should lower their expectations that justice will be served or that the “dominoes will fall” in the Epstein case.  Also, keep in mind that James Comey’s daughter, Maureen Comey, will be on the prosecution team in the case, AND , Donald Trump’s Labor Secretary, Alexander Acosta, is the same man who brokered Epstein’s immunity deal.  Like strands of malignant cancer, these people are wrapped around every facet of government.

But this is not just about Epstein, and as much as I would also like to see the guy hang for his crimes, I have to admit that this latest event is probably nothing more than another piece of theater meant to give the public false hope that the system is changing and that elitist criminals will be treated the same as any other criminal. How often does this ever happen?

How about the Bernie Madoff scandal? Madoff runs a Ponzi scheme that devoured $65 billion in client funds and he is sentenced to 150 years in prison, but JP Morgan, the bank that HELPED Madoff move his stolen money, got nothing more than a fine.

In the wake of the 2008 credit crash and the exposure of the fraudulent derivatives market, many people thought banker heads were going to roll, yet in the US only one banker, a little known executive at Credit Suisse named Kareem Sarageldin, actually served jail time. After admitting to fraud and inflating bond prices associated with mortgage backed securities, Sarageldin was sentenced to 30 months in prison.

The Financial Times went on to publish an article in 2018 on this matter, claiming they would “dispel the myth that no one was held accountable for the derivatives crash”. They came up with a list of 47 names. The article went on to admit that the vast majority of bankers arrested were in Iceland (where the prisons are like country clubs). The rest came primarily from low level banks or were mid-level employees. The number of CEO’s on the list is decidedly slim, and banks like JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs, the biggest perpetrators of derivatives fraud, are decidedly absent.

The base argument for these types of articles is in itself a kind of fraud. I don’t think that most people assume that “no one” was prosecuted over the fraud that helped create the crash of 2008, a crash the economy is still suffering from. I think that most people assume none of the elites at the top of the pyramid were prosecuted, and perhaps with the exception of former IMF managing director Rodrigo Rato in Spain who was only charged with credit card fraud, this assumption is a correct one.

The most egregious criminals are rarely ever touched by scandal or jail time because they stand in key positions within our system. You will never see central bankers in the Federal Reserve suffer punishment for consistently and deliberately fueling economic bubbles through artificially low interest rates and stimulus measures. You will never see them prosecuted for deliberately imploding these bubbles with perfectly timed liquidity tightening and interest rate hikes into economic weakness.

In fact, just this week Fed Chairman Jerome Powell told the Financial Services Committee that if Trump tried to fire him, he would simply ignore him and remain in his position for the full term.  It is rather odd to me that almost no one in the alternative media covered his statement, perhaps because it runs contrary to the latest narrative that Powell is “afraid of Trump” and that Trump now has control of the Fed.  This is nonsense.  Even Trump’s own acting Chief of Staff noted that Trump “knows he does not have the authority to fire Powell”.

People who think the President chooses the Fed Chairman do not understand how the system actually works.  The Fed board controls who the Chair is, and can simply vote to put whoever they wish in the position regardless of what the President does, according to Bill English, a former FOMC secretary and advisor to the Board. This means that Trump’s “choice” of Fed Chair is merely ceremonial.  Trump has no power whatsoever over the central bank.

So why does this delusion persist?  Again, because people become addicted to false hope.  The banking elites will never be punished by the system they control.  They would have to be punished by other means.

You will never see IMF heads punished for loan sharking nations into oblivion. Hell, the Bank for International Settlements laundered money for the Nazis and yet they were never punished and still exist to this day! The president of the BIS at the time, Thomas McKittrick, never faced prosecution after the war, went on to work for Chase Manhattan bank, and received a pleasant eulogy from The New York Times after his death in 1970, even though the New York Times also reported on admissions from the BIS that they had helped the Nazis.

Some might argue that this trend of one law for the people and no law for the money elite will finally change under Donald Trump’s presidency, but I find that sentiment to be highly naive. First and foremost, Trump is far too close the money elite to punish them, even if he wanted to. His extensive associations with Rothschild banking agent Wilber Ross, the man who bailed Trump out of his considerable debts in his Atlantic City casino project in the 1990s and who is now Commerce Secretary in Trump’s cabinet, sets a tone for Trump’s presidency that is NOT anti-banker or anti-globalist.

It should be clear to most people now that there will be no “draining of the swamp”, not even from the White House. Trump’s promises to seek prosecution of the Clintons for their criminal activities, which include mishandling of classified data, fraud, and a host of other repulsive behaviors, have fallen flat. Trump’s campaign position to hold the Federal Reserve accountable for the historic bubble they have inflated in stock markets through low interest rates and stimulus is gone. Now Trump takes credit for the bubble as if it is a good thing, and is demanding even more stimulus from the Fed.

And yet, there are still people out there that imagine this is all part of some elaborate ruse on Trump’s part; that he is playing a game of “4D Chess” with the globalists. I believe this insane delusion stems from a singular psychological malfunction that is suffered by many people – the idea that the system, no matter how corrupt, can be fixed from the inside.

Leftists believe this. Many conservatives believe this. Despite all evidence to the contrary, people WANT to imagine a world in which evil can be defeated if only the right people are put in place within the system. If they vote the right way, if they support the right party, if they rally around the right investigation, if they protest peacefully on the steps of Congress or on Wall Street, then the system will be forced to expel the evil and serve the populace once again.

I usually equate our current governmental framework to the “One Ring” from Lord Of The Rings, and I still think there is no better analogy. The core problem is that the system is not only run by corrupt people, it has also been built by them. The system as it stands today is a corruption machine that manufactures evil. Adding good people to an evil machine is not going to stop it. And, as with the One Ring, the people who think they can use an evil machine for good purposes often end up corrupted themselves. You cannot change it, you cannot exploit it for good, you can only destroy it.

In other words, conservatives in the liberty movement in particular need to throw out their illusions that the globalists will be defeated using the very systems the globalists created to serve their interests. And if you cannot change a corrupt system from the inside, then it must be dismantled from the outside and rebuilt from scratch. A constitutional framework and the Bill Of Rights can help in this effort, but these are laws on paper that cannot defend themselves. Without fierce vigilance on the part of the citizenry, laws and rights can be erased.

You will not hear the mainstream media or even much of the alternative media talk about the real solutions to elitist criminality or government corruption. You won’t hear about these solutions because they are hard; they require struggle and sacrifice. Voting is easy, which is why it does not work. Legislation is easy, which is why it does not work. And, protesting with signs on a street corner is easy, and it might spread the word on an issue, but ultimately it does not work. The corruption remains.

There are two options left; first, walk away peacefully from the system and build one that works on your own or with others of like-mind. If you are successful, then expect the corrupt system and the elites behind it to try and stop you. Second, when this happens, the only option left is to fight back and remove the threat. This is where we are inevitably headed, not because we want it, but because they will force the issue.

We can no longer deceive ourselves with notions of absorbing Washington D.C. or Wall Street and making them work for us. The hope that this is possible is poison, and the elites use that poison to weaken public resolve. While we sit around waiting for the system to police itself the Earth turns and they become more powerful. Without a dramatic change in our own strategy, without direct action on our part instead of action through political middlemen, I predict our situation will only become worse.

*  *  *

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Conjuring the Spirit of Columbo Against the High-Functioning, Sociopathic 1%

Conjuring the Spirit of Columbo Against the High-Functioning, Sociopathic 1%

With permission from

http://www.counterpunch.org

by ELIZABETH KEYES

JULY 11, 2019

I celebrate the late, great Peter Falk for his legendary “populist” characterization of Lt. Columbo, relentless nemesis to the Gucci’d “above the law” types who tried to use power and money to cavalierly escape responsibility for profound crimes against humankind.

I celebrate the Columbo TV series’ enactments of takedowns of the down-and-dirty high-and-mighties, since we are now seriously in the Season (or maybe we should call it Age) of the “High Functioning Sociopath” (so defiantly in your face during the Bush and Obama eras (let’s acknowledge bipartisan amorality) and now reaching epic dimensions in the ethical freakshow of Trump).

Our economy captured by them, our quality of life and that of our children and their children, etc., drastically diminished by them, our planet doomed by them, large masses of our global family killed, maimed and/or displaced by them and their “profits over human welfare” gratuitous and profound violent evil and all perpetrated with seemingly little legal, economic and even reputational consequence, thanks to crony capitalism and its post-morality, mis-informing and/or un-informing, conscience beveling, corporate media.

Maybe the only comfort we of awakened consciences and minds can glean is from a spiritual speculation of the risks to their immortal souls?

I confess, I find myself praying more and more not so much for the existence of a heaven, but a horrendous hell for the obscenely wealthy and obscenely criminal rat bastards of the universe.

We desperately need populist heroes, in real life and in art! We need them from past, present and future dimensions.

In the Columbo shows, you might remember how the amoral and murdering monsters did their best to finesse their way out of unspeakable, ends-justifies-any-means deeds. However, Columbo was like the proverbial terrier with a bone. We as viewers enjoyed the ultimate justice, the comeuppance of the smug, mendacious, callous, deadly and always privileged villains by show’s end.

Columbo wasn’t ever dazzled and conned by the money, the power or the fame of the sociopathic gamesman or gameswoman. He would sniff out their guilt early on and hover, hover, hover, question, question, question and then, that “just one more thing,” crime-cracking question.

What was such a kick was watching the elite’s preliminary dismissal of Columbo as a non-threatening, crass, working class, in-way-over-his-head, amiable schlub change to a begrudging respect and fear as the high-functioning sociopath realizes his or her ingenious, perfect-crime blueprint was not Columbo-proof.

Falk’s character counterpointed the moral shamelessness of the guilty, upscale criminal with his own, endearing shamelessness at being a non-rich, working class Joe, clunkily invading golden-gated communities to uphold justice.

Columbo would at times awkwardly gush over the opulence, the fame, the power he would stumble upon, while at the same time asserting pride over the satisfying symbols of his world — that clunker of a car, a hearty bowl of chili, or even a good deal on a less than $20 pair of shoes.

Columbo felt comfortable and entitled showing up anywhere despite, as one character declared, “looking like an unmade bed.” He was a “substance” not style kinda guy. (“Substance over style,” imagine that, Barack?)

Columbo’s ever-present and ridiculous for southern California raincoat, the ever-nursed “would you mind not smoking that here” cigar and a never-present gun!

God bless you, Peter Falk. I can use the catharsis from still seeing your Columbo give it to the smug, mendacious rat bastards, even if it is all on a small DVD or YouTube screen. Hail to your inspiring role-modeling of a strong and indomitable moral will, mischievous sense of humor and ever-dazzling display of connect-the-dots intelligence.

***

I would love to let loose a herd of us Columbo “channelers” on our millionaire/billionaire controlled Congress, courts, executive branch, and corporate gangster puppeteers with their sell out media hacks. Plain-speaking, citizen activists — people with humble life styles and a basic Golden Rule moral sensibility. People to help make that desperately needed paradigm shift from a US government of patriarchy to one of humanism. From might makes right, competition, win/lose violent engagements, profits over people killer gamesmanship to a social contract founded on humanism reflecting partnership, cooperation, win/win conflict resolution, empathy, and the manifestation of a collective soul and conscience rather than a xenophobic collective ego.

Alas, I gotta say, those are BIG, less than twenty dollar Columbo shoes to fill by those of us willing to exercise our consciences and courage.

Consider what we have to lose if we don’t take on such a fight, however.

EVERYTHING!

More articles by:ELIZABETH KEYES

THE HEART OF DARKNESS: THE SEXUAL PREDATORS WITHIN AMERICA’S POWER ELITE

“Adults purchase children for sex at least 2.5 million times a year in the United States.”

Source

Waking Times

John W. Whitehead, Rutherford

July 11, 2019

“As political and economic freedom diminishes, sexual freedom tends compensating to increase. And the dictator (unless he needs cannon fodder and families with which to colonize empty or conquered territories) will do well to encourage that freedom.”—Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

Power corrupts.

Anyone who believes differently hasn’t been paying attention.

Politics, religion, sports, government, entertainment, business, armed forces: it doesn’t matter what arena you’re talking about, they are all riddled with the kind of seedy, sleazy, decadent, dodgy, depraved, immoral, corrupt behavior that somehow gets a free pass when it involves the wealthy and powerful elite in America.

In this age of partisan politics and a deeply polarized populace, corruption—especially when it involves sexual debauchery, depravity and predatory behavior—has become the great equalizer.

Take Jeffrey Epstein, the hedge fund billionaire / convicted serial pedophile recently arrested on charges of molesting, raping and sex trafficking dozens of young girls.

It is believed that Epstein operated his own personal sex trafficking ring not only for his personal pleasure but also for the pleasure of his friends and business associates. According to The Washington Post, “several of the young women…say they were offered to the rich and famous as sex partners at Epstein’s parties.” At various times, Epstein ferried his friends about on his private plane, nicknamed the “Lolita Express.”

This is part of America’s seedy underbelly.

As I documented in the in-depth piece I wrote earlier this year, child sex trafficking—the buying and selling of women, young girls and boys for sex, some as young as 9 years old—has become big business in America. It is the fastest growing business in organized crime and the second most-lucrative commodity traded illegally after drugs and guns.

Adults purchase children for sex at least 2.5 million times a year in the United States.

It’s not just young girls who are vulnerable to these predators, either.

According to a 2016 investigative report, “boys make up about 36% of children caught up in the U.S. sex industry (about 60% are female and less than 5% are transgender males and females).”

Who buys a child for sex?

Otherwise ordinary men from all walks of life. “They could be your co-worker, doctor, pastor or spouse,” writes journalist Tim Swarens, who spent more than a year investigating the sex trade in America.

Ordinary men, yes.

But then there are the extra-ordinary men, such as Jeffrey Epstein, who belong to a powerful, wealthy, elite segment of society that operates according to their own rules or, rather, who are allowed to sidestep the rules that are used like a bludgeon on the rest of us.

These men skate free of accountability by taking advantage of a criminal justice system that panders to the powerful, the wealthy and the elite.

Over a decade ago, when Epstein was first charged with raping and molesting young girls, he was gifted a secret plea deal with then-U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta, President Trump’s current Labor Secretary, that allowed him to evade federal charges and be given the equivalent of a slap on the wrist: allowed to “work” at home six days a week before returning to jail to sleep. That secret plea deal has since been ruled illegal by a federal judge.

Yet here’s the thing: Epstein did not act alone.

I refer not only to Epstein’s accomplices, who recruited and groomed the young girls he is accused of raping and molesting, many of them homeless or vulnerable but his circle of influential friends and colleagues that at one time included Bill Clinton and Donald Trump. Both Clinton and Trump, renowned womanizers who have also been accused of sexual impropriety by a significant number of women, were at one time passengers on the Lolita Express.

As the Associated Press points out, “The arrest of the billionaire financier on child sex trafficking charges is raising questions about how much his high-powered associates knew about the hedge fund manager’s interactions with underage girls, and whether they turned a blind eye to potentially illegal conduct.”

In fact, a recent decision by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals allowing a 2,000-page document linked to the Epstein case to be unsealed references allegations of sexual abuse involving “numerous prominent American politicians, powerful business executives, foreign presidents, a well-known Prime Minister, and other world leaders.”

This is not a minor incident involving minor players.

This is the heart of darkness.

Sex slaves. Sex trafficking. Secret societies. Powerful elites. Government corruption. Judicial cover-ups.

Once again, fact and fiction mirror each other.

Twenty years ago, Stanley Kubrick’s final film Eyes Wide Shut provided viewing audiences with a sordid glimpse into a secret sex society that indulged the basest urges of its affluent members while preying on vulnerable young women. It is not so different from the real world, where powerful men, insulated from accountability, indulge their base urges.

These secret societies flourish, implied Kubrick, because the rest of us are content to navigate life with our eyes wide shut, in denial about the ugly, obvious truths in our midst.

In so doing, we become accomplices to abusive behavior in our midst.

This is how corruption by the power elite flourishes.

For every Epstein who is—finally—called to account for his illegal sexual exploits after years of being given a free pass by those in power, there are hundreds (perhaps thousands) more in the halls of power and wealth whose predation of those most vulnerable among us continues unabated.

While Epstein’s alleged crimes are heinous enough on their own, he is part of a larger narrative of how a culture of entitlement becomes a cesspool and a breeding ground for despots and predators.

Remember the “DC Madam” who was charged with operating a phone-order sex business? Her clients included thousands of White House officials, lobbyists, and Pentagon, FBI, and IRS employees, as well as prominent lawyers, none of whom were ever exposed or held accountable.

Power corrupts.

Worse, as 19th-century historian Lord Acton concluded, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re talking about a politician, an entertainment mogul, a corporate CEO or a police officer: give any one person (or government agency) too much power and allow him or her or it to believe that they are entitled, untouchable and will not be held accountable for their actions, and those powers will eventually be abused.

We’re seeing this dynamic play out every day in communities across America.

A cop shoots an unarmed citizen for no credible reason and gets away with it. A president employs executive orders to sidestep the Constitution and gets away with it. A government agency spies on its citizens’ communications and gets away with it. An entertainment mogul sexually harasses aspiring actresses and gets away with it. The U.S. military bombs a civilian hospital and gets away with it.

Abuse of power—and the ambition-fueled hypocrisy and deliberate disregard for misconduct that make those abuses possible—works the same whether you’re talking about sex crimes, government corruption, or the rule of law.

It’s the same old story all over again: man rises to power, man abuses power abominably, man intimidates and threatens anyone who challenges him with retaliation or worse, and man gets away with it because of a culture of compliance in which no one speaks up because they don’t want to lose their job or their money or their place among the elite.

It’s not just sexual predators that we have to worry about.

For every Jeffrey Epstein (or Bill Clinton or Harvey Weinstein or Roger Ailes or Bill Cosby or Donald Trump) who eventually gets called out for his sexual misbehavior, there are hundreds—thousands—of others in the American police state who are getting away with murder—in many cases, literally—simply because they can.

The cop who shoots the unarmed citizen first and asks questions later might get put on paid leave for a while or take a job with another police department, but that’s just a slap on the wrist. The shootings and SWAT team raids and excessive use of force will continue, because the police unions and the politicians and the courts won’t do a thing to stop it.

The war hawks who are making a profit by waging endless wars abroad, killing innocent civilians in hospitals and schools, and turning the American homeland into a domestic battlefield will continue to do so because neither the president nor the politicians will dare to challenge the military industrial complex.

The National Security Agency that carries out warrantless surveillance on Americans’ internet and phone communications will continue to do so, because the government doesn’t want to relinquish any of its ill-gotten powers and its total control of the populace.

Unless something changes in the way we deal with these ongoing, egregious abuses of power, the predators of the police state will continue to wreak havoc on our freedoms, our communities, and our lives.

Police officers will continue to shoot and kill unarmed citizens. Government agents—including local police—will continue to dress and act like soldiers on a battlefield. Bloated government agencies will continue to fleece taxpayers while eroding our liberties. Government technicians will continue to spy on our emails and phone calls. Government contractors will continue to make a killing by waging endless wars abroad.

And powerful men (and women) will continue to abuse the powers of their office by treating those around them as underlings and second-class citizens who are unworthy of dignity and respect and undeserving of the legal rights and protections that should be afforded to all Americans.

As Dacher Keltner, professor of psychology at the at the University of California, Berkeley, observed in the Harvard Business Review, “While people usually gain power through traits and actions that advance the interests of others, such as empathy, collaboration, openness, fairness, and sharing; when they start to feel powerful or enjoy a position of privilege, those qualities begin to fade. The powerful are more likely than other people to engage in rude, selfish, and unethical behavior.”

After conducting a series of experiments into the phenomenon of how power corrupts, Keltner concluded: “Just the random assignment of power, and all kinds of mischief ensues, and people will become impulsive. They eat more resources than is their fair share. They take more money. People become more unethical. They think unethical behavior is okay if they engage in it. People are more likely to stereotype. They’re more likely to stop attending to other people carefully.”

Power corrupts.

And absolute power corrupts absolutely.

However, it takes a culture of entitlement and a nation of compliant, willfully ignorant, politically divided citizens to provide the foundations of tyranny.

As researchers Joris Lammers and Adam Galinsky found, those in power not only tend to abuse that power but they also feel entitled to abuse it: “People with power that they think is justified break rules not only because they can get away with it, but also because they feel at some intuitive level that they are entitled to take what they want.”

As I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, for too long now, Americans have tolerated an oligarchy in which a powerful, elite group of wealthy donors is calling the shots. They have paid homage to patriotism while allowing the military-industrial complex to spread death and destruction abroad. And they have turned a blind eye to all manner of wrongdoing when it was politically expedient.

We need to restore the rule of law for all people, no exceptions.

Here’s what the rule of law means in a nutshell: it means that everyone is treated the same under the law, everyone is held equally accountable to abiding by the law, and no one is given a free pass based on their politics, their connections, their wealth, their status or any other bright line test used to confer special treatment on the elite.

This culture of compliance must stop.

The empowerment of petty tyrants and political gods must end.

The state of denial must cease.

Let’s not allow this Epstein sex scandal to become just another blip in the news cycle that goes away all too soon, only to be forgotten when another titillating news headline takes its place.

Sex trafficking, like so many of the evils in our midst, is a cultural disease that is rooted in the American police state’s heart of darkness. It speaks to a far-reaching corruption that stretches from the highest seats of power down to the most hidden corners and relies on our silence and our complicity to turn a blind eye to wrongdoing.

If we want to put an end to these wrongs, we must keep our eyes wide open.

About the Author

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute, where this article (The Jackboots Are Coming: Mass Arrests, Power Grabs and the Politics of Fear) was originally published. He is the author of A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State and The Change Manifesto.

**This article (The Heart of Darkness: The Sexual Predators Within America’s Power Elite) was originally published at The Ruthford Institute and is re-posted here with permission.**

Putin Warns Attack On Iran Would Be “Catastrophic” As US Navy Deploys To Drone Crash Site

Every goddamned American president must have a war before he leaves office. Is that what they think will be their legacy? Or are they simple psychopaths doing the work of their evil masters?

Source

http://www.zerohedge.com

by Tyler Durden

Thu, 06/20/2019

Following China’s warning this week that the United States is poised to open “Pandora’s Box” in the Middle East should it escalate military action against Iran, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has weighed in, on Thursday saying any American military strike would have “catastrophic” consequences.

Putin warned further that US attack “would trigger a surge in violence and a possible refugee exodus,” according to Reuters. During an annual televised question and answer session hosted by the Russian leader, he reiterated Moscow’s position that Tehran is in full compliance with its nuclear commitments under the 2015 JCPOA. He also slammed the US-imposed sanctions now choking the Iranian economy as “groundless”.

“I want to say at once that this would be a catastrophe for the region” — Putin said. 

Image source: AP

Meanwhile, President Trump has been briefed on Thursday morning’s dramatic escalation of an already tense stand-off in the Strait of Hormuz which involved Iran’s alleged shoot down of a US drone near entrance to Persian Gulf.

Reports say it was US Navy high-altitude drone taken out by an Iranian surface-to-air missile directly over Strait of Hormuz in what the US says was international airspace, but which Iran claimed was over its sovereign airspace. US Central Command (CENTCOM) identified the drone as one of its RQ-4 Global Hawk aircraft, condemning it as an “unprovoked attack”.

“Iranian reports that the aircraft was over Iran are false. This was an unprovoked attack on a U.S. surveillance asset in international airspace,”CENTCOM spokesman Navy Capt. Bill Urban said following the confirmed drone downing.

And now, in a pattern suggesting significant US military build-up will continue in the Persian Gulf following last week’s tanker attack incident, also blamed on Iran, US naval assets have been dispatched to the “drone debris field in international waters” according to a breaking Reuters report.

Meanwhile, war drums beating, here we go…

Donald J. Trump

✔@realDonaldTrump

Iran made a very big mistake!

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7:15 AM – Jun 20, 2019

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MindMatters: How Psychopaths Infect and Destroy Hierarchies of Competence

Sott.net

Harrison Koehli, Elan Martin, Corey Schink
Sat, 11 May 2019

© SOTT.net

Can a government of, by and for psychopaths exist when the vast majority of individuals governed by such a group can be said to be relatively normal? Psychologist Andrew Lobaczewski believed that it could, outlined the factors that allow for its functioning, and coined a term for such a social structure: a pathocracy. On this week’s show we will be delving deeper into the workings of pathological groupings – groupings that wield enormous amounts of power both overtly, and covertly, and over populations both large and small. 

Hindsight is 20/20 when we look back at the acts of the 20th century’s most notorious and dangerous political movements. But what did those systems anticipate about certain trends we see today? What, if anything, about the psychological health of an individual – or a whole society – can be strengthened to ensure that an oppressive and inhuman power structure doesn’t take the reins completely? And if a bonafide pathocracy has assumed control of a population, how can the mere act of seeing it for what it assists us in dealing with it?

Running Time: 00:58:56

Download: MP3 – 54 MB

Previous instalments in our series on ponerology:

• The Truth Perspective: Introducing Political Ponerology, plus some odds and ends (Chapter 1)
• The Truth Perspective: Inside Ponerology: Why Individuals Are Essential for a Healthy Society(Chapter 2)
• The Truth Perspective: What MAGA-hat Kid Can Teach Us About The Corruption of Ideology(Chapter 4)
• The Truth Perspective: Mafia Politics: How Political Movements and Ideologies Break Bad(Chapter 4)
• MindMatters: What Is A Pathocracy? (Chapter 5)
• The Truth Perspective: How To Survive A Totalitarian Nightmare: The Psychology Of Tyranny(Chapter 6)
• The Truth Perspective: And Then They Came for the Psychologists: Why SJWs Can’t Stand Science (Chapter 7)
• The Truth Perspective: Churches Behaving Badly: How Religions Succeed or Fail to Prevent Pathocracy (Chapter 8)

Harrison Koehli 

Harrison Koehli co-hosts SOTT Radio Network’s MindMatters, and is an editor for Red Pill Press. He has been interviewed on several North American radio shows about his writings on the study of ponerology. In addition to music and books, Harrison enjoys tobacco and bacon (often at the same time) and dislikes cell phones, vegetables, and fascists (commies too).

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Elan Martin 

Born and raised in New York City, Elan has been an editor for SOTT.net since 2014 and is a co-host for MindMatters. He enjoys seeing and sharing what’s true about our profoundly and rapidly changing world.

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Corey Schink 

Corey Schink was born and raised in the Midwestern United States, where he worked on farms and as a welder, musician, and social worker. His interests in government, philosophy and history led to his writing for SOTT in 2012 and to becoming a SOTT editor and SOTT Radio co-host in 2014. He now resides in North Carolina, where he enjoys the magnificent views of the Appalachian Mountains.