Benzo Bush?

[Jackpine Radical]

There's been some speculation about what meds they may be using on the Chimperator.

My vote is for something in the benzodiazepine group like Xanax, Ativan or Valium. All of those meds tend to disinhibit people, make them less fearful of the consequences of their behavior.

Years ago people did studies showing that rats on Librium (the first Benzo) didn't learn from punishment, apparently because the neural "worry circuitry" was shut down. The rats, first taught to do something for a reward, would then be switched to punishment for the same behavior. Their response was to "stay the course" and keep on doing the formerly rewarded behavior in spite of the fact that it now brought punishment. Sound familiar?

[54anickel]

1. Nah, I like to think he's on absolutely nothing. Being an asshole just

comes naturally for him. The idea of drugs tend to excuse his natural behavior. :evilgrin:

[depakid]

2. He looked like he was on benzos during one appearance

a few years back, but I don't think that's what he's been on (if he's been on anything) recently. He's entirely too agitated and he seems impatient, neither of which you get from any of the benzo's.

[havocmom]

3. They probably medicate him to keep him somewhat under control

But the thing about not learning from mistakes predates Rove and the junta masters by decades. The boy was not raised well and never had to face consequences for his actions. The lesson he learned and carries through life is "No worries. I can get away with anything and somebody will pay for my indulgences. There are no consequences."

Hell, the US media has let him get away with murders, tens of thousands of them.

[Jackpine Radical]

5. There is one naturally-occurring group of people

who mimic people on Benzos.

Psychopaths. They also show that incredible tendency to repeat punished behaviors (which, incidentally, points up the major flaw in our criminal justice system. We keep trying to use punishment to control the behavior of people who don't learn from punishment).

[havocmom]

11. Yes. A major mistake most of us make is to assume that everyone's

brain works like ours. Just isn't so. And bad parenting takes its toll on society too. Evil people know this and count on it. They can do anything without it bothering them and they know we have a tendency to discount that anyone could be that bad on purpose because we know we couldn't do likewise.

Hey, does fetal alcohol syndrome have any bearing on the inability to feel empathy/remorse?

[Jackpine Radical]

13. Yesi it does.

FAS generally produces a kid with mild mental retardation, a happy disposition, and no sign of a conscience. I think it is primarily the happy disposition is what saves them from being more destructive than they are.

[havocmom]

15. Mild mental retardation, happy & no consciense? Sounds like Dimson to me

thanks for answering about FAS. Thought I had read that long ago.

[skylarmae]

6. What should we do about this thing we call 'The Media'?

Is there anything we can do, other than boycott their advertisers.
Where is Cesar Chavez when we need him? I can remember a time in my life when I gave up grapes to try to help migrant workers. Something has to be done. I say start a strike and have the entire country not spend any money for one day. It would be the best protest. Think of the impact. If it didn't improve, do the protest for two days. Believe me, these greedy fucks would be hot on it to change things. Look what Time/Warner has done to CNN.

[havocmom]

10. Boycott threats still work. Look how fast Slim Fast canned Whoopie

after one day of pressure from wingers. I agree with you. We need to stop buying their crap, figuratively AND literally.

And for the workers of the US, I would love to see a 3 day case of flu but it would only work if everybody got on board and I just don't see that happening. Ever ask a high school kid if they know who Sam Gompers was? It is sad. And the power elite has the worker bees so fearful of everything that so they will not realize the power they have if they would just use it.

It is like voting. So many just won't do it. Don't know how we combat that, except things got so bad in just 4 years, a lot of folks decided they had better get registered. Many do not register because they don't want to end up on jury duty. Many states now get jury pools from drivers license lists and we need to make sure people know that so that silly hurdle against registering to vote gets jumped.

As far as the media: they are just the megaphones for the messages the corporations owning them want out there. We can write sponsors and boycott their products if they finance bad media. We can get more and more people educated about using the internet wisely for research and how to use it to debunk lies and propaganda. The internet also lets people know there are others who share their views/values. The internet can be a great tool to keep people who actually hold the majority view/values from feeling marginalized by the blaring media.

Look how fast dissent in the public dialog started snowballing when Dr. Dean went on point with it. He stuck his neck out when it just wasn't done by high profile people. Most people are followers. They will tend to move with what they preceive to be the herd. We just gotta show the nation that the junta is not the majority. Seems to be working,

Even the media is now showing a slightly more accurate portrait of the frat brat who would be king. Not long ago, we just did not see any unflattering picture of bush*. That has changed. We got a pretty good look at the petulant brat at the first debate. FAUX was the one who showed him from the back, despite 'rules' forbidding that camera angle.

The sick puppy in chief is going down. We just have to ensure the vote is safe.

[MatrixEscape]

4. I just saw one of his "blathers" ... ah, speeches ...

Have you noticed his jaw moving sideways often? I don't recall seeing that before the second debate.

Would some sort of stimulant cause that?

Why is he wagging his jaw like that? Anybody see this happening in various, recent speeches?

[Jackpine Radical]

7. It looked a little bit like a dyskinesia.

Dyskinetic motions (tongue thrusting, odd lip movements, "ratcheting," jerky arm motions, etc. can be side effects of certain medications, particularly antipsychotics that work in the dopamine system. But I can harly imagine them loading him with antipsychotics--they're too impairing. Some of them make new learning almost impossible (here come all the jokes).

[Stew225]

8. Good idea. Tardive dyskenesia from

an anti-psychotic.

[Jackpine Radical]

9. Dyskinesias are not always "tardive"

(i.e. late-appearing). Sometimes a med will prodice dyskinetic side effects almost immediately. The "Prolixin Shuffle" comes to mind as an example. Meds like cogentin were often used to mask these side-effects.

[CityHall]

12. Remember his 9/11 speech?

Probably started then, when he couldn't handle the stress (or fear).

[teamster633]

14. There is a show on History Channel tonight: 'High Hitler'

According to the advertising blurb, Der Fuhrer was "under the influence" from 1936 on. Maybe I'll get some insight into the * regimen.