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erronis

(25,299 posts)
Wed Jul 15, 2026, 12:50 PM 7 hrs ago

Organized Psychopathy -- Tom Sullivan

https://digbysblog.net/2026/07/15/organized-psychopathy/

Why does the world feel like it's coming apart?

People feel it. You feel it. I feel it. These are perilous times. They did not begin with Trumpism. But the country elected Donald Trump as president twice. Donald Trump. Twice. These times did not begin with the financial crisis and Great Recession, although they contributed. The Trump administration is filled with incompetent, unscrupulous, self-dealing officials. It feels like collective madness. Madness American voters chose.

Jim Stewartson of MindWar: The Psychological War on Democracy offers a diagnosis for it: Organized psychopathy.

The elite backlash to creation of the world's largest middle class dates back to the New Deal. President FDR's program was itself a reaction to the Great Depression. President Theodore Roosevelt took on the trusts of the Gilded Age. Elite Southern planters sparked the Civil War. The American Revolution itself was a rejection of rule by hereditary English royalty and landed gentry (admittedly led by American gentry). Our current turmoil continues the unending struggle not between left and right but top and bottom. Right now, the world's power-hungry elite feel ascendant.

Stewartson dates the beginning of the end to the Reagan administration and to the end of the Fairness Doctrine. And, I'd add, the subsequent rise of a billionaire-owned propaganda industry that is now consolidating control of major news and entertainment networks.

Stewartson writes:

The world is now in danger of devolving into total war because the systems for containing aggressive individuals who value power over human life have failed.

We are being reduced to Adams' "Ignorance and Vice" because tyrants banded together to destroy the ability for much of the population to receive, as Madison called it, "popular information."

"A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy."

--James Madison, 1822

The United States is currently both a "Farce" and a "Tragedy" because much of "popular information" has been taken over by amoral, psychopathic people. This failure allowed aggressive individuals with dangerous psychopathologies to recruit, reward, and multiply themselves.


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usonian

(27,561 posts)
1. For years, parties fought over personalities and non-issues.
Wed Jul 15, 2026, 01:01 PM
7 hrs ago

The problem is OLIGARCHY

When we fight it we win. Everyone wins.

But the few Epstein Class pigs.

The oligarchs have spawned a cult to keep them in power.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100221351398

FIGHT OLIGARCHY

Fight the disease, not the symptoms.

WE ALL AGREE ON THIS.

ONLY OLIGARCHS LOVE IT.

Only a brainwashed moran can defend it.

FIGHT OLIGARCHY AND WIN.

Period.




sop

(20,202 posts)
2. History shows us there will be a strong reaction - call it blowback - to all this plutocratic corruption and greed.
Wed Jul 15, 2026, 01:03 PM
7 hrs ago

Soon, I hope. Perhaps it's already begun. It may be violent.

snot

(11,986 posts)
3. WE too must organize in order to fight back successfully.
Wed Jul 15, 2026, 03:13 PM
5 hrs ago

We must work harder to build bridges with other members of the 90%, regardless of their party preferences.

And we must deliberately and thoughtfully create the blueprints for the world we want, including the laws, procedures, and institutions that will be needed in order to prevent oligarchs and other sociopaths from looting and bullying the rest of us, as well as identifying and training the individuals that will be needed to implement our plans.

I agree that this requires restoring a great many laws to their state pre-Reagan, plus a few other measures. For starters:

Restore the Fairness Doctrine;

Repeal the Telecom Act of 1996, which legalized consolidation of 95% of media outlets into the hands of the current 6 conglomerates;

Restore Glass-Steagall;

Restore a host of other regulations that used to rein in Wall St., and outlaw credit derivatives for any purpose other than hedging against a legit risk intrinsic to a productive, "real economy" business;

Amend the law to make it easier to pierce the corporate shield protecting senior offices and directors from personal liability for their and their corporations' crimes and mistakes.

Restore labor law to make it easier for workers to organize and strike;

Restore interpretations of the Bill of Rights (including free speech, due process, and privacy) ito their pre-Reagan state and clarify that the government may not do through private contractors or other non-governmental agencies what it is prohibited from doing more directly itself (e.g., the gov. should not be allowed to evade Constitutional bars against government censorship, surveillance, etc. by simply purchasing such services from private contractors, social media platforms, etc.);

Repeal the Patriot Act and its ilk;

Amend the Espionage Act to permit a "public interest" defense;

Institute penalties for abuse by the government of its power to classify as "secret" materials or info pertaining to their own corruption or mistakes or that might otherwise reasonably be thought to be of general public interest;

Restore the protections put in place by Civil Rights Act of 1964 to their status before conservatives took over the Supreme Court;

Pass the ERA;

Repeal Citizens United;

Make clear that Congress cannot delegate its Constitutionally-prescribed duties, such as initiating US military action on foreign soil, to the Executive;

Require the Pentagon to pass audits as a condition to further funding;

Get the dollar back onto the gold standard;

Raise income taxes on the 1%;

Etc.!

(And I personally would appreciate a law prohibiting Presidents from plastering their names and likenesses all over public edifices, the currency, etc.!)

erronis

(25,299 posts)
4. Phew. Quite a list! And an Etc.!
Wed Jul 15, 2026, 04:06 PM
4 hrs ago

To your last point, make sure the president is cold and dead in the ground for at least 10 years before any names appear. Hell, if trump would suicide himself now, I'd support naming the Blue Plains Sewage Treatment plant after him right away.

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