The Madness of George W. Bush: A Reflection of Our Collective Psychosis

[Sapphire Blue]

The Madness of George W. Bush: A Reflection of Our Collective Psychosis
Bush’s sickness is our own.
by Paul Levy

(excerpt)

The daemonic aspect of the disease develops a certain autonomy and literally possesses the person or group, as it is self-generating, self-perpetuating and self-organizing in nature, like a closed and negative feedback loop. The person who is taken over doesn't suspect a thing, as the field secretly conspires and colludes with and enables their psychosis. For example, Bush, in his delusion, imagines he is divinely guided. His supporters want to believe this to feed their own adolescent fantasies of wanting to have a divinely inspired leader to take care of and protect them. Because of this need they invest, so to speak, in Bush’s delusion, which just confirms to Bush all the more that he indeed is God’s instrument. Bush and his followers are co-dependently and reciprocally feeding and supporting each other’s unconscious narcissistic needs in a truly pathological, and ultimately self-destructive co-dependent relationship.

At the root of Bush's pathology is a deep dissociation. Like the terrorists, he has split-off from his own darker half, projecting the shadow ‘out there,’ and then tries to destroy this dis-owned shadow. By projecting the shadow onto each other, Bush and the terrorists are each seeing their own shadow reflected in the other. They see each other as criminals, as the incarnation of evil. By projecting the shadow like this, they locate the evil ‘out there,’ which insures that they don't have to recognize the evil within themselves. It's interesting to note that the inner meaning of the word 'mirror' is ’shadow holder.’ Ironically, by fighting against their own shadow in this way, they become possessed by the very thing they are trying to destroy, thereby perpetuating a never-ending cycle of violence. To quote Jung, "The psychological rule says that when an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside, as fate. That is to say, when the individual remains undivided and does not become conscious of his inner opposite, the world must perforce act out the conflict and be torn into opposing halves."

(snip)

By projecting the shadow, Bush is unwittingly being a conduit for the deepest, archetypal evil to possess him from behind, beneath his conscious awareness, and to act itself out through him. At the same time, ironically enough, he identifies with the light and imagines that he is divinely inspired. To quote Jung, a person in a position of power who has become dissociated like Bush “even runs the grave risk of believing he has a Messianic mission, and forces tyrannous doctrines upon his fellow-beings.” He then believes that any action he desires is justified in the name of God, as he can rationalize it as being God's will. Unable to self-reflect, he is convinced of the rightness of his viewpoint, which he considers non-negotiable. This is a very dangerous situation, as Bush has become unconsciously identified with and possessed by the hero, or savior archetype. This figure is religious in nature, as it derives from the transpersonal, archetypal dimension of the collective unconscious. Being inflated with the hero archetype, he (archetypically) wants to save the world from evil and to liberate the planet.

(snip)

At the root of Bush’s process is an unwillingness and seeming inability to experience his own sense of sin, guilt and shame, as if he is afraid of being exposed, of being found out. He’s clearly unable to feel any remorse and experience his own weakness and vulnerability, his own sense of failure. This threatens his narcissism too much. One aspect of Bush’s pathology is ‘malignant narcissism,’ as he reacts sadistically to others who mirror back his guilt and don’t support and enable his narcissism.

The full article is available @ http://baltimorechronicle.com/011305PaulLevy.html

and http://www.awakeninthedream.com/html/

Download a PDF version of this article @ http://www.awakeninthedream.com/georgew.pdf

Also see Article Library on George W. Bush's Insanity @ http://www.awakeninthedream.com/html/bush.html

[txaslftist]

1. While I appreciate that Bush is an incompetent nut...

...
I refuse to believe that his abberrational psyche is any reflection of a general trend among people or society.

No matter how much freudian/Jungian gobbledygook you wrap it in.

[ananda]

3. malignant egophrenia..

.. does seem to be rather contagious. eek

Sue

[txaslftist]

10. Oh yeah? Archetypal Disassociative!

[Sapphire Blue]

9. How would you explain the blind, rabid support of his followers?

[tavalon]

51. Refuse at your peril

Remember Nazi Germany? That was mass psychosis via nationalism and it was the same phenomenon. Remember the Salem Witch Trials? That was exactly the same phenomenon. Remember McCarthyism? That was exactly the same phenomenon.

Remember 9/11? Thats when the current round of mass psychosis via nationalism started. It is the same phenomenon.

[Sapphire Blue]

56. Many do refuse & we see the result.

[patrice]

2. Yep!

We have met the enemy and they are Us.

Everyone has to own his/her own part in what happens.

[fooj]

4. "The President we get is the country we get."

Peace.

[sui generis]

5. we are not all the lowest common denominator

comparing humans to sociopaths is like comparing apples to oranges. (sorry if I have offended any apples or oranges).

Most of us do not dissociate. Most of us are capable of experiencing empathy, genuine compassion, and guilt and shame when we realize we've made a mistake or hurt someone.

George Bush sleeps soundly at night while 1800 of our soldiers and countless civilians, men, women, children, entire families lie rotting in their graves because of his greed and dishonesty and hubris.

Now we've lost a city and even more lives because of his bad judgement in appointing idiots to serve and his bad judgement in rearranging federal agencies for political gain.

We are not like him or his kind.

[The Kicker]

6. Then how come "most of us"

can't get rid of him? And how did he get to be the national representative of "most of us" in the first place and for five years and counting?

[sui generis]

13. because we play nice

we're fighting swords with intellect and calls to empathy.

In any battle, the side with the strongest weapons and best strategy wins. They are simply better (and more unscrupulous) at preying on fear and just plain dirty tricks, from controlling the media to stuffing the ballot box.

Fighting with principle is fine, but you'd better have something in your other hand that can do some serious damage.

We lost because we put forward a weak, boring uncharismatic candidate that was a social conservative. People don't vote for halos. People vote for leadership and strength, and if they can't distinguish between candidates, will usually vote for the status quo.

We're really bad at fighting the other side because we ARE principled; great at tearing each other new assholes, but lousy at circling the wagons.

We don't just need strong leadership in the presidency, we need it in every democrat down to your city council leaders. We need to say we stand for human decency and hope, for vision and responsibility, for capability. We need to convince Americans that you CAN change administrations and it's not going to make anyone less safe, and will probably make Americans the world over safer on the whole.

We have to all agree on certain very basic ideas: this country has problems with homeless, with hunger right here, with disease, medical care, education, crime, and joblessness. The number of people living at or below the poverty line is growing while corporations rake in record profits by outsourcing employment overseas and playing shell games with taxable corporate income. We need leaders who can sell a Democratic vision that everyone can buy into the same way everyone agrees that buying a loaf of bread shouldn't cost us a hundred dollars or buying the delivery of democracy to a third world country shouldn't cost us 200 Billion dollars (or even be on the shopping list), and that we can do better than the republicans have been doing; a kindergardener could do better than the republicans have been doing.

(damn soapbox, how in the hell did I get on this thing?)

[The Kicker]

18. You may have made my point,sort of.

"We are really bad at fighting the other side because we ARE principled...". So only the unprincipled win in these battles?

[sui generis]

30. Not at all

But our "principles" have to be more pragmatic.

When someone in an interview says something patently false, we need to say "that is a lie." Calmly. Not "that's a mischaracterization", or "you misrepresented my comments".

The principle there is "don't mince words. Speak your truth clearly."

We need to organize a serious, newsworthy march on the Federal Elections Commission to establish Federal Standards for voting reform, including open source software and some form of reliable audit trail. Principle is, a party that organizes its base to effect change rather than just sniping from the sidelines.

We need to point out that the other side is indeed unprincipled and dishonest, and we need to use those words, with catchy little phrases like "the party of bigotry" "the party of moral irrelevance" "the party of liars" "the party of treasury raiders" "the party of warmongers" "the party of fiscal irresponsibility" "the "woops" party".

I could go on and on and onandnon. We need to throw down the gloves and fight with plain words, simple ideas, and don't pull one punch ever. We need to show the rest of the playground that these bullies and their friends run a lousy playground, and then run them off.

[The Kicker]

34. I swear I'm not dogging you : )

I would have to say that if " We need to show the rest of the playground that these bullies and their friends run a lousy playground, and then run them off." emphasises my point. As a country, we need to move beyond the playground to solutions that promote cooperation. The fact that we haven't, nor likely will soon, illustrates the OP's posting point.(Arrested development)

[Bobbieo]

7. The Madness of GW Bush

He has an addictive personality even though he is a "born again". I have lived with some just like him only he is a liberal but he lied, cheated and stole just like the "shrub". Tbey are sick people.

[WiseButAngrySara]

29. What about Nazi Germany under Hitler? Was Hitler solely to blame?

If not, then the society must have shared some of the psychological illnesses of Hitler. If Hitler was solely to blame, then how could there have been so many blind followers of pure evil?

[Angry Girl]

8. Collective Psychosis, my ass!

First of all, over half the country's voters didn't want the creep as prez.

Second, a coup d'etat made sure it didn't matter what the people thought.

And, finally, as far as those delusional Bushies, they will simply explain this latest as a "test of their faith" or anything else to keep the coherence of their belief intact. They will NOT suddenly "awaken" when faced with a sufficient number of facts - that's not how their psychosis works.

Besides, there is a massive right-wing echo chamber to feed the media. And as long as television plays such a dominant role in the average American's life, well, honey, they're f*cked.

And that's my 14 cents for this morning! Gawd, I'm grumpy today....

Nightweed's Hurricane Katrina Aid Organizations

[Sapphire Blue]

14. This collective psychosis is what keeps him in the WH.

Delusional bushies, RW media, and the silence of the good people are all complicit.

[Angry Girl]

22. The power structure that's now in place keeps him there

The so-called Patriot Act has screwed us all. The lack of information, the takeover and manipulation of the media, the secrecy of the government. The dominionists have been planning some of this for *decades* and corporations have done the rest. I don't want to be a pessimist but I have a hard time seeing how any of the damage can ever be undone.

For example, Big Brother is here to stay, checking out our Tivos and our bank card purchases and our medical histories. And corporations have taken over everything. By LAW, they are supposed to look out for the shareholder first; the public good and the environment and everything else comes afterward.

These laws are here to stay. And the divide between the rich and poor can only grow under our current system. This country is doomed as a world power. We are no longer No. 1 in anything. Resources are limited: oil now, water next. And it's the corporations that are in charge. And THAT's what our politics reflect, and not the will of the people.

And for reference supporting all this blather, go check out
http://www.nightweed.com/angrygirl.html

[Sapphire Blue]

35. The power structure is in place because of & is part the collective...

... psychosis.

[Angry Girl]

37. A collective in a society as diverse as America means little

How can you take an entire country with so many ideologies and classes and suppose a common collective? So-called Middle America might as well be its own country when compared with cities like LA and NY. Immigrants count for a huge proportion of the population and I can assure you that the Vietnamese refugee and Mexican laborer will look at you in puzzlement when you speak of such a collective.

The ONLY common element to 90% of all American lives is that damned TV. Control that box and you control the nation.

On Edit: Come to think of it, the other thing most Americans have in common is their educational system. And when you look at K-12, well, it's pretty damn awful compared to the rest of the civilized world.

Sorry, interesting article, but I don't buy it.

[Sapphire Blue]

40. "The malignant egophrenia epidemic is happening right in front of us."

The malignant egophrenia epidemic is happening right in front of us. It is self-evident for all who have eyes to see. If we don't look at what’s happening, if we turn away, ignore it, and contract against it, we are lying to ourselves. Then we’re colluding with and unknowingly feeding the disease. Our looking away is a form of blindness. Our looking away is a form of ignorance. Our looking away, our contraction, is itself the disease. Our resulting complacency and inaction is, in fact, an expression of our lack of compassion. To quote Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. "One who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as the one who perpetrates it."

http://baltimorechronicle.com/011305PaulLevy.html

[Angry Girl]

42. Nobody is passively accepting anything: We wouldn't be here

However, I still disagree with the article! :-)

And before we can fight our enemies, we have to be sure of who and what they are.

Nightweed's Hurricane Katrina Aid Organizations

[Sapphire Blue]

43. We @ DU, along w/many others, are not passively accepting anything,

... but too much of America is... that is, if they aren't actively supporting it. And we have a worthless Congress as part of the equation.

[Angry Girl]

45. Yes, thank goodness for the haven of DU!

And, yes, SB, I totally agree with you. I just don't see a way out when when current polls of high school students show the majority agreeing that the media should be censored and that Americans "have too many rights".

But it's been great fun talking with you! Always nice to know that passionate DUers are out there! And now I gotta go work or something.... :hi:

[Sapphire Blue]

46. The way out... Speak the truth & impeach this admin. before it is too late

We liberate ourselves from the grips of the dark father by connecting with our true power, which is to creatively speak our truth, mediated through the heart of compassion. The entire Bush administration is suffering from a form of criminal insanity that we are all complicit in by allowing it to happen. We need to do everything and anything in our power to remove Bush from office, before it is too late. This is the most compassionate thing we could possibly do for the entire universe, including George Bush. The universe is asking us to do nothing less.

Excerpted from George Bush and the Dark Father http://www.awakeninthedream.com/html/bush.html

[Angry Girl]

53. If Georgey and Dick were to be impeached

and sick as Dick is, we may not even need to impeach, then we're stuck with this line of succession, and Rove is still untouchable, as are the rest of the neocons controlling the board.

* Speaker of the House John Dennis Hastert
* President pro tempore of the Senate Ted Stevens
* Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
* Secretary of the Treasury John Snow
* Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld
* Attorney General Alberto Gonzales
* Secretary of the Interior Gale A. Norton
* Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns
* Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez
* Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao
* Secretary of Health and Human Services Mike Leavitt
* Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Alphonso Jackson
* Secretary of Transportation Norman Yoshio Mineta
* Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman
* Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings
* Secretary of Veterans Affairs Jim Nicholson
* Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff

[Sapphire Blue]

54. Yes, that is the current line of succession... not so a year from now.

I get really tired of people pointing out this line of succession. Of course we know who is next in line, and it's discouraging. However, we have a chance to change Congress in just over a year, to create a Dem majority. We can, we must, and we will do this.


Here's an inspirational article...

The Politics of Victimization
by Mel Gilles

(excerpt)

How to break free? Again, the answer is quite simple.

First, you must admit you are a victim. Then, you must declare the state of affairs unacceptable. Next, you must promise to protect yourself and everyone around you that is being victimized. You don’t do this by responding to their demands, or becoming more like them, or engaging in logical conversation, or trying to persuade them that you are right. You also don’t do this by going catatonic and resigned, by closing up your ears and eyes and covering your head and submitting to the blows, figuring its over faster and hurts less is you don’t resist and fight back. Instead, you walk away. You find other folks like yourself, 56 million of them, who are hurting, broken, and beating themselves up. You tell them what you’ve learned, and that you aren’t going to take it anymore. You stand tall, with 56 million people at your side and behind you, and you look right into the eyes of the abuser and you tell him to go to hell. Then you walk out the door, taking the kids and gays and minorities with you, and you start a new life. The new life is hard. But it’s better than the abuse.

We have a mandate to be as radical and liberal and steadfast as we need to be. The progressive beliefs and social justice we stand for, our core, must not be altered. We are 56 million strong. We are building from the bottom up. We are meeting, on the net, in church basements, at work, in small groups, and right now, we are crying, because we are trying to break free and we don’t know how.

Any battered woman in America, any oppressed person around the globe who has defied her oppressor will tell you this: There is nothing wrong with you. You are in good company. You are safe. You are not alone. You are strong. You must change only one thing: stop responding to the abuser. Don’t let him dictate the terms or frame the debate (he’ll win, not because he’s right, but because force works). Sure, we can build a better grassroots campaign, cultivate and raise up better leaders, reform the election system to make it failproof, stick to our message, learn from the strategy of the other side. But we absolutely must dispense with the notion that we are weak, godless, cowardly, disorganized, crazy, too liberal, naive, amoral, “loose”, irrelevant, outmoded, stupid and soon to be extinct. We have the mandate of the world to back us, and the legacy of oppressed people throughout history.

Even if you do everything right, they’ll hit you anyway. Look at the poor souls who voted for this nonsense. They are working for six dollars an hour if they are working at all, their children are dying overseas and suffering from lack of health care and a depleted environment and a shoddy education. And they don’t even know they are being hit.

http://mathewgross.com/community/node/336

[Angry Girl]

57. Thanks! That helps a little! :-)

[Sapphire Blue]

58. Positivity & hope are contagious... pass them on : - ) More inspiration...

... from The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear by Paul Rogat Loeb

INTRODUCTION:
THE IMPOSSIBLE WILL TAKE A LITTLE WHILE
A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear
by Paul Rogat Loeb


(excerpt)

This isn’t to say that fear is unfounded. Any clear-eyed view of the world recognizes that grave threats exist. I’ve already mentioned some of the most troubling—terrorism, war, economic ruin, global warming. To make matters worse, those in power often take advantage of large-scale threats, including those that are exaggerated or entirely manufactured, exploiting fear and feelings of vulnerability for their own gain. Today fear so dominates American society that people hesitate to speak out against such exploitation, worried that they may be deemed unpatriotic or simply ignored, marginalized. And how could someone who’s afraid to voice his beliefs be able to act on those beliefs, a far riskier endeavor? When fear dictates what we say and do, democracy itself is imperiled. The antidote to such paralysis is hope—defiant, resilient, persistent hope, no matter what the odds against us may be. As Jim Wallis, editor of the radical evangelical magazine Sojourners, writes, “Hope is believing in spite of the evidence, then watching the evidence change.”

Orientation of the Heart

Another way of expressing what Wallis says is that hope is a way of looking at the world—more than that, a way of life. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the stories of those who, like Tutu and Mandela, persist under the most dangerous conditions, when simply to imagine aloud the possibility of change is deemed a crime or viewed as a type of madness. Consider former Czech president Vaclav Havel, whose country’s experience, he argues, proves that a series of small, seemingly futile moral actions can bring down an empire. When the Czech rock band Plastic People of the Universe was first outlawed and arrested because the authorities said their Zappa-influenced music was “morbid” and had a “negative social impact,” Havel organized a defense committee. That in turn evolved into the Charter 77 organization, which set the stage for Czechoslovakia’s broader democracy movement. As Havel wrote, three years before the Communist dictatorship fell, “Hope is not prognostication. It is an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart.”

<snip>

Nothing cripples the will like isolation. By the same token, nothing buoys the spirit and fosters hope like the knowledge that others faced equal or greater challenges in the past, and continued on to bequeath us a better world. Even in a seemingly losing cause, one person may unknowingly inspire another, and that person yet a third, who could go on to change the world, or at least a small corner of it. Rosa Parks’s husband Raymond convinced her to attend her first NAACP meeting, the initial step on a path that brought her to that fateful day on the bus in Montgomery. But who got Raymond Parks involved? And why did that person take the trouble to do so? What experiences shaped their outlook, forged their convictions? The links in any chain of influence are too numerous, too complex to trace. But being aware that such chains exist, that we can choose to join them, and that lasting change doesn’t occur in their absence, is one of the primary ways to sustain hope, especially when our actions seem too insignificant to amount to anything.

http://www.soulofacitizen.org/newimp/impexcerpts.htm

[Sapphire Blue]

44. The Bush Cult - "Another name for cults is collective psychosis."

from another article by Paul Levy...

The Bush Cult

(excerpt)

It is a shattering experience to see through our imaginary projections and recognize that someone we thought was leading and protecting us does not have our best interest at heart. People who support Mr. George Bush resist and turn away from the irrefutable and readily available evidence that Bush is anything but a good leader, as if they are in denial with a capital D. Bush is saying one thing and doing totally the opposite, and many people are simply in denial of this and look away. It is truly as if people who support Bush are not only in denial, but are actually refusing to look and hence, blind to what to most of the world is very obvious. It is as if people who support Bush are under a hypnotic spell, and are suffering from a form of collective brainwashing. People who support Bush in his pathology are exhibiting nothing other than the groupthink of cultic behavior.

Followers of a cult unquestioningly give their power away to their leader’s version of reality. People in a cult have dis-connected from their discerning wisdom, which is the ability to discriminate between the opposites, between truth and lies, between good and evil. In a cult, any sort of reflection of the leader’s unconscious shadow is not only not allowed, but is severely punished. The cult leader is typically insulated from people who disagree with him, not even wanting to come in contact and have any connection with people who have a different point of view. People in a cult exhibit complete and total denial with regard to any evidence that contradicts the agreed upon belief of the cult. This perfectly describes people who are following Bush as their leader. People who follow Bush are completely in denial about his truly criminal behavior.

<snip>

There are always aspects of a cult that are kept hidden and secret, which is the mechanism that keeps its hierarchical power in place. In a cult, this inequality of power ensures that a form of abuse always gets unconsciously acted out. In a cult, the members identify with only one side of an inherently two-sided polarity, projecting out the marginalized shadow. Hence, people who disagree with the cult are seen to have fallen under the spell of the Devil. Members of a cult are convinced of the rightness of their point of view, which they consider non-negotiable. Hence, there is no room for the open dialogue and debate which is at the core of a true democracy. Cults will even suppress and distort science to serve their ends, just like the Bush Administration is doing for partisan political ends. And the cult leader is (arche)typically either identified with God or feels he has a special relationship with God. Cult leaders and their followers see themselves as agents of apocalyptic, end-time scenarios, which is one of the more disturbing aspects of Bush and his supporters from the religious right.

At their root, cults are based on a mass, collective unconsciousness which feeds and reinforces itself. The cult is of the nature of an infinitely-perpetuating negative feedback loop, fueled by its members’ (“the elect”) unwillingness and resistance to self-reflect, look in the mirror and see what they are doing. Because it is so insular and unable to integrate any reflections from the outside, a cult always becomes self-destructive and ultimately destroys itself. This is why it is an extremely dangerous situation if Bush and his cultic followers take over our country, as it will create endless, unnecessary suffering for all of us. Bush might not just take down our country but our very planet as well. Another name for cults is collective psychosis.

The Bush Cult: http://www.awakeninthedream.com/html/bush.html

[melody]

11. RW says we all suck becuz we hate *, this says we suck becuz he's Pres??

Setting aside the obvious -- that the elections were stolen -- this seems like just another victim bashing treatise.

Bush did not evolve from this society (he's a hot house Nazi spawn) and he's not part of it.

[me b zola]

12. Outstanding analysis

"One aspect of Bush’s pathology is ‘malignant narcissism,’ as he reacts sadistically to others who mirror back his guilt and don’t support and enable his narcissism."

*************

Hence why peaceful people who don't share his view of fascism are at the top of the domestic terrorists list, while violent rw groups are ignored.



The entire article was outstanding. Nominated.

[Sapphire Blue]

16. The entire article is well worth reading. I hope others take the time...

to read it.

[wurzel]

15. We are a country of lies. We lie about everything.

We tell ourselves we have the highest standard of living in the world. Not even close. We claim we are the most compassionate people on earth. But we don't even have universal health care. We claim we value life. We have killed millions. We are peace loving. We've been at war with almost every country on earth. We value freedom but have the western world's largest prison population. We don't have health, legal, or political systems. They are rackets. Our government is corrupt and we all know it. We even claim we have a free press! What a joke! We just have to stop lying to and about ourselves.

[Angry Girl]

27. No surprise Hollywood was created in America

Emotional manipulation through the use of images is our forte.

Unfortunately, we are the saddest victims of our own machinery.

Nightweed's Hurricane Katrina Aid Organizations

[wurzel]

32. Yes. We are all too eager to listen to these lies.

[jokerman93]

52. Correction

America was created by Hollywood.

[AntiFascist]

17. Brilliant explanation supporting Pelosi's comment: "Bush is dangerous" nt

[Sapphire Blue]

36. Very good point.

[Seansky]

19. The sad thing is that the entire country

is in a shell shock state and doesn't know what to do next. Our sense of helplessness combined with our extraordinary need to express our frustration and confusion is achieving very little. And add to all the difficult economic situation (getting worst by the minute) and the lack of strong leadership for us to follow, and what seems left for us to do is go to the streets in masses to pressure for changes...That is sad...That is what citizens of third world countries are forced to do, constantly, to get anything from their governments...

[WiseButAngrySara]

20. Interesting article, and I appreciate the Jungian analysis BUT Levy has a

good portion of it wrong, IMHO. B* no more believes that he is divinely inspired than my dog does. This is purely a Rovian Machiavellian tactic, that B* should above all else, appear to be religious. B*'s ONLY religion is the protection of corporations, property and wealth. All the rest is merely political show. He is a complete religious fake. Even if he did believe that he is 'divinely inspired' How on earth can he reconcile the stark contrast of the scriptural Christ who didn't judge, whose God was love, and wouldn't allow others to cast stones (just to name a few),with B* actions on pre-emptive war based on lies to support wealth and property, the death penalty, the support of the NRA, and negligent homicide as exhibited in NOLA?

See The Prince, Machiavelli, "How Princes Should Keep Faith"

"Everyone admits how praiseworthy it is in a prince to keep faith, and to live with integrity and not with craft. Nevertheless, our experience has been that those princes who have done great things have held good faith of little account, and have known how to circumvent the intellect of men by craft, and in the end have overcome those who have relied on their word...."

"A prince ought to take care that he never lets anything slip from his lips that is not replete with the qualities of mercy, faithfulness, humanity, righteousness and religion. There is nothing more necessary to appear to have than this last quality, inasmuch as men judge generally more by the eye than by the hand, because it belongs to everybody to see you, to few to come in touch with you."

edited to change: 'Levy has it all wrong' to 'has a good portion of it wrong' Didn't realize I was so harsh and back and white in my initial post!

[Protagoras]

26. Exactly.

I keep seeing people almost excuse Bush on account of his "beliefs" but everything he says appears to be a hollow mockery of faith. He believes in one thing..Power. Whatever words he needs to use to get him there are fine by him. He's just decided the smirking Born-again is the easiest way.

Elmer Gantry anyone?

[Sapphire Blue]

28. See post #25... and please read the entire article if you haven't yet.

[Terran]

31. I agree with you.

I don't buy the divine inspiration pathology for a second when it comes to Bush. He doesn't act like that in public, and of course makes no references to such a thing either. I feel that anyone who literally believed such a thing would feel no need to not be open about it. Bush's religious references are lame, at best. He has never struck me as a person even remotely interested in God except as stepping stone.

[WiseButAngrySara]

38. According to Machiavelli, we are some of the few that 'feel' rather than

judge B* by appearances, or the eye...and my feeling is that B*'s religiosity is 100% pure LIE, and to me one of the greatest evils is for an elected offical (selected by SCOTUS, and 'elected' by Diebold) to lie. I've never bought into it, and saw it as political maneuvering from day 1 (maybe because I studied Machiavelli too, years ago).

[me b zola]

21. more...

"Falling victim to one's own deception as Bush has can have a very mesmerizing and gripping effect on others, as he appears so convinced of what he is saying and is able to project this conviction. To quote Jung, "Nothing has such a convincing effect as a lie one invents and believes oneself, or an evil deed or intention whose righteousness one regards as self-evident.....things only become dangerous when the pathological liar is taken seriously by a wider public."

[Sapphire Blue]

25. and...

Whereas Hitler’s evil was more overt in its cruelty and sadism, Bush’s dark side is much more hidden and disguised, which makes it particularly dangerous. People who voted for Bush are somehow blind to what is very obvious to others. It’s as if they’ve become hypnotized and fallen under the spell that Bush is casting. Why would people vote for someone stricken with malignant egophrenia? People who support Bush are suggestible and susceptible to the same malady that Bush is embodying, as if they have a predisposition for it (based on their own trauma, dissociated psyche and tendency to project the shadow). Supporting Bush is a sign that a person not only doesn't see the deadly illness that is incarnating itself through Bush, but is an expression that this disease has taken up residence in their being and is using them to do its bidding.

http://baltimorechronicle.com/011305PaulLevy.html

[WiseButAngrySara]

33. This is beautifully expressed....n/t

[WiseButAngrySara]

23. Very stimulating thread! Recommended and kicked.....n/t

[HR_Pufnstuf]

24. "A leader is only as good as the society that breeds him"

-me

[Gregorian]

41. That is the truth.

If Bush's poll numbers were in the teens, I'd have faith in America.

[Gregorian]

39. THE ADMINISTRATION OF VANDALISM.

I don't even have the patience to read the links right now. I'm blinded with disgust.

[donkeyotay]

47. Wow. Thanks for this and the link.

Having names and words is the first step. A great read (and nominated)Here are a few snips, mostly quoting Jung, who was, like many at the end of WWII, trying to find a way out of war as an inevitability:

This is exactly what C. G. Jung, one of the greatest psychologists of the twentieth century, was warning us about when he said "The gigantic catastrophes that threaten us today are not elemental happenings of a physical or biological order, but psychic events. To a quite terrifying degree we are threatened by wars and revolutions which are nothing other than psychic epidemics ...

Bush has fallen into a state that is the embodiment of arrogance. Succumbing to the temptation of power, Bush has become corrupt, which is the inevitable consequence when one prefers power over truth. He has fallen into a vicious cycle where he has become addicted to power. Bush and his regime are compulsively driven to do everything and anything they can to hold onto the position of power they find themselves in. Not only do they not see the depraved nature of the situation they have fallen into, they don't want to see it. Being in the role of having power, there is a counter-incentive to self-reflect, which just reinforces the strength of the pathogen. ...

Malignant egophrenia is truly diabolical in nature and is what the ancient, indigenous cultures would call a demon. Jung warned us that a difficult task lay ahead of us after the mass insanity of the second World War. He points out that after the ‘demons’ abandoned the German people, these negative energies weren't banished. To quote Jung, "the demons will seek a new victim. And that won't be difficult. Every man who loses his shadow, every nation that falls into self-righteousness, is their prey." Projecting the shadow literally opens the door for malignant egophrenia to take up residence in our being. ...

Our looking away is a form of blindness. Our looking away is a form of ignorance. Our looking away, our contraction, is itself the disease. Our resulting complacency and inaction is, in fact, an expression of our lack of compassion. <end>

[Sapphire Blue]

48. Check out Levy's 'Article Library on George W. Bush's Insanity' ...

@ http://www.awakeninthedream.com/html/bush.html

Excellent articles.

[Sapphire Blue]

49. kick

[jokerman93]

50. Some thoughts on America's collective shadow

Yeah. This isn't easy stuff. It needs some reflection if you haven't read Jung - and even if you have. As I see it, we can understand the sociological/political reality of "George Bush" in certain revealing ways by trying to recognize how all of us participate in any outcome. The state of our society is a result of an uncountable number of personal and sociological factors working collectively upon each other - both conscious and subconscious. I think of it as an extreme complex system - a chaotic system if you will. Although no single one of us has a nervous system capable of comprehending even a small fraction of the system's order, nonetheless we're all responsible because we participate -- which is quite different from saying "we are all the cause".

At the moment, I see DU as a constellation of increasingly conscious world citizens (Human Beings) struggling to bring into the national/international consciousness, a recognition of the true nature of this Neocon "shadow".

Shadow work involves embracing the strength of one's shadow nature. The shadow isn't something we can just cozy up to, "integrate" and make friends with. That kind of new age bullshit is simplistic and dangerous. Shadow destroys because that's its nature. The only way to deal with Shadow is to absorb the lessons of its immense power and turn it in the service of Life, Freedom, and Justice. At some point that could mean drawing the sword and using it with cold deliberation.

[tlsmith1963]

55. Scary Stuff

I believe it. It sounds like Bush. And I always suspected that Bush & his followers have a co-dependent relationship. It's like they feed on each other. And they think liberals are the unbalanced ones! Amazing.

Tammy