Convergence - Fear of Death Syndrome

Our human psychological makeup includes the fear of death and reactions to that fear.

That fear causes behavioral reactions which, from time to time, become irrational or paranoid, leading to various forms of antisocial behavior.

Included in that behavior is the formation of world views, together with social grouping with others who likewise hold that particular world view:

One of the most destructive and perplexing problems facing contemporary society is the pervasive tendency of people to respond with hostility and disdain toward those who are different from themselves. This tendency to reject those who are different is well-documented in the literature on prejudice (e.g., Tajfel, 1982), the similarity-attraction relationship (for a review, see Byrne, 1971), and reactions to deviance (e.g., Miller & Anderson, 1979; Schachter, 1951). A common notion in much of the theorizing concerning these effects is that people prefer similar others over dissimilar others because of the consensual validation of one's own beliefs and attitudes provided by similar others (e.g., Byrne, 1971;Festinger, 1954; Tajfel, 1982). The research reported in this article was concerned with the psychological basis of this need for consensual validation.
...
Put simply, people's beliefs about reality provide a buffer against the anxiety that results from living in a largely uncontrollable, perilous universe, where the only certainty is death.
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Thus, as Byrne (1971) and others have suggested, attraction to similar others can be explained as resulting from the consensual validation of beliefs that such others provide. From a terror management perspective, then, positive reactions to similar others and negative reactions to dissimilar others occur partly because of the impact such individuals have on faith in one's worldview.

(The Effects of Mortality Salience on Reactions to Those Who Threaten or Bolster the Cultural Worldview, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1990, Vol. 58, No. 2, 308-318, PDF, italics added).

A recent post on this blog concerns behavioral studies of State Sponsored Crimes Against Democracy, in the context of 9/11.

In that post we saw that behavioral scientists are studying why "The ellipses of due diligence riddling the official account of the 9/11 incidents" continue to be ignored by scholars of policy and public administration.

We can add the main stream media (MSM) to the study, in the sense that they have a world view and they also try to protect it.

People who have a different world view (e.g. "Truthers") from the government or the MSM world view, are seen as a threat and a discomfort to the extent that the comfort against the fear of death is disturbed.

One comforting, yet intoxicating world view is that our nation is good and therefore can do no wrong against the public. Clearly, the Truthers threaten the official world view of the government and of the press.

My car, my family, my church, my city, my state, my government, and my country, are actually extensions of our very selves in this world view sense.

Those who threaten the comfort zone provided by our world view are seen as being hostile toward us, which engenders hostility back toward them.

The phenomenon converges with other threats, so it has also been seen in the global warming / global climate change "debates" or dialogues:

A recent paper by the biologist Janis L Dickinson, published in the journal Ecology and Society, proposes that constant news and discussion about global warming makes it difficult for people to repress thoughts of death, and that they might respond to the terrifying prospect of climate breakdown in ways that strengthen their character armour but diminish our chances of survival. There is already experimental evidence suggesting that some people respond to reminders of death by increasing consumption. Dickinson proposes that growing evidence of climate change might boost this tendency, as well as raising antagonism towards scientists and environmentalists. Our message, after all, presents a lethal threat to the central immortality project of Western society: perpetual economic growth, supported by an ideology of entitlement and exceptionalism.

(Monbiot, italics added). The opposite ends of this spectrum are quite far apart, going from "global warming is the greatest hoax of all time" to "we are all going to die" rhetoric.

A more effective exercise, which would diminish these negative effects, would be to master the fear of death in a non-confrontational way, realizing that we are all in this together.

Open Thread

Lots of subjects to talk about.

You have the floor if you want it.

SCADs Of Inkblot Denial

The inkblot test generally results in different interpretations of the same picture.

Likewise, it is quite common and ordinary for several judges or religionists to interpret the exact same text differently.

It has always been clear that we interpret things according to our own experience, our own culture, our own world view, our own weaknesses, and our own bias.

The American Behavioral Scientist Journal is doing a volume, which deals with what I consider to be a disease, State Crimes Against Democracy (SCAD), and subject matter relating to that theme:

The ellipses of due diligence riddling the official account of the 9/11 incidents continue being ignored by scholars of policy and public administration. This article introduces intellectual context for examining the policy heuristic "State Crimes Against Democracy" (SCAD) (deHaven-Smith, 2006) and its usefulness for better understanding patterns of state criminality of which no extant policy analytic model gives adequate account.This article then introduces papers included in this symposium examining the chimerical presence and perfidious legacy of state criminality against democracy.

(American Behavioral Scientist). The fact that "no extant policy analytic model gives adequate account" means that we do not know how to deal with the relevant inkblot scenario when the government commits criminally insane or lesser wrongs against the interests of democracy.

The Toxins of Power Blog has been musing over this subject for awhile, so it is good to see the load shared with experts in that field.

We have long maintained that the MSM has dementia when it comes to "the official account of the 9/11 incidents".

As long as the symptoms & problems "continue being ignored by scholars of policy and public administration" we will have no healing.

The American Behavioral Scientist Journal now gives hope that we can take a look at this denial as a form of social dementia, hoping that some treatment will be coming along to help others out of their state of denial.

Glorious Addictions - War & Oil

Doubt is not understood well sometimes.

There is a group of folk who think it is the result of pondering an issue, considering the pros and the cons, then forming a conclusion based upon the relevant facts.

For instance, doubt is the foundation of criminal prosecutions in jury trials if you think about it.

The term "guilty beyond a reasonable doubt" tells us it is reasonable to doubt, and that doubt is a function of cognition.

Another group will tell you that doubt is composed of emotion with the purpose of protecting you.

Protecting you from facts, ideas, or realities that challenge your world view, the world view you inherited from your culture.

Indeed, if we believed everything we heard without any doubt, we could go over the edge into the lands beyond sanity, from which Alice barely extricated herself.

I felt doubt, perhaps from both of these ideas about doubt, when I read an article by a man who says he was or is addicted to war:

Normal life can't compete with the potent drug of war.

I don't disagree. Normal life doesn't stand a chance against war, in the same way that shooting up or swallowing a pill of ecstasy trumps reality every time. But I do take issue with how The Hurt Locker ends -- not because I didn't like the movie, or that it wasn't enjoyable. It just doesn't go far enough. In fact, I don't think it was enough like Kathryn Bigelow's earlier classic on adrenaline junkies, Point Break, a film about a gang of bank robbing surfers. That might sound ridiculous, but the movies' themes are identical.

In the finale, the late Patrick Swazye (playing Bodhi, Point Break's version of Sgt. James) is found on an Australian beach, chasing the ultimate storm, the big wave. Bohdi gets swept away by this overwhelming, violent, thrilling, force of nature. Keanu Reeves, playing the troubled cop hero, speaks the film's last memorable line: "He's not coming back." That's what happens when you embrace dark and wild forces beyond control. The Hurt Locker, on the other hand, doesn't take war addiction to its logical, unambiguous, conclusion. That is, death.

Addictions destroy, junkies usually die, and the war always wins.

(M. Hastings, Huffpo). It seems clear that we can not all be addicted to the same thing, in the sense that we have different immune systems based upon our individuality as well as our experience.

Bush II diagnosed the nation as being "addicted to oil", which seems to me to be more believable than being addicted to war.

Bush II meant oil addiction was to be considered as a social addiction, based on habit and commercial systems, rather than on some unavoidable physical or mental need.

I wondered if the addiction to war is both, that is, both an addiction based on habit and commercial needs, as well as being a physical or mental need.

Depending on one's experience it could be all of the above.

The cosmos has imposed upon us, and all other planets, the requirement that we pass The Test or we cease to exist.

Why is peace so unattractive in our culture?

MOMCOM To Get Jiggy Wid Da Robes?

The Obama advisors are caving on another compass point, circling back to Pentagonia, capitol of Bullshitistan.

That is where one always ends up using the compass Bush II gave Obama and his campaign crew when they came to das kapital town.

They seem to be quaking in their MOMCOM boots when faced with neoCon rhetoric about "turrists" being tried in military courts:

In a potential reversal, White House advisers are close to recommending that President Barack Obama opt for military tribunals for self-professed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four of his alleged henchman, senior officials said.

The review of where and how to hold a Sept. 11 trial is not over, so no recommendation is yet before the president and Obama has not made a determination of his own, officials said. The review is not likely to be finished this week.

Officials spoke Thursday on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to discuss private deliberations.

Attorney General Eric Holder decided in November to transfer Mohammed and the four other accused terrorists from the prison at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to New York City for civilian trials. That was initially supported by city officials, but was later opposed because of costs, security and logistical concerns.

When opposition ballooned further into Congress and an attempted Christmas airline bombing brought massive scrutiny to Obama's terrorism policies, the administration said it would review Holder's trial decision and consider all options for a new location.

(Huffington Post). In giving this ground Obama will also be going back on what he said about the people's lawyer, the Office of the Attorney General, being an independent function.

This notion of telling the Attorney General what to do is taking us back to the daze of Nixon and Bush II when they took over that office, firing those who did not obey decisions in chief.

Soldiers simply do not do criminal justice well, except in cases where they judge a soldier's behaviour in a soldier's world within the context of military operations.

The stupidity of soldiers doing the judicial functions historically done by criminal courts should be Abu Ghraib obvious.

This policy also violates one of the main reasons for the Declaration of Independence, as does the Bomb Power mentality.

As she builds more and more little cities ("the base") as a function of MOMCOM's building boom, now she will have to add some court houses.

Wow, she has the media, the armies, the builders, and now she also has more and more judges making more and more decisions about non-soldiers.

Will the meaning of this escape the remaining civilians in government: your job is in danger of being taken over by MOMCOM, since she has a voracious appetite and a "me like, me take" world view.

The government is acting more and more like a person under delusions while freezing to death.

At any rate, decline of empires is composed of many chapters along the way, always culminating with the words "the end" when they are found to be unfit for this cosmos.

Sign Of The Times That Are A Changin?

Bob Dylan sang "The Times They Are A Changin' at the White House a while back.

The fact that he was invited is self evident that something has changed.

In the days he wrote that song the establishment considered him persona non grata.

He was as likely to be invited to the White House back then as Fidel Castro was.

Anyway, a while back we mentioned that the 4th Fleet had been resurrected from a mothball death to be sent to "purtek Amurka" down south where the oil is.

Brazil and neighbors have come into an oil boom of sorts, so MOMCOM thinks they need some "protection".

What has changed is that those nations, facing the business end of the barrels of the 4th Fleet boomers, are not dancing to MOMCOM songs right now.

In fact, Brazil even after being threatened with MOMCOM might has stood up:

Brazil rebuffed a U.S. appeal for new sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program, vowing during a visit from U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton not to "bow down" to gathering international pressure.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva pre-empted Clinton even before she could make the case for new United Nations Security Council penalties. Silva is an outspoken opponent of sanctions, and his country currently sits on the Security Council, which will be asked to approve its toughest-ever penalties on Iran later this year.

(Huffington Post). Other South American nations, now of more interest to MOMCOM due to their oil holdings, are also outspoken against her.

The cards are all on the table, then, so now we watch to see who has the poker hand and who has the bluff.

MOMCOM & The Boomer Movement

Some baby boomers call him Brokejaw, and he does not seem to like the boomers.

After all, they made the peace sign, Bob Dylan, the environment, and ecology famous.

The baby boomers number only 79 million strong, but Brokejaw thinks that is significant in the grand scheme of things.

He bloviated this morning on Morning Joe (MSNBC) about the "boomer generation", revealing his blindness brought about by his nationalistic myopia.

He is part of the MSM crowd who lost their global conscience somewhere along the way, and replaced it with "exceptionalism" like Hitler did when he, in his own demented mind, elevated the mother land uber alles.

Exceptionalism is a social dementia, spread primarily by the Brokejaws of the world.

That dementia, in today's world free of accountability at the elitist level, driven by the false notion and toxin of old ("the king can do no wrong"), leads him to make a grandiose presentation in a special tonight, and in his book from then on.

It is hooey, like other birth pangs MOMCOM is having lately.

Other nations had children during 1946 to 1964 too, in fact, way, way more than the U.S. had; yes, way more than 79 million.

Nationalistic elitism has put out our collective "eyes", and blinded MOMCOM to the foolishness she has mired us in for way too long.

MOMCOM did have her bigga badda booms, indeed, she is the mother in chief of all that after all.

Ecocide - A Vibe Of The Elite

Putin, Ahmadinejad, and even the Pope are elitists in the sense that their ecological policies are harbingers of ecocide.

They belong to a meme complex that has engendered and promulgated the ecocide meme.

These three elitists are not to be confused with the environmental movement, ecologists, who trumpet the message about the slow train Ecocide that is approaching.

No, these elitists like Putin, Ahmadinejad, and the Pope actually do not really think that the notion of ecocide matters, because their world view excludes ecocide from their cognition.

In other words, ecocide does not compute with them.

The link above shows that Putin is allowing the pollution of the largest freshwater lake on earth, where 20% of the fresh and clean surface water is stored.

Not to mention that he exports more oil than any one Arab sheik oil baron.

Ahmadinejad is an oil baron who is infatuated with a mistress known as nuclear power, the dirtiest and longest lasting poison known to exist.

The Pope, whose notion of infallibility helped inspire the notion of toxins of power, is so infallible in his own mind and doctrine that whatever he says or does, including apathy toward ecocide, will all be washed away into meaninglessness when he is raptured or wafted to the heavenly realm.

The common meme to all of them is that the earth really does not matter in the greater sense.

Comprehending the reality of the notion of ecocide is not important to them, what is most important to them is them.

It is utterly clear that this planet is plagued with toxins that pervert the minds of those who are exposed to power, and that specific toxin for whatever reason, seems to be engineered to bring ecocide upon us.

One shudders to contemplate whether these toxins are local to the earth, or whether they are cosmic in scope.

Resist the toxins!

The Spawn Of MOMCOM Is Death

If the CIA thinks I have been harsh on them they are wrong.

I don't mention them much at all, if any.

Other blogs excoriate them, so before I begin an explanation of how they are part of MOMCOM, let me set the stage.

Species produce their own kind.

It is the same with MOMCOM, she reproduces little MOMCOM types.

She is like a galaxy that has many appearances, each depending on the wavelength of the light one is using to observe that galaxy.

For instance, looking at a galaxy in infra red will show a different galaxy from what one will see while observing that same galaxy in visible light.

There is an entire spectrum of personalities in any one galaxy.

MOMCOM is an entire spectrum of personalities too.

We have said that one of the "M" personalities is the main stream media (MSM), the press, which is where MOMCOM gets one of her personality traits.

The media portion of MOMCOM is discussed in an article I found that alleges the media has been massively infiltrated by the CIA.

Listen to what one media mogul, who was made an asset by the CIA, has to say about her concept of journalism:

There are some things that the general public does not need to know and shouldn’t. I believe democracy flourishes when the government can take legitimate steps to keep its secrets and when the press can decide whether to print what it knows.

(Existentialist Cowboy). That was a statement by a CIA asset in the media who controlled the right leaning Washington Post.

The same article indicated that the CIA had infiltrated and made assets of various MSM sections. Here is a partial list:

* Philip and Katharine Graham (Pub., Wash. Post)
* William Paley (President, CBS)
* Henry Luce (Publisher, Time and Life magazine)
* Arthur Hays Sulzberger (Publisher, N.Y. Times)
* Jerry O'Leary (Washington Star)
* Hal Hendrix (Pulitzer Prize winner, Miami News)
* Barry Bingham Sr., (Louisville Courier-Journal)
* James Copley (Copley News Services)
* Joseph Harrison (Editor, Christian Science Monitor)
* C.D. Jackson (Fortune)
* Walter Pincus (Reporter, Washington Post)
* ABC
* NBC
* Associated Press
* United Press International
* Reuters
* Hearst Newspapers
* Scripps-Howard
* Newsweek magazine
* Mutual Broadcasting System
* Miami Herald
* Old Saturday Evening Post
* New York Herald-Tribune

(ibid). It was that old rascal Napoleon Bonaparte who said:

Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets.

(Napoleon Quotes). The CIA corruption of domestic media tranquility is treasonous, but in our age of the demise of accountability, which is the demise of our democracy, they will only increase the treason of the realm of MOMCOM.

The MOMCOM gang is composed of delusional people who (for all their efforts to kill, maim, divide, and destroy) are anathema to what is required to survive in this cosmos.

Message from the Cosmos to MOMCOM: "Dear MOMCOM, you can run but you can't hide ... Gotcha".

A Case of Big Oil vs. Climate Change

There is an interesting case in The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals concerning environmental law, accountability for global warming, and who should pay for damages caused by it.

The case is Comer v Murphy Oil, # 07-60756, on appeal to the Fifth Circuit from the Federal District Court in the Southern District of Mississippi.

Yesterday that appellate court decided to rehear the prior three-judge panel decision in favour of landowners against Murphy Oil Company and a cadre of MOMCOM members.

The case will be re-heard en banc, meaning it will be heard this time by all of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals judges, not just the three-judge panel.

The federal district court in Mississippi had ruled against the land owners, but the Fifth Circuit panel had reversed that district court.

The case has far reaching and politically explosive implications:

The plaintiffs, residents and owners of lands and property along the Mississippi Gulf coast, filed this putative class action in the district court against the named defendants, corporations that have principal offices in other states but are doing business in Mississippi. The plaintiffs allege that defendants’ operation of energy, fossil fuels, and chemical industries in the United States caused the emission of greenhouse gasses that contributed to global warming, viz. , the increase in global surface air and water temperatures, that in turn caused a rise in sea levels and added to the ferocity of Hurricane Katrina, which combined to destroy the plaintiffs’ private property, as well as public property useful to them.

(Comer v Murphy Oil, [updated case] emphasis added). The import of this case is obvious, and it could be as big as asbestos or tobacco litigation, should the oil companies be held accountable for their part in global warming.

I expect the en banc court to reverse the three-judge panel's decision, and to uphold the district court, dismissing the claims against the oil companies.

Why I think so follows.

First: the 5th Circuit is a conservative court: the three-judge panel decision was written by Judge Dennis, appointed by President Clinton, who is in the minority on the Fifth Circuit, where most of the judges are of the conservative ilk, meaning a good many of them think global warming is a big hoax.

Second: they will hold that there is not a sufficient nexus between the injury and the defendants.

The three-judge panel explained this notion of "standing" in the federal courts:

Article III standing is an “irreducible constitutional minimum,” which requires plaintiffs to demonstrate: they have suffered an “injury in fact”; the injury is “fairly traceable’ to the defendant’s actions; and the injury will “likely . . . be redressed by a favorable decision.” Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife , 504 U.S. 555, 560-61 (1992) (internal quotations and citations omitted).

(ibid). I expect there to be a storm over the notion that "the injury is 'fairly traceable’ to the defendant’s actions", that is, even if these conservative judges assume arguendo that global warming is a valid notion, they will hold that there is no way to fairly link it to the defendants in that state on that property.

The crux will most likely be the allegations concerning the increased ferocity of hurricane Katrina; that is, they will say that there is too much speculation on that segment of the nexus from global warming to increased hurricane ferocity to damage of that specific property.

It will be probably a year before we know how the court will decide the case.

The next post in this series is here.

Infrastructure - Fake Word For Earmark

The devastating quake in Chile should be a wake-up call to the government of the United States, according to some seismologists.

We are wondering if there is anyone home to receive that wakeup call, since we are fighting two wars in the middle east, beating the drums about Iran, and reactivating a naval fleet that has been mothballed for over 5 decades.

Data from seismologists indicates that we here in the U.S. are due for a large quake somewhere in the not too distant future.

Other data indicate that our infrastructure is therefore in danger:

Chile's transportation infrastructure took a big hit, as seen in the collapsed bridges and highways.

It should be a wake-up call to the U.S., noted Dr. McNutt, given the fragile state of America's infrastructure even before a quake.

The U.S. Department of Transportation's 2008 report on the state of our highways found that nearly 14% of the nation's bridges are "functionally obsolete," with another 12% "structurally deficient."

(CBS News, emphasis added). On this blog we have recently been looking into the whereabouts of the largest infrastructure spending legislation in U.S. history.

The graph above shows the skyward spending spree on military matters, and the tanking into the basement crash of the domestic, non-military budget.

The vertical red line marks the time when the largest infrastructure legislation in U.S. history was passed, the vertical green line shows when money from that legislation could have first been reasonably put to use, and the yellow vertical line shows when the bridge collapse happened in Minnesota, killing Americans on their way to work.

American engineers do not give us a good report card after that money was set aside for infrastructure improvement.

The big question is where did the money go that was supposed to go to U.S. infrastructure?

Anyone suspect it is being used to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan?

Congress OK's Spying On Americans

I just received an email from the ACLU which said:
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Yesterday, the House passed a one-year extension of three expiring Patriot Act provisions without making much-needed changes to the overly broad surveillance bill.

With this extension, Congress failed to address proper privacy safeguards in the Patriot Act, including:

* Amending the national security letter (NSL) statute to ensure that the government obtains financial, communication and credit records only of people believed to be terrorists or spies;

* Requiring the government to convince a court that a national security gag order is necessary;

* Terminating the "lone wolf" authority that permits the government to spy on people who are not part of a terrorist organization; and

* Ensuring that the so-called "library records provision" does not authorize collection of library and bookstore records if they contain information on a patron unless he is a terrorist or spy.

Since the Patriot Act's passage in 2001, there have been several consecutive reports — including one released in January — from the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General that have outlined widespread and blatant abuse of the statute. FBI agents routinely claimed false terrorism emergencies to use "exigent letters," or emergency letters, in order to gain private records for investigations when no emergency existed. The FBI also regularly issued NSLs after the fact in an attempt to legitimize the use of exigent letters.

"Though the debate over reauthorizing the Patriot Act may be over this year, Congress still has the power to narrow the use of NSL powers and help avoid such abuses in the future," said Michelle Richardson, ACLU Legislative Counsel. "It's time to rein in the overbroad power of the NSL and bring the statute back in line with the Constitution."

Although the outcome is not what we had hoped, we made progress. In the House, 97 representatives, 10 of which were Republicans, voted against extending the Patriot Act. Some members of Congress justified this extension by promising that the next year would provide time for real reform. You can bet we're going to hold them to their promise. And we'll be turning to you to help keep the pressure on.
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Write congress, vote them out, or whatever your solution is.

Where Is The Olympiad of Peace Medal?

An Olympiad
is a period of four years between games.

Games where nations compete in a peaceful, fair manner.

The youth of the United States are quite good at it, breaking the record for medals won.

They also tend to be peaceniks, and are not so happy with the influence the warmongers have over the Obama administration.

The U.S. has removed peace from every Olympiad so far in the 21st Century.

There has been no peace, instead there has been escalating war budgets, escalating job loss, escalating home loss, escalating financial crisis, and escalating bloviation about economy and climate change.

This century started out with the old status quo folks sending armies around the globe to engage in the business of "bringing peace and democracy" to heathen nations, killing, maiming, and displacing millions.

Enriching the 1% MOMCOM warmongers in the U.S. and abroad, while damaging the optimism of youth and its respect for governance.

The winter Olympic Games give youth a momentary respite from the old warmonger reality, but now we go back into the next war filled Olympiad until the games in 2014 in Russia.

We are into the second year of the summer Olympic Games Olympiad, with two more war filled years remaining until the summer games of 2012 in London.

War, it is what makes fools proud these daze.