According to financial economist and historian Dr. Michael Hudson:
It’s a good cop-bad cop charade. The Republicans are playing the role of the bad cop. Their script says: “You cannot raise taxes on anybody. No progressive income tax, no closing of tax loopholes for special interests, not even prosecutions for tax fraud. And we can get a lot of money back into the economy if we give a tax holiday to the companies and individuals that have been keeping their money offshore. Let’s free the wealthy from taxes to help us recover.’
Mr. Obama can turn around and pretend to be the good cop. “Hey, boys, let me at least do something. I’m willing to cut back Social Security. I’m willing to take over what was George Bush’s program. I share your worries about the budget deficit. We have to balance it, and I’ve already appointed a Deficit Reduction Commission to prepare public opinion for my cutbacks in the most popular programs. But you have to let me get a little bit of revenue somewhere.”
In the end the Republicans will make some small token concessions, but they’ll get their basic program. Mr. Obama will have sold out his constituency.
The problem is, how can Mr. Obama move to the right of where George Bush stood? The only way he can do this is for the Republicans to move even further to the right. So the Republicans are accommodating him by pushing the crazy wing of their party forward, the Tea Party. Michelle Bachman, Eric Cantor and their colleagues are coming with such an extremist, right-wing attitude that it gives Mr. Obama room to move way to the right as he triangulates, depicting himself a the less crazy alternative: “Look. I’m better than these guys are.”
He’s hoping that people will vote for him just because he’s not as extreme as the Tea Party. But the reality is that there is another alternative. People can “vote with their backsides” and stay home. There may not be many people showing up to vote on the Democratic side. So it’s possible for the Republicans to get in, now that there is so little real difference between their position and that of Mr. Obama. What’s the point of voting?
Yes, I know. How dismal. Sitting out the election is a vote for the rabid rat bastard Republicans.
But we are dealing with a BETRAYING CHARLATAN PRESIDENT. His along with the rabid rat bastard majority of pimped out to corporatists Dems’ betrayal of mainstream Americans is STUNNING.
Michael Hudson maintains that Obama’s economic war on the American people was already written up before now, like the invasion of Iraq was long before 9/11. Just waiting for a crisis to distract and confuse the American population to go full out PREDATORY on our democracy. Amiable “bankster puppet” Obama is just the actor to pull it off.
Hudson:
People would have thought before Mr. Obama was elected that the normal response to an economy falling into recession would be to increase counter-cyclical public spending. But the President is following neoliberal policy that makes the downturn much deeper, by cutting back government spending – especially on non-Wall Street programs. Instead of trying to get the budget back in balance by re-introducing progressive taxation, taxing wealth more highly than the lower income brackets, he is using tax revenues to help re-inflate the financial sector.
snip
“He’s [Obama’s] going to go down as the man who brought on the depression that the Republicans never could have gotten away with. Only a Democrat posing as a left-winger could support the anti-labor, anti-wage, pro-Wall Street policies that his advisors have been pressing….The economy’s going under because Wall Street and investors realize that it’s a done deal.
Obama is escalating the depression to cut living standards and labor by 30 percent Hudson declares. He goes on:
The government will sell whatever it has, the Postal Service, to essentially buyers who will now borrow the money from the banks making a huge new market for banks and investment bankers, in privatizing and cutting up what used to be the public domain and turning it over to the wealthiest 10 percent of the economy.
snip
“When I was in Norway one of the Norwegian politicians sat next to me at a dinner and said, “You know, there’s one good thing that President Obama has done that we never anticipated in Europe. He’s shown the Europeans that we can never depend upon America again. There’s no president, no matter how good he sounds, no matter what he promises, we’re never again going to believe the patter talk of an American President. Mr. Obama has cured us. He has turned out to be our nightmare. Our problem is what to do about the American people that don’t realize this nightmare that they’ve created, this smooth-talking American Tony Blair in the White House.”
Hudson says somebody has to lose when loans go bad and it is the taxpayers not the financial gangsters. Sec. Paulson’s 2008 Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) launched their protection and then came Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac ($5.3 trillion) onto our government’s balance sheet.
Taking on the corporatists’ bad loans onto the government balance sheet protects the bondholders and big creditors and leaves the American taxpayers holding the bag. Makes sure the gangster capitalists DON’T LOSE ONE PENNY! Global governments are sacrificing their economies so that the financial sector predators in their countries won’t take any losses, either. WTF
?
?That tunnel vision is being fed to Mr. Obama’s by his Clinton- and Bush-era advisors, from Larry Summers to Tim Geithner. He is doing what nobody really imagined the kind of change that was possible when he was elected. He has let Michelle Bachman and the Republican Tea Party tax cutters move to the left of his position.
ARE YOU LISTENING? “HE HAS MOVED TO THE RIGHT OF MICHELE BACHMANN ET AL.!!!!”
Hudson:
Rep. Bachman recently pointed out that she voted against TARP from the beginning, as did other Republicans opposing the giveaway to the Wall Street interests. The Republicans also haven’t called to cut back Social Security to pay Wall Street. That’s the Obama-Geithner position. It’s put Democratic Congressional leadership in a bind, because they have difficulty opposing a president even though he’s moved to the right of the Republican Party.
Senators McCain, and Obama both believed that the economy actually needed to be led by Wall Street as central economic planner and resource allocator. Alan Greenspan voiced the ideology more nakedly, but Mr. Obama follows it to such an extent that Marshall Auerback has called him the “Tea Party President.”
snip
So what is happening today was signalled even before Mr. Obama took office, by the right-wing economic appointments he made – Larry Summers, who had pushed bank deregulation and replacing the Glass-Steagall Act as his chief economic advisor; Tim Geithner, the bank lobbyist as Secretary of the Treasury; and Rahm Emanuel representing Wall Street the interests in the way that the Democratic Leadership Committee had done since the Clinton administration. Later, after Mr. Obama appointed Bush Administration carry-overs Ben Bernanke at the Fed and Defense Secretary Gates, he said that in order for there to be a recovery, the banks had to be made whole. That meant, not take a loss – and leaving their management in place even when the government took over their stock, as in the case of Citibank.
The Obama administration raised the financial sector’s bailout to $13 trillion. This has vastly increased the government debt. And now, Mr. Obama wants to bring it back down by cutting back Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other social spending – to transfer wealth and income to the top of the economic pyramid. At the start of his administration he appointed a Deficit Reduction Commission led by advocates of cutting back Social Security and Medicare: Republican Senator Alan Simpson (McCain’s economic advisor!) and Clinton chief of staff Erskine Bowles, representing the right-wing Democratic Leadership Committee cite above. The aim of this commission was to give Mr. Obama an “experts’ report” supporting the diametric opposite of the liberal constituency that voted for him.
This is how he is doing what politicians are supposed to do: delivering his constituency (liberals, racial minorities, urban dwellers and the poor – in fact, the American mainstream) to his campaign contributors.
snip
In this respect the class war is back in business. We’re going into a depression that is unnecessary – except to drive down wage levels and strip away government obligations to pay for Social Security, Medicare and other public programs. This will enable the government to get rid of what remains of progressive taxation on the higher wealth and income brackets.
The stock market may fall, of course, and the bond market too as interest rates rise. But investors expect to be able to buy back these stocks at a lower price. Meanwhile, the game is over – the idea of investing in a growing market. The new game is to grab what one can and bail out. This is the post-bubble phase of the financial “cycle.”
The Democratic leaders feel boxed in. Nobody is prepared to challenge Mr. Obama in 2012. He still has his constituency in the Democrat party locked up. So they can’t run against him. Under Rahm Emanuel the Congressional leadership has promoted the worst of the Blue Dog Democrats. Fortunately, they were the major losers in the last election. But we’re still living with the consequences of Mr. Emanuel’s quip that a crisis is too good an opportunity to waste. He advised the President to use it to lock in the Democratic Leadership Committee’s pro-Wall Street program. This is the program of Clinton, Gore and Joe Lieberman. It is the mentality that led Mr. Obama to appoint Erskine Bowles and like-thinking members to the Simpson-Bowles Commission. He is now pushing its recommendations claiming that this is bipartisan. But I would say that it’s basically Republican, if I didn’t think that this really is where the Democratic Party also now stands – just as in Greece, austerity plans and privatization are being promoted by ostensible socialists.
Mr. Obama wants to cut $4 trillion out of the budget, while Republican leader Boehner only wants a 2.4 trillion cut over a shorter period. I’ve read that it was Obama, not the Republicans, who proposed putting Social Security cuts on the table. Why would he be proposing much larger cuts than the Republicans?
The main reason is that he is in a unique position to deliver enough Democratic votes to let the sell-out (“compromise”) go through. No Republican administration could get away with cutting Social Security. This is the most basic income protection program that Americans have. But now, it’s being depicted as a welfare program that is hurting the economy. Only a Democrat posing as a left-winger could really pull off what Mr. Obama is proposing.
Dr. Hudson is a financial economist and historian. He is president of the Institute for the Study of Long Term Economic Trends, a Wall Street financial analyst and Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. His 1972 book, Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire, is a critique of how the United States exploited foreign economies through the IMF and World Bank. He is also author of Trade, Development and Foreign Debt and Global Fracture: The New International Economic Order, among many others. Dr. Hudson has been a consultant to foreign governments including Canada, Mexico and Russia. Visit his website at www.michael-hudson.com. That’s Michael dash H-U-D-S-O-N dot com.[cross-posted at correntewire & sacramento for democracy]
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This is so superb that it should be published in the "mainstream" progressive press - GREAT job, here!
-R-
-R-
I guess then the only reasonable thing to do is to suggest that people withhold their vote from him; suggest that they vote for some third party candidate; maybe even consider voting for his opponent.
That is what you are doing.
I think enough liberals and Democrats are thinking the way you are...and I think you folk are going to be successful in making Obama a one-term president.
I think that tactic is the wrong way to go. I think the worst of all possible outcomes would be for a Republican to take the White House...especially right now when the Republican Party is in the grips of its most extreme right wing element.
But as I said, I expect to be in a minority on this issue...and I expect your side to prevail.
So we will more than likely get to see how things work out.
That is what you are doing.
I think enough liberals and Democrats are thinking the way you are...and I think you folk are going to be successful in making Obama a one-term president.
I think that tactic is the wrong way to go. I think the worst of all possible outcomes would be for a Republican to take the White House...especially right now when the Republican Party is in the grips of its most extreme right wing element.
But as I said, I expect to be in a minority on this issue...and I expect your side to prevail.
So we will more than likely get to see how things work out.
Apparently mr. idiot didn't even understand the title of this piece, from his early morning inane comment:
"OBAMA ACTUALLY TO RIGHT OF BACHMANN"
Jeez, it doesn't take much to befuddle the eternal idiot.
"OBAMA ACTUALLY TO RIGHT OF BACHMANN"
Jeez, it doesn't take much to befuddle the eternal idiot.
Mark, anger management, PLEASE!
Some choice in America right now. We either get economically raped by the "proud to have no empathy" Republicans or economically "date raped" by the HYPOCRITICAL bottom feeding Dems. Both parties captured. Stark predatory economic/social Darwinism. I was reading this week about the Catholic Church in Ireland and how the "cronyism" of the religious elite sacrificed children to cover up the horrifying sexual violations of their buds. Cronyism ... group think ... gang thuggery loyalty at the expense of principle. The willingness of those in power willing to exploit that power to destroy fellow human beings -- winning is all ... illegitimate winning through bribery and lying and hypocrisy. It is absolutely disgusting. We have got to heed the wake up call. Evil is prevailing in America and globally. We've got to fight back not just as citizens but as decent human beings.
Some choice in America right now. We either get economically raped by the "proud to have no empathy" Republicans or economically "date raped" by the HYPOCRITICAL bottom feeding Dems. Both parties captured. Stark predatory economic/social Darwinism. I was reading this week about the Catholic Church in Ireland and how the "cronyism" of the religious elite sacrificed children to cover up the horrifying sexual violations of their buds. Cronyism ... group think ... gang thuggery loyalty at the expense of principle. The willingness of those in power willing to exploit that power to destroy fellow human beings -- winning is all ... illegitimate winning through bribery and lying and hypocrisy. It is absolutely disgusting. We have got to heed the wake up call. Evil is prevailing in America and globally. We've got to fight back not just as citizens but as decent human beings.
Sorry, Libby - I'll refrain from commenting on Your blog if You wish.
Libby,
There was a day not too long ago when I pulled the lever over Ronald Reagan’s name. I was voting against “the evil” of what I perceived to be Jimmy Carter’s ineptitude. I have never regretted a vote as much as that one…and anyone who condemns me for it will get no static in return from me. I should have thought the consequences through more carefully.
No matter the frustrations—the choices in 2012 will come down to the candidate of the Democratic Party or the Republican Party. To suppose otherwise is unrealistic…no matter how much better off we would be with other choices.
I have, at times, advocated for a parliamentary form of government so that third, fourth, even fifth parties can flourish.
But for the election of 2012…we are left with the choice of the candidate of the Democrats or the candidate of the Republicans.
I will NOT make the mistake I made when I pulled that lever for Ronald Reagan again. I am not even going to consider pulling the lever for the Republican. But I also will not even consider pulling the lever for a third party candidate…nor staying home and withholding my vote from everyone. The latter two, in my opinion, will help the Republican candidate as much as actually voting for her.
I despised George W. Bush to the point where I was irrational about him, Libby. I realize now that no matter how incompetent and inept he was…no matter how much damage he did to our country and the world…my irrationality about him said much, much more about me than about him.
I feel your anger and disappointment toward Obama…I feel the anger and disappointment of so many others. I only hope the reality hits home for you good people before the election rather than after…as it did with me.
There was a day not too long ago when I pulled the lever over Ronald Reagan’s name. I was voting against “the evil” of what I perceived to be Jimmy Carter’s ineptitude. I have never regretted a vote as much as that one…and anyone who condemns me for it will get no static in return from me. I should have thought the consequences through more carefully.
No matter the frustrations—the choices in 2012 will come down to the candidate of the Democratic Party or the Republican Party. To suppose otherwise is unrealistic…no matter how much better off we would be with other choices.
I have, at times, advocated for a parliamentary form of government so that third, fourth, even fifth parties can flourish.
But for the election of 2012…we are left with the choice of the candidate of the Democrats or the candidate of the Republicans.
I will NOT make the mistake I made when I pulled that lever for Ronald Reagan again. I am not even going to consider pulling the lever for the Republican. But I also will not even consider pulling the lever for a third party candidate…nor staying home and withholding my vote from everyone. The latter two, in my opinion, will help the Republican candidate as much as actually voting for her.
I despised George W. Bush to the point where I was irrational about him, Libby. I realize now that no matter how incompetent and inept he was…no matter how much damage he did to our country and the world…my irrationality about him said much, much more about me than about him.
I feel your anger and disappointment toward Obama…I feel the anger and disappointment of so many others. I only hope the reality hits home for you good people before the election rather than after…as it did with me.
The reality HAS hit home for many of us, Frank.
The reality is Obama is a right-of-center corporatist.
You are in denial of this reality, and are thus supporting right-of-center politics.
The reality is Obama is a right-of-center corporatist.
You are in denial of this reality, and are thus supporting right-of-center politics.
Why do we have to say that apisa is in denial of reality - the bartender cum strip manager is in TOTAL denial
The Human condition is wired for dominating others. Just look at our history. But we have intellect and a sense of time (history) to overcome this failing.
When this time is looked at from the future, they (the arm-chair quarterbacks) will most likely wonder why we couldn't see the writing on the wall... Much like we wonder about the Romans, Ancient Greeks, or even the defunct Soviets.
Why couldn't we just turn it around? Why did we keep putting Leaders in that made decisions that should have set off alarms?
We can find some speeches from antiquity where Roman Senators and Greek Philosophers seen the writing on the wall of their time. But they were unable to halt the demise of their world.
Perhaps it is time to begin our descent. Eventually the Poor will revolt again. And (unfortunately) there will be people promising them good fortune, but instead, pushing a plutocracy under the shell...
I am Liberal. I will vote Green.
When this time is looked at from the future, they (the arm-chair quarterbacks) will most likely wonder why we couldn't see the writing on the wall... Much like we wonder about the Romans, Ancient Greeks, or even the defunct Soviets.
Why couldn't we just turn it around? Why did we keep putting Leaders in that made decisions that should have set off alarms?
We can find some speeches from antiquity where Roman Senators and Greek Philosophers seen the writing on the wall of their time. But they were unable to halt the demise of their world.
Perhaps it is time to begin our descent. Eventually the Poor will revolt again. And (unfortunately) there will be people promising them good fortune, but instead, pushing a plutocracy under the shell...
I am Liberal. I will vote Green.
Good for You, Art, and I agree TOTALLY with Your sentiments, but You DO know You risk antagonizing,the idiot above who believes obama is doing the best he can with the cards he's been dealt.
Dr. Hudson does an excellent and highly rational job of explaining why Obama is NOT the lesser of two evils. He is tragically the American Judas. But there are plenty of Jr. Judases betraying betraying betraying along with him up the ladder of power.
As for the Democratic Party, they ran him and they enable him and they reap the cronyism rewards. They exploit the "good cop" kabuki gamesmanship.
To goose-step along enabling a corrupt and evil system makes us no better than the Good Germans during the Holocaust. This is gangster capitalism, and gangsters play rough and use fear and hyper cronyism to dictate, when jingoistic propaganda or apathy or moral laziness of victims doesn't provide full out opportunities of domination and exploitation.
As for the Democratic Party, they ran him and they enable him and they reap the cronyism rewards. They exploit the "good cop" kabuki gamesmanship.
To goose-step along enabling a corrupt and evil system makes us no better than the Good Germans during the Holocaust. This is gangster capitalism, and gangsters play rough and use fear and hyper cronyism to dictate, when jingoistic propaganda or apathy or moral laziness of victims doesn't provide full out opportunities of domination and exploitation.
Leeds, you wrote:
The reality HAS hit home for many of us, Frank.
The reality is Obama is a right-of-center corporatist.
You are in denial of this reality, and are thus supporting right-of-center politics.
I do not agree that Obama is a “right of center corporatist.” Just because some pe0ple say he is does not make it so. Just as the fact that so many people in our country see Obama as a socialist or a communist…trying to subvert our country by driving it far to the left…does not make him a socialist, communist, nor a subverter driving our country to the left.
All we have are passionate people thinking whatever they want to think.
Vote green if you want. Vote Republican if you want. Withhold your vote if you want. You have the right to do that…and in our form of government, we ought all to respect your right to do so.
All I am doing is telling you how I see things…and how I will vote.
I will not aid the Republicans in taking control of the executive branch. And although I wish Obama (or any Democratic president) could do more to make us a better, more humane country…I understand the impediments to that happening by the obstructionists. I also acknowledge that a significant number of our citizens want those obstructionists to succeed. I think Obama is doing the best he can with the cards he has been dealt.
I don't think you will get anyone better in there from the Democrats...from the third parties...and most assuredly from the Republicans.
The reality HAS hit home for many of us, Frank.
The reality is Obama is a right-of-center corporatist.
You are in denial of this reality, and are thus supporting right-of-center politics.
I do not agree that Obama is a “right of center corporatist.” Just because some pe0ple say he is does not make it so. Just as the fact that so many people in our country see Obama as a socialist or a communist…trying to subvert our country by driving it far to the left…does not make him a socialist, communist, nor a subverter driving our country to the left.
All we have are passionate people thinking whatever they want to think.
Vote green if you want. Vote Republican if you want. Withhold your vote if you want. You have the right to do that…and in our form of government, we ought all to respect your right to do so.
All I am doing is telling you how I see things…and how I will vote.
I will not aid the Republicans in taking control of the executive branch. And although I wish Obama (or any Democratic president) could do more to make us a better, more humane country…I understand the impediments to that happening by the obstructionists. I also acknowledge that a significant number of our citizens want those obstructionists to succeed. I think Obama is doing the best he can with the cards he has been dealt.
I don't think you will get anyone better in there from the Democrats...from the third parties...and most assuredly from the Republicans.
How many times must you rely on the stupid slogan "the best he can do with the cards he's been dealt?
Even an idiot it like you could find a way to re-arange or constantly repetitious refrain.
Oops, I take that back, only an idiot like you could NOT find a way to rephrase your inane contentions.
Even an idiot it like you could find a way to re-arange or constantly repetitious refrain.
Oops, I take that back, only an idiot like you could NOT find a way to rephrase your inane contentions.
Frank,
I agree that just because some people say Obama is a right-of-center corporatist does not make it so.
His policy choices make it so.
I agree that just because some people say Obama is a right-of-center corporatist does not make it so.
His policy choices make it so.
Art, appreciate. I have been thinking of the Milgram experiments at Yale whereby "authoritarian following" types, was it 2/3 of those being experimented on, were told by authority-toned and dressed people in white coats to inflict crippling pain with electric shocks onto people and assured they would not be held responsible AND THEY DID. Some were stressed and uncomfortable but they followed orders of people they didn't know just because they looked like authorities and assumed the power and they hurt gratuitously people also whom they didn't know who were writhing in pain.
So 6 out of 10 followed orders. My hope is for the future is on the 4 out of 10 people who have a moral compass and conscience and who are capable of saying no to evil authority. If these people who have the potential to role model moral behavior become full out proactive, we can turn this country around. The cost of that full-out proactivity can be profoundly high. It won't be easy, and I am one who talks the talk more bravely than she walks the walk.
Also appreciate your support, too, Mark, but I don't think the strident malice expressed against Frank is healthy for any of us. Want you to comment, but the personal attacks on Frank would prefer not on my thread, for what it is worth. We are all victims, including Frank, of profound corporatist oppression and insulting each other doesn't seem the way to go. In fact it is part of the divide up and conquer strategy of our oppressors. And I advise that now and know within my blogs and comments I can also let loose with emotionalism. I have exasperation for example with Jane Hamsher which I unleashed recently over at a commondreams comment thread to a wised-up good article she did but I have great bitterness toward her. I was at firedoglake originally and she was so confusingly dismissive and disrespectful to those of us who were fighting for universal single payer health care while she was heralding the public option. I was confused as to why we seemed her enemy. I appreciate Frank dialoguing and self-disclosing on my threads, Mark. Interesting about his Carter v. Reagan moment. I don't want you not to dialogue here, Mark. I and OS need your strong voice and clarity, but your personal nastiness to Frank is jolting and distracting to the real issues imo.
Ideally, we should all be pushing for a paradigm shift from patriarchal power and control to cooperation and partnership. Easier said than done.
So 6 out of 10 followed orders. My hope is for the future is on the 4 out of 10 people who have a moral compass and conscience and who are capable of saying no to evil authority. If these people who have the potential to role model moral behavior become full out proactive, we can turn this country around. The cost of that full-out proactivity can be profoundly high. It won't be easy, and I am one who talks the talk more bravely than she walks the walk.
Also appreciate your support, too, Mark, but I don't think the strident malice expressed against Frank is healthy for any of us. Want you to comment, but the personal attacks on Frank would prefer not on my thread, for what it is worth. We are all victims, including Frank, of profound corporatist oppression and insulting each other doesn't seem the way to go. In fact it is part of the divide up and conquer strategy of our oppressors. And I advise that now and know within my blogs and comments I can also let loose with emotionalism. I have exasperation for example with Jane Hamsher which I unleashed recently over at a commondreams comment thread to a wised-up good article she did but I have great bitterness toward her. I was at firedoglake originally and she was so confusingly dismissive and disrespectful to those of us who were fighting for universal single payer health care while she was heralding the public option. I was confused as to why we seemed her enemy. I appreciate Frank dialoguing and self-disclosing on my threads, Mark. Interesting about his Carter v. Reagan moment. I don't want you not to dialogue here, Mark. I and OS need your strong voice and clarity, but your personal nastiness to Frank is jolting and distracting to the real issues imo.
Ideally, we should all be pushing for a paradigm shift from patriarchal power and control to cooperation and partnership. Easier said than done.
Everything all the establishment candidates want to do is insane! Occasionally some of them say "I'm the rational one because my opponent is insane;" but they never back this up by actually acting sane.
We need to throw all the bums out and start from scratch with a new grass roots system and a new batch of media outlets that aren't owned and operated by the corrupt corporations.
We need to throw all the bums out and start from scratch with a new grass roots system and a new batch of media outlets that aren't owned and operated by the corrupt corporations.
Libby the Milgram and Zimbardo experiments were done to learn how to manipulate us more effectively. they presented this in a manner that may have seemed as if they were warning us but this was presented only to a small percentage of the public; and simultaneously used to manipulate the rest who weren't warned of these tactics.
I wrote more about these in blogs about implementing Philip Zimbardo, the Lucifer Effect the Stanford Prison Experiment and Corruption or bias in the American Psychological Association. As you can see if you read them I suspect that the CIA may have been involved in this research but even if they weren't the Office of Naval Research definitely was. They clearly used this to learn how to indoctrinate troops in boot camp but it could be used elsewhere as well.
I wrote more about these in blogs about implementing Philip Zimbardo, the Lucifer Effect the Stanford Prison Experiment and Corruption or bias in the American Psychological Association. As you can see if you read them I suspect that the CIA may have been involved in this research but even if they weren't the Office of Naval Research definitely was. They clearly used this to learn how to indoctrinate troops in boot camp but it could be used elsewhere as well.
Zacharyd -- I look forward to reading your blogs! thank you. I have no doubt psychological knowledge is used for evil, even commissioned for evil, research sponsored by evil. Supposed self-help therapy on recovery from "learned helplessness" is turned around so that "learned helplessness" is engineered rather than combatted in a human spirit. It horrifies and sickens exposure to such evil. Such evil even inspires suicide or murder for those caught in its full out matrix forced to prey on, destroy, innocents for profit and power.
My point was that there are people who are tougher to compromise with intimidation and manipulation and simple cronyism than others. In those experiments there were 4 out of 10 people who wouldn't critically shock a stranger because another more intimidating stranger was telling them to do so.
Those are the people that I am counting on to rally a spiritual counterculture.
Have you read Scott Peck's book, People of the Lie? Alice Miller's For Your Own Good or Thou Shalt Not Be Aware? The older I get the more I understand how Hitler happened and how the spirit and agenda of "collective Hitlerism" among the bastards of the universe is going so strong today and must be acknowledged and contended with.
Thanks for the links! I look forward to reading. Truth to power!
My point was that there are people who are tougher to compromise with intimidation and manipulation and simple cronyism than others. In those experiments there were 4 out of 10 people who wouldn't critically shock a stranger because another more intimidating stranger was telling them to do so.
Those are the people that I am counting on to rally a spiritual counterculture.
Have you read Scott Peck's book, People of the Lie? Alice Miller's For Your Own Good or Thou Shalt Not Be Aware? The older I get the more I understand how Hitler happened and how the spirit and agenda of "collective Hitlerism" among the bastards of the universe is going so strong today and must be acknowledged and contended with.
Thanks for the links! I look forward to reading. Truth to power!
I’ll have to check out Scott Peck’s book when I get the chance; Alice Miller’s books have addressed the subject well. In fact Philip Greven mentions her when he reviewed Milgram’s book and cites their upbringing as a possible explanation for why those that stood up to the researchers did so. In fact the work of Miller and people like Benjamin Spock decades ago may be what leads to possible improvements in the near future. As you indicated a lot of so-called “self- help therapy” is designed to help the one giving the advice. In fact one board I stumbled on a few months ago was, I suspect, possibly run as a front for pharmaceutical companies by a professional psychologists that may have been recommending anti-depressants for free on line. But that is another subject.
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