Bush Pulling Ahead

[Nakharar]

Bush pulls away in trio of polls; 4th finds deadlock

 

President Bush is pulling away from John Kerry in three polls as the race for the White House approaches its final two weeks while a fourth poll finds the men deadlocked.

 

While Bush was touting his plan to fight terrorism in New Jersey on Monday and Kerry was criticizing the president’s “arrogant boasting” about the war in Iraq, political pundits were parsing this poll data, most of it gleaned after the three debates between the two candidates:

• Bush leads 52-44 percent among likely voters in a Gallup Poll taken for CNN and USA Today from Thursday through Saturday, up from 49-46 after the second debate.
• Bush leads 50-44 among likely voters in a Newsweek Poll conducted Thursday and Friday.
• Bush leads 50-46 in a tracking poll of likely voters taken Wednesday through Saturday for ABC News, up from 48-48 in the Tuesday-Friday period.

Another poll, released Monday, found the candidates deadlocked at 45 percent each among likely voters. The Reuters/Zogby three-day tracking poll gave the president a 46-44 percent lead over the Massachusetts senator the previous day, and a four-point lead the day before that.

 

“This is, as I have said before, the same kind of roller-coaster ride we saw in 2000 with the lead changing back and forth and neither candidate able to open up any kind of lead,” pollster John Zogby said.

 

The poll of 1,211 likely voters was taken Friday through Sunday and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.9 percentage points. The rolling poll will continue through Nov. 1 -- the day before the election.

 

The Gallup Poll interviewed 1,013 adults and had a 4-point margin of error. The Newsweek Poll interviewed 1,004 registered voters and had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points. ABC’s poll surveyed 1,582 voters with a margin of error of 2.5 points.

 

While national polls such as these attempt to reflect popular sentiment among voters, the real presidential battle is the state-by-state contest for electoral votes. In that match, NBC News analysis currently has Bush winning or leading in states with 217 electoral votes while Kerry is winning or leading in states with 200 votes. The remaining states and their 121 votes are considered too close to call. A candidate needs 270 electoral votes to win.

[DominO123]

Seems that Americans prefer a wired cheater, a moron, a psychopat. Many times democracy is wrong, here an example.

[dianjan]

It's a scary thought, knowing that Bush might win this election. Let's just hope & prey that it doesn't happen, & Kerry wins this election. I can't believe that some people are so ignorant that they will elect someone that dumb, uneducated and corrupt as Bush.

[Nakharar]

Strange that US citizens don't even care for the fact that the price for a barrel of oil has topped the previous record of $55. Bush seems to get away with everything.

[vava]

Strange that US citizens don't even care for the fact that the price for a barrel of oil has topped the previous record of $55. Bush seems to get away with everything. 

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Kerry doesn't seem to be jumping on the dozens of opportunities he's getting to communicate to middle america what GW's tenure has brought. Not that Kerry would dramatically change things.... <_<

[skhara]

Seems that Americans prefer a wired cheater, a moron, a psychopat. Many times democracy is wrong, here an example.

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What democracy?

[Accelerated]

You guys better get out there and VOTE Kerry!

[Armat]

Here is the real info.

The US election officially began in Florida yesterday, as early voting sites opened across the state - though in Duval County 817,480, a Republican-run area with a large African-American population, that too is a subject of dispute. Only one early voting site, far from densely populated neighbourhoods, has been made available for the entire county.

 

This usually happens in third world countries but democracy in America is becoming an elusive goal.

Pushing to Be Counted in Fla.

Groups Say That Blacks May Not Be Heard at PollsBy Jo Becker

Washington Post Staff Writer

Wednesday, October 13, 2004; Page A01

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Nearly a dozen African American ministers and civil rights leaders walked into the Duval County election office here, television cameras in tow, with a list of questions: How come there were not more early voting sites closer to black neighborhoods? How come so many blacks were not being allowed to redo incomplete voter registrations? Who was deciding all this?

Standing across the office counter under a banner that read "Partners in Democracy" was the man who made those decisions, election chief Dick Carlberg. Visibly angry, the Republican explained why he decided the way he had: "We call it the law."

Black leaders said the scene at the supervisor's office last week was reminiscent of a blocked schoolhouse door at the height of desegregation. They charge that GOP officials are deliberately using the law to keep black people off the rolls and hinder them from voting.

Four years ago, ballots cast from black neighborhoods throughout Florida were four times as likely to go uncounted as those from white neighborhoods. Nowhere was the disparity more apparent than in Duval County, where 42 percent of 27,000 ballots thrown out came from four heavily Democratic black precincts.

Despite attempts by Florida officials to prevent a repeat of the controversy that dogged the last presidential election, black leaders said they are concerned that this year new registrations are being rejected for technical errors and that limited accessibility to early polling places could lead to more disputes, roiling Florida and the nation long after Election Day.

Florida, with 27 electoral votes, is again a hotly contested battleground. Democratic organizations, black churches and civil rights groups have embarked on an aggressive get-out-the-vote effort in minority neighborhoods in Duval County and elsewhere in the state.

From the 2000 election to August 2004, nearly 200,000 black voters were added to the rolls in Florida, a 21 percent increase in large part because of registration drives by groups including America Coming Together. Registration by white voters increased almost 6 percent.

Black people overwhelmingly vote Democratic, and Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) has made turning out that vote a key part of his Florida strategy. He and his running mate, Sen. John Edwards (N.C.), have made three campaign trips to Jacksonville alone.

But black leaders said they are worried that the campaigning will not matter if black voters are disenfranchised.

In Duval County, 31,155 black voters had been added to the rolls by the end of last week. That is more than the total number of ballots nullified here four years ago, in a race that George W. Bush won by 537 votes.

But hundreds more could show up at the polls only to find they cannot vote. The office has flagged 1,448 registrations as incomplete, and as of last week had yet to process 11,500 more.

A Washington Post analysis found nearly three times the number of flagged Democratic registrations as Republican. Broken down by race, no group had more flagged registrations than blacks.

Edited October 19, 2004 by Armat

[Stormig]

Seems that Americans prefer a wired cheater, a moron, a psychopat. Many times democracy is wrong, here an example.

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Wasn't sure where to put this, but -

 

Dear Members,

 

As you know, I am dead set against remote "diagnosis", especially by

non-professionals.

 

Only a qualified mental health diagnostician can determine whether someone

suffers from NPD and this, following lengthy tests and personal interviews.

 

I am offering you these two articles, with the kind permission of the

author, not because of the "diagnosis" offered - but because of the

well-written and accurate descriptions of malignant narcissism embedded in

them.

 

Sam Vaknin

 

=============

 

Also read these - click on the links:

 

http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/15.html

 

http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/faq11.html

 

http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/journal54.html

 

http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/faq47.html

 

====================================

 

GEORGE BUSH IS A MALIGNANT NARCISSIST

by Paul Levy

 

 

Psychologically speaking, Mr. George W. Bush is what is called a 'malignant

 

narcissist.' A narcissist is someone who has become hypnotized and entranced

by their own inflated self-image. They have become so self-absorbed that not

only are they not in genuine relation with others, but they relate to others

(including the environment) as objects to satisfy their own need for

self-aggrandizement. A 'malignant' narcissist, however, is a narcissist who

reacts sadistically to others who don't support and enable their narcissism.

 

For example, instead of self-reflecting and taking in critical feedback, the

Bush administration reacts with ruthless contempt for anyone who disagrees

with them. Like a mean and cruel-spirited malignant narcissist, Bush and Co.

 

deny the accusation and try to destroy the messenger. Ultimately, a

malignant narcissist wants to annihilate anyone who in any way threatens

their illusory self-image and self-serving agenda.

 

Malignant narcissists can be very charismatic, and are very adept at

charming and manipulating others. They are clever at camouflaging their

malevolent agenda, even to themselves, and can appear to be very normal,

regular, and seemingly loving people. To quote the great doctor of the soul,

psychiatrist C. G. Jung "only a very small fraction of so-called psychopaths

land in the asylum. The overwhelming majority of them constitute that part

of the population which is alleged to be "normal."" And, I might add, that

many of these so-called seemingly 'normal' psychopaths are drawn to

positions of power. Malignant narcissists are very skilled at entrancing

others, at putting other's under their spell. They are master hypnotists.

 

They are like 'black magicians,' in that they are very talented at hooking

others through their fear by using 'mind-control' techniques such as lying

and propaganda to control them.

 

The narcissism of a leader such as Bush resonates with the narcissism

inherent in his supporters, who identify with Bush's seeming certainty and

lack of doubt (it never occurs to them that, to quote John Kerry "You can be

certain and wrong."). This creates a very dangerous and pathological

situation called "group narcissism," in which a large group of people have

dis-connected from their critical faculties and entrusted their power to

their narcissistic leader. This is a perversely symbiotic, co-dependent

relationship in which all members of the group are colluding with and

enabling each other's narcissism. For example, George Bush, in his utter

narcissism thinks that God speaks through him. Instead of being seen as

deluded, his supporters reflect back to him that they, too, think that God

speaks through him. This, of course, just reinforces Bush's narcissistic

delusion. Seeing Bush as God's instrument concurrently fulfills in the Bush

supporters their adolescent fantasy of having someone who is playing the

role of the divine leader to protect them. This mutually interdependent and

reciprocally reinforcing delusion is what is called a 'collective psychosis.

 

' By playing with people's fear, Bush is hypnotizing people to give their

power away to him. Unfortunately, by doing this he has hypnotized himself as

well, which is to say he is deceiving himself in the process of his

deceiving of others. Malignant narcissists are pathological liars. They are

very adept at both lying and then believing their own lies. The conviction

they carry in this act of self-deception can easily 'entrance' people. 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." A malignant narcissist plays with people's fears

so as to gain their trust and control them, which is based on the abuse of

power over others that is the signature of a true dictator.

 

At their core, a malignant narcissist's desire is to dominate and have power

over others. The perverse enjoyment of complete domination over another

person(s), which involves transforming a person into an object (a 'thing'),

in which their freedom is taken away, is the very essence of the sadistic

drive. Their sadism is a way of transforming their feelings of powerlessness

and impotence into an experience of omnipotence.

 

A malignant narcissist is the incarnation of the separate, alienated self

spinning out of control to a pathological degree. They are unconsciously

identified with and will protect at any cost an imaginary 'separate self'

that is alien from the rest of the universe. Paradoxically, at the same time

that they experience themselves as separate from others, the malignant

narcissist lives in a state of 'unconscious fusion' with others. To a

malignant narcissist, other people don't truly exist as autonomous beings.

 

Other people only exist as disposable pawns to feed and support their

narcissistic, masturbatory fantasies. A malignant narcissist hasn't

developed a sense of their own authentic self, which is why they are unable

to be in genuine relationship with others. Psychologically, malignant

narcissism is a very primitive and un-evolved state, one which is totally

lacking in eros (relatedness).

 

Because they don't relate to other people as independent and separate from

their own inflated, narcissist self, the malignant narcissist doesn't

respect other people's boundaries. Their self-serving, narcissistic illogic

allows them to justify, even in the name of God, transgressing other's

boundaries, be them an individual's civil liberties, or another nation's

sovereignty. Interestingly enough, etymologically, the word "evil" is

related to the word "transgress."

 

Malignant narcissists are not conscious of the interconnectedness between

themselves and others. They are unable to feel empathy for others and have

an overwhelming lack of genuine compassion (so much for compassionate

conservatism). Concerned about nothing other than themselves, malignant

narcissists are indifferent to other people's suffering, all the while,

though, professing their compassion. Malignant narcissists are unable to

genuinely mourn, for they are ultimately only concerned with themselves.

 

They will show grief, however, just like they will try and appear

compassionate, if it is politically correct to do so and, hence, to their

advantage, as they are master manipulators. They are a true 'wolf in sheep's

clothing.' Malignant narcissists are unconsciously possessed by the

power-drive of the archetypal shadow. Being possessed by an archetype means

that the malignant narcissists have lost their freedom, as a more powerful

transpersonal, archetypal force has so unconsciously taken them over that it

compulsively acts itself out through them. They themselves are being used

and manipulated like puppets on a string by the more powerful archetypal

force. Becoming possessed by an archetype like this, to quote Jung, "turns a

man into a flat collective figure, a mask behind which he can no longer

develop as a human being, but becomes increasingly stunted." Jung continues

"Since nobody is capable of recognizing just where and how much he himself

is possessed and unconscious, he simply projects his own condition upon his

neighbor, and thus it becomes a sacred duty to have the biggest guns and the

most poisonous gas."

 

Malignant narcissists can seem confident and self-assured, but are, in

reality, covering deep insecurities and fears through an inflated

self-image. Intense feelings of revenge, fury and rage verging on insanity

manifests when their fear is exposed, and their narcissism threatened. At

the core of their process is self-hatred, as malignant narcissists split-off

and dissociate from a part of themselves. As Jung points out, "a habitual

dissociation is one of the signs of a psychopathic disposition." Jung talks

about this condition by saying it may even result in "a splitting of the

personality, a condition in which quite literally one hand no longer knows

what the other is doing...Ignorance of one's other side creates great

insecurity. One does not really know who one is; one feels inferior

somewhere and yet does not wish to know where the inferiority lies, with the

result that a new inferiority is added to the original one." A malignant

narcissist falls into an infinite regression of being in denial about being

in denial and hiding from their own lies. A malignant narcissist such as

Bush is continually in a state of hiding from himself.

 

Malignant narcissists have contempt for and flagrantly violate the rule of

law, which, in their inflation, they believe themselves to be above.

 

"International law?" Bush arrogantly smirked in December 2003, "I better

call my lawyer." Malignant narcissists, like a true bully, abuse their power

simply because they can. They can endlessly 'talk' about taking

responsibility, but they never genuinely face up to and become accountable

for their actions.

 

Malignant narcissists are unwilling and unable to experience their sense of

shame, guilt or sin, as their narcissism doesn't allow these feelings. This

inability to consciously feel their 'negative' feelings is at the root of

the dynamic in which they dissociate from their own darkness, blaming and

'projecting the shadow' out there onto some 'other.' This splitting-off and

projecting out their own evil results in always having a potential enemy

around every corner, which is why malignant narcissists tend towards

paranoia. Malignant narcissists continually 'need' an enemy and will even

create new ones to ensure that they don't have to look at the evil within

their own hearts. They react with aversion to the reflection of their own

evil, going so far as to want to exterminate evil from the world. Or as

George Bush would say "to rid the world of evil-doers." This is an act that

can never be attained, however, as by projecting the shadow, malignant

narcissists themselves become the very evil-doer that they see out there and

are trying to destroy. Caught in the vicious cycle of the repetition

compulsion of the traumatized soul, malignant narcissists create more of the

very evil that they are fighting against, as is evidenced by the way George

Bush is fighting terrorism. In essence, malignant narcissists are at war

with and trying to destroy their own shadow, which is not only a battle that

can never be won, but is a form of insanity.

 

Thai intellectual and social critic Sulak Sivaraksa likens Bush to two other

malignant narcissists, Hitler and Stalin, pointing out that Bush's "axis of

Evil," Hitler's "Final Solution," and Stalin's "pogrom of peasants" were

actually analogous attempts "to perfect the world by destroying the

[projected] impurities." Interestingly enough, another modern day malignant

narcissist is none other than Saddam Hussein.

 

If left in power, malignant narcissists ultimately destroy themselves and

everyone around them. Malignant narcissists are what are called

'necrophiles,' in that their impulses are perversely directed against life,

the spontaneity of which they are afraid of, and towards death and

destruction, which they are secretly attracted to. To quote the psychologist

Eric Fromm, this "severe mental sickness..represents the quintessence of

evil; it is as the same time the most severe pathology and the root of the

most vicious destructiveness and inhumanity." The 'force' used by malignant

narcissists to achieve their ends, to use Simone Weil's definition, has the

capacity to turn a man into a corpse- literally. To quote Eric Fromm "Just

as sexuality can create life, force can destroy it. All force is, in the

last analysis, based on the power to kill. I may not kill a person but only

deprive him of his freedom; I may want only to humiliate him....behind all

these actions stands my capacity to kill and my willingness to kill."

 

Malignant narcissists have a sadistic 'willingness to kill' so as to protect

their own self-serving delusions, which makes them particularly dangerous,

as they will literally stop at nothing to hold onto the position of power

they find themselves in. Malignant narcissists are murderers who are

criminally insane.

 

Malignant narcissism is a deadly illness that deserves our genuine

compassion. However, it is an extremely dangerous situation if the malignant

narcissist, like George Bush, is in a position of power where he can create

endless, unnecessary suffering and destruction. If we fall under Bush's

spell and elect him to be our leader for another four years, we would be in

a situation similar to the Germans in WWII, who, to quote Jung "allowed

themselves to be driven to the slaughterhouse by their leading psychopaths

like hypnotized sheep." It is time to wake up from our spell. We need to do

everything and anything in our power to remove George Bush from office, for

God's sake, as well as our own.

 

Paul Levy is a spiritually-informed political activist. He can be reached at

paul@awakeninthedream.com. Please visit his website at

www.awakeninthedream.com, where his article "The Madness of George Bush: A

Reflection of Our Collective Psychosis" is available. Please feel free to

pass this article along to a friend if you feel so inspired. © Copyright

2004.

 

 

THE MADNESS OF GEORGE W. BUSH:

 

A REFLECTION OF OUR COLLECTIVE PSYCHOSIS

 

by Paul Levy

 

 

 

George W. Bush is ill. He has a psycho-spiritual dis-ease of the soul, a

 

sickness that is endemic to our culture and symptomatic of the times we live

in. It's an illness that has been with us since time immemorial. Because it'

s an illness that's in the soul of all of humanity, it pervades the field

and is in all of us in potential at any moment, which makes it especially

hard to diagnose. Bush's malady is quite different from schizophrenia, for

example, in which all the different parts of the personality are fragmented

and not connected to each other, resulting in a state of internal chaos. As

compared to the dis-order of the schizophrenic, Bush can sound quite

coherent and can appear like such a "regular," normal guy, which makes the

syndrome he is suffering from very hard to recognize. This is because the

healthy parts of his personality have been co-opted by the pathological

aspect, which drafts them into its service. Because of the way the

personality self-organizes an outer display of coherence around a pathogenic

core, I would like to name Bush's illness "malignant egophrenic (as compared

to schizophrenic) disorder," or "ME disorder," for short. If ME disorder

goes unrecognized and is not contained, it can be very destructive,

particularly if the person is in a position of power.

 

 

 

In much the same way that a child's psychology cannot be understood without

looking at the family system he or she is a part of, George Bush does not

exist in isolation. We can view Bush and his entire Administration (Cheney,

Rumsfeld, Rice, Ashcroft, Powell, Wolfowitz, etc), as well as the corporate,

military industrial complex that they are co-dependently enmeshed with, the

media that they control, and the voters that support them, as interconnected

parts of a whole system, or a "field." Instead of relating to any parts of

this field as an isolated entity, it's important to contemplate the entire

interdependent field as the "medium" though which malignant egophrenia

manifests and propagates itself. ME disease is a field phenomenon, and needs

to be contemplated as such

 

 

 

Being a field phenomenon, malignant egophrenia is non-local in nature, which

means that it is not bound by the limitations of time or space. Being

non-local, this disease pervades and underlies the entire field and can

therefore manifest anywhere, through anyone and at any moment. The disease's

non-local nature makes the question of who has the disease irrelevant, as we

all have it in potential. It is more a question of whether or not we are

aware of our susceptibility to fall prey to the disease. This awareness

itself serves as an immunization that protects us from the pernicious

effects of this insidious illness, thereby allowing us to be of genuine help

to others.

 

 

 

Bush, like all of us, is both a manifestation of this deeper field and

simultaneously an agent affecting this field. He's become so fully taken

over by the disease, all the while not suspecting a thing, that he's become

a "carrier" for this deadly disease, thus infecting the field around him. He

's become a portal through which the field around him "warps" in such a way

as to feed and support his pathogenic process. A non-local, reciprocally

co-arising and interdependent field of unconscious denial and cover-up gets

constellated around Bush to enable and protect his pathology.

 

 

 

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. To quote C. G. Jung, one of the greatest psychiatrists of

the twentieth century, "Nothing has such a convincing effect as a lie one

invents and believes oneself." Bush has the seductive coherence of someone

who is fanatically identified, like the typical fundamentalist, with only

one side of a polarity. Thomas Merton, commenting on the case of the

obviously demented Nazi war criminal, Adolf Eichmann, points out "One of the

most disturbing facts that came out in the Eichmann trial was that a

psychiatrist examined him and pronounced him perfectly sane." A key feature

of malignant egophrenia is that it is very hard to recognize when someone is

a carrier, because the person can seem so normal and even endearing. The

person afflicted can be very "charming" and have a certain type of charisma

that can entrance those who don't see through their subterfuge

 

 

 

People who don't recognize Bush's illness and support him are colluding with

and enabling in the co-creation of the pathological field that is birthing

itself through him into the human family. People who vote 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. People who

support Bush become unwitting agents through which this non-local disease

feeds and replicates itself. By supporting Bush they are collaborating with

and becoming parts of the greater, interconnected and self-organizing field

of the disease.

 

 

 

The situation with Bush is analogous to when seemingly good, normal, loving

Germans supported Hitler, believing he was a good leader trying to help

them. The German people didn't realize that the virulent pathogen malignant

egophrenia had taken possession of Hitler and was incarnating itself through

him. By not seeing this and supporting Hitler, they became agents used by

this non-local, deadly disease to propagate itself. This was a collective

psychosis, and this is what is taking place in our country right now.

 

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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just like Hitler struck a chord deep in the German unconscious, Bush is

touching something very deep in the American psyche. Bush is acting out on

the world stage an under-developed psychological process that deals

simplistically with issues such as good and evil. It's as if he hasn't grown

out of and fully differentiated from the realm of mythic, archetypal fantasy

that is typical of early adolescence. This immature aspect of Bush's process

speaks to and resonates with those voters who support him, as it is a

reflection of their own under-developed inner process.

 

 

 

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. 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.

 

 

 

Projecting the shadow like this, to quote Jung, "deprives us of the capacity

to deal with evil." By projecting the shadow, Jung continues "evil has us in

its grip...for only the fool can permanently disregard the conditions of his

own nature. In fact, this negligence is the best means of making him an

instrument of evil." 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. People afflicted with extreme cases of egophrenia like

Bush can become so inflated that they believe that any action they desire is

justified in the name of God, as they can rationalize it as being God's

will. Unable to self-reflect, they are convinced of the rightness of their

viewpoint, which they consider non-negotiable. They react to other people

who don't agree with them and who don't support their narcissism not just

with aggression but with sadism. They have contempt for and flagrantly

violate the rule of law, which they believe themselves to be above.

 

 

 

Bush has fallen into a state that is the embodiment of arrogance. Succumbing

to the temptation of power, he has become corrupt, which is the inevitable

consequence when one prefers power over truth. Bush has fallen into a

vicious cycle where he is compulsively driven to do everything and anything

he can to hold onto the position of power he finds himself in. He has become

addicted to power, which generates a counter-incentive to self-reflect.

Underlying this resistance to look in the mirror, whose inner meaning is

"shadow holder," is an unwillingness and seeming inability to experience his

own sense of sin, guilt and shame. It is as if he is afraid of being

exposed, of being found out. To quote Jung, a person stricken with a

pathology such as Bush "cannot endure his own guilt, just as he could not

help incurring it. He will stoop to every kind of self-deception if only he

can escape the sight of himself...which consists essentially in one hand not

knowing what the other one is doing, in wanting to jump over one's own

shadow, and in looking for everything dark, inferior and culpable in

others." All of these factors set in motion a self-perpetuating cycle of

denial, cover-up and projecting the shadow, all of which are based on a lie.

 

Bush then falls into an endless loop of hiding from his own lie, which is to

say, from himself. This process allows Bush to becomes a conduit for

egophrenia to take him over and incarnate its malignant aspect through him.

 

 

 

Malignant egophrenia is crazy-making. It induces a very hard to recognize

form of insanity. It's a world where up is down, as its flawless illogic is

convoluted and inverted at its core. People with egophrenia do not recognize

the mirror-like nature of reality, so they accuse other people of doing what

they themselves are doing. For example, Bush is talking about himself when

he accuses Saddam Hussein of being "a man who has defied the world," and "a

man who has made the United Nations look foolish." When we fall prey to

egophrenia, we are unable to recognize that we are taken over, as we become

bewitched by our own projections. Part of the disease is that when we point

at it and call it by its true name - as being a form of insanity called

ignorance - people who are stricken with the disease will see us as the

one's who are crazy. Unless we recognize the insidious nature of this

non-local disease, there is a crazy-making field around it that will make us

a part of itself. Collective psychosis is like that.

 

 

 

One of the signatures of ME disease is that it hooks people through their

unconscious blind-spot, so when people are afflicted by this deadly disease

they are truly asleep to what is getting acted out through them. Bush doesn'

t suspect a thing about his pathology because the field around him

unconsciously conspires and colludes with and enables his psychosis. Bush

himself is being manipulated, used and victimized, like a marionette on a

string, by a deeper matrix of cover-up and deceit that has been perpetrated

by him and his very regime, and has now taken on an autonomous life of its

own. This disease, if it gets out of control, means self-destruction for

both victim and perpetrator. There are no winners. The entire interconnected

web that supports Bush can be recognized to be tentacles of this virulent,

non-local pathogen that, to the extent that it is not seen, is potentially

gaining more and more sovereignty. Like a sci-fi movie, we have dreamed up a

higher-dimensional Frankenstein monster that has taken on a life of its own

and truly threatens all of us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Malignant egophrenia is both an expression of and at the root of the extreme

polarization and dissociation in both the human psyche and the world process

at large. We can even say that it's the "bug" in the system that has

in-formed and given shape to all of the conflict and disharmony of human

relationship. ME disease is as old as the human species. However, we're now

at the point in our evolution where we can finally recognize it, see it,

give it a name and diagnose it.

 

 

 

The recognition of the disease is itself the beginning of the cure. By

recognizing the nature of this collective psychosis, we snap out of being

part of it. Malignant egophrenia, unrecognized and misdiagnosed until now,

has wreaked havoc all throughout human history, and is at the very root of

our current world crisis. To the extent we are unaware of the nature of this

collective psychosis, it has us in its grips and will unconsciously get

acted out through us in a destructive manner. The choice is truly ours.

 

 

 

The prescription for this disease is simply for enough of us who see it to

connect with each other in lucid awareness so that it can be (alchemically)

 

contained. The pathogen then can't possess us from behind, beneath our

conscious awareness, and act itself out through us. Seeing the nature of the

disease we know its name, which takes away its omnipotence and autonomy. The

pathogen is then anchored to consciousness so that it can't vaporize back

into the unconscious. This de-potentiates the disease, beginning the process

of metabolizing and re-integrating it back into the profound unity of the

psyche. The energy that was bound up in the compulsion to endlessly

re-create the disease becomes liberated and available for creative

expression. This is an evolutionary impulse from the universe in which we

are invited to participate.

 

 

 

Malignant egophrenia forces upon us the responsibility to come to terms with

the evil inside our own hearts. If we solidify Bush as being evil and react

with righteous indignation, we are guilty of the very same thing we're

accusing Bush of (i.e, projecting the shadow). We then become a conduit for

the very evil we're reacting to. Who among us has not been guilty of being a

channel for ME disease at one time or another? If, when we see this virulent

pathogen, we contract against it and react in any way, be it in judgment,

hatred, anger or revulsion, we're helping to perpetuate the diabolical

polarization that is the signature of the disease. Our reacting in this way,

which is typical of many political activists, is itself an expression that

we ourselves have the disease, or to say it more clearly, the disease has

us.

 

 

 

Jung says "Everything could be left undisturbed did not the new way demand

to be discovered, and did it not visit humanity with all the plagues of

Egypt until it finally is discovered." Malignant egophrenia is a modern day

plague of Egypt. If we don't see what it is symbolically revealing to us,

malignant egophrenia will destroy us. It's a gesture from the universe,

beckoning us, demanding us to integrate it and thereby receive its blessing.

 

By prompting, pressuring and challenging us to come to terms with it and

receive its gifts, malignant egophrenia has the potential to awaken us,

thereby furthering the evolution of the species.

 

 

 

The question is, do we recognize what is being symbolically shown to us by

egophrenia, or not? The inner meaning of the word apocalypse is "something

hidden being revealed." Will these apocalyptic end times we are in be an

initiation into a more expansive part of our being? Or will it destroy our

species? How it will manifest completely depends on us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Malignant egophrenia has so taken over President Bush as its living

embodiment that this deadly disease could be said to be incarnating itself

through him. Because of his position of power, Bush is able to act out and

give shape and form to his inner pathology in such a way that his inner

process is both literally, as well as symbolically, getting played out as

the world process. Bush's process, as well as the world's process, is a

reflection of our own process. ME disease is unique in that it collapses the

boundary between inner and outer. Egophrenia is an inner disease of the soul

that expresses itself via the medium of the outside world.

 

 

 

Being a non-local field phenomenon, malignant egophrenia is something all

six billion of us are collaboratively creating and dreaming up together.

 

Bush is an embodied, mirrored reflection of a part of ourselves, just like

we, reciprocally, are a reflection of a part of him. His disease is our

disease. Bush and his regime are a living embodied reflection of our

collective shadow. We have all dreamed them up to play out these roles, in

full living color, so that we can see and integrate these parts of

ourselves. Compassion spontaneously arises when we recognize these

fear-ridden parts of ourselves.

 

 

 

The malignant egophrenia epidemic is happening right in front of us, 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 [allowing it

to happen] is as much involved in it as the one who perpetrates it."

 

 

 

Compassion is sometimes fierce, though. Sometimes it says "no," and sets a

boundary. Genuine compassion is not always smiley-faced, otherwise known as

"idiot compassion," which just enables and reinforces asleepness. Genuine

compassion is not passive. It propels us to act for the benefit of all

beings. True compassion demands us to be willing to consciously step into

our power, mediated through the heart, and to find the courage to speak our

true voice. The Bush administration is breaking the moral code, the law of

the planet, what Thomas Jefferson called "a decent respect for the opinion

of mankind." Like a bully who is in a position of power and privilege, the

Bush regime abuses its power simply because it can. What the Bush regime is

doing is truly criminal. The malignant egophrenia epidemic has induced a

form of criminal insanity in the entire Bush regime that we are all

complicit in by allowing it to happen.

 

 

 

Being truly patriotic and compassionate in our current situation involves

doing everything and anything we can, however big or small, to remove Bush

and his regime from office, for their good, as well as our own. It's our

responsibility to recognize the extreme danger of our situation and to do

something about it. This is what Al Gore was trying to tell us in his speech

when he ended with the quote by Abraham Lincoln, "We- even we here- hold the

power, and bear the responsibility." Now is the time to act before it is too

late. As the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. says "Our lives begin to end

the day we become silent about things that matter."

 

 

A healer, Paul Levy is a spiritually-informed political activist. He is in

private practice, helping other people who are also spiritually awakening to

the dream-like nature of reality. He can be reached at

paul@awakeninthedream.com. His website is www.awakeninthedream.com, where a

longer, more in-depth version of this article is available. Please feel free

to pass this article along to a friend if you feel so inspired.  © 2004.

[Stormig]

Bush: The Worst Mexican President Ever

 

By El Fisgón, Tomdispatch.com

 

Posted on October 14, 2004, Printed on October 21, 2004

 

http://www.alternet.org/story/20173/

 

Free trade globalization has produced some exceedingly strange phenomena: China, the last socialist power, is glad to provide slave labor to multinationals; a firm in India fills the tax forms of an American corporation that produces vodka in Peru and then sells it to Polish immigrants who are constructing a British-financed building in Madrid; an enterprise which specializes in biotechnology tries to copyright the DNA of an isolated tribe from the Amazon, and George Bush has become the worst Mexican president ever.

 

Globalization tends to blur or erase all economic, geographic, and cultural boundaries, leaving high technology to coexist with primitive forms of exploitation: Taiwan sells watches to the Swiss; Brazil exports technology to Germany; and all evidence suggests that George Bush has stolen his ruling style from old-fashioned Mexican politicians.

 

Mexican political culture has very defined features and the president of the United States has absorbed them all: The classical Mexican political boss usually inherits his power from his father. The typical Mexican cacique has a love for guns as well as an inclination toward violence and cruelty; he despises legality and intellectual activity, has a personal history of alcoholism and dissipation, lies systematically and declares himself a faithful servant of God. (Did we miss anything?)

 

According to Mexican tradition, politicians always reach their positions thanks to a fraudulent electoral process and then surround themselves with a clique which uses its power to conduct "business" on a staggering scale while in office. The Florida electoral thievery and Halliburton's Iraq contract are classic examples of Mexican corruption.

 

Based on a complex pyramid of political bosses, a totalitarian presidential regime flourished in Mexico. It was organized around a political party whose name remains a monument to paradox: the Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI). Names aside, the PRI model was so efficient (for the PRI, of course) that the party was able to hold power for more than seventy years. The Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa called it "the perfect dictatorship."

 

This dictatorship was a mark of shame for all Mexicans. Only Mexico's political cartoonists were able to benefit from it. The profuse manifestations of cynicism and obsequiousness it produced were a delight for us. In the Mexican court, dialogues like the following were not uncommon and completely irresistible:

 

The President asks: "What time is it?"

 

His minister replies: "Whatever time you say, Mister President.

 

Our presidents were almighty creatures, the voices of God on Earth. Not to be with them was to be against them. After them came the final flood or the atomic apocalypse.

 

In order to maintain its political control, this regime needed to restrain civil rights and limit freedom of the press. While others fell silent, Mexican political bosses, lacking any kind of legal or moral counterweight, spoke with an enviable freedom and without moral scruples, unbounded by reality. They used to say things like: "In the state of Guerrero, the only ones who complain are the poor," referring of course to 98% of the population; or "I can't say yes or no, but quite the opposite."

 

Undoubtedly, George Bush had these wise men in mind when he insisted that the French weren't able to understand the United States because they didn't have a word for "entrepreneur." Having learned such turns of phrase and so much more from Mexican politicians, he has now scaled the heights of Mexican political achievement, becoming the most notorious cacique of modern times, and he's done this, without paying his predecessors a cent in royalties.

 

The creation of "free trade democracies" throughout Latin America has been one of the major political triumphs of globalization. It has been said that the election to the presidency of Vicente Fox, a free trade globalizer if there ever was one, marked the beginning of a new era for Mexico. This put the fear of God into Mexican caricaturists who dreaded the possibility that the fall of the PRI might mean the end of our professional paradise. We shouldn't have worried. Fox has held onto all the old vices of our former political bosses – except their authority. What he's added to Mexico's presidency has been a touch of marketing and plenty of unintentional humor. He's been like a genetic experiment in which the DNA of an old-style Mexican president has been cloned with Dan Quayle and Jerry Lewis. Free trade democrats love to find new ways of reducing the size and power of the state. Fox has proved an exemplar when it comes to this. Never has a Mexican government been so weak; never have Washington's decisions carried such unprecedented weight in Mexican life.

 

Globalization favors chaos theory: a butterfly flaps its wings in the jungle and a hurricane is formed in the Caribbean; in Saudi Arabia, a baby is born with a silver spoon in its mouth, and two towers fall in Manhattan. An American politician acts like a Mexican cacique and war explodes on the other side of the planet.

 

The only visible advantage Mexican politicians ever offered the rest of us was their limited ability to damage the world. George Bush has overcome this obstacle. After all, he has access to the sort of technology and to an arsenal that Mexico's local tyrants could only dream of. When he says he's blessed, it's because we're damned.

 

Under the nuclear umbrella of his free-trade empire and incipient world government, his clique of petty political bosses can dictate the economic agendas of dozens of third world countries. In recent years, the priorities of the Mexican economy have been defined by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, Wall Street, and Washington; they establish our oil quota, the levels of our external debt payments, and the minimum wages we can offer. Vincente Fox acts as what he's always been: a Coca Cola CEO, a multinational middleman, while the true president of Mexico is George Bush, that cacique of caciques.

 

According to Mexican tradition, politicians are judged depending on how they take care of their people and how they make them prosper ... and by such standards, George Bush is the worst Mexican president ever.

 

We are told that American democracy still works, but if so, it's the only aspect of the U.S. that's not globalized; which means millions of citizens around the world won't have the right to vote in this election, even though their futures too are at stake. For Mexicans this a particularly bitter pill to swallow. After all, shouldn't we have a right to express our opinions on the last cacique?

 

© 2004 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.

View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/20173/

[Armat]

I am becoming increasingly aware that two party systems as in place now in US is hardly a reflection of democratic values, in practice not every vote counts since in the present archaic system electoral votes counted rather individual votes. Gore won Bush by popular vote or more precisely true democratic vote.

In this environment both parties are highly entrenched by corporate America and special interest groups therefore how can a third party like Green party or Libertarians have even a remote success specially going against an establishment which gets millions from Corporate and wealthy individuals.

I am convinced now that US is closer to monarchy then democracy.

[skhara]

Bush is the lesser evil.

[dianjan]

Bush is the lesser evil.

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I have to disagree. It's the opposite. Kerry's not God sent himself, but atleast he's a better choice anyday over Bush.

[Armat]

Bush is the lesser evil.

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Could you explain please why so.

[Sip]

I find these "scientific" polls to determine the popular vote rather comical as we all know it's the electoral votes that get someone elected and not the overal population vote.

 

As far as evilness, they are both politicians after all and on top of it all Kerry is a lawyer. But at least he has brains which is a lot more than one can say for Bush. People call Bush a great "leader" and with all his consistency, maybe what he'll do is lead the entire pack of vochxars over the hill tumbling to their doom.

Edited October 22, 2004 by Seapahn

[Armen]

I find these "scientific" polls to determine the popular vote rather comical as we all know it's the electoral votes that get someone elected and not the overal population vote.

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That's always made me think why is the U.S. called a liberal democrary when it is clearly not?

[Harut]

Pres. Carter was on radio yesterday and was talking about how he would refuse to monitor the US elections if asked to do so, because they do not meet his organization's minimum standards.

[Armen]

That always made me think why is the U.S. called a liberal democrary when it is clearly not?

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Yes, and I read in some reference book that the electoral college was invented so that the U.S. president is elected by educated voters.

[Stormig]

Would Kerry's administration be a kleptocracy, too?

[Azat]

Guys there was a great reason why the electoral college voting was created. it was at a time when communication was not as developed as it is in the last century and candidates did not get the chance to be known by all the voters and the electoral college was set up such that is a state who did not know and voted for Armen instead of someone really sharp it would allow the electoral college representatives to switch that vote.

 

That is the background but today it is a useless system as communication is very well developed all over the country. However the funding fathers wrote that in the constitution and changing the constitution in this country is VERY VERY hard(as it should be)

[Armen]

Azat jan, whatever the reason was than, at present Americans are being collectively fooled. And the reason that constitution is too rigid to change sounds like a traditional argument for highly authoritarian states. The only thing that prevents Americans from questioning that system is the country's relative wealth and prosperity.

[Armen]

It was at a time when communication was not as developed as it is in the last century and candidates did not get the chance to be known by all the voters

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Also I can refer you the book, which said that the college is there because of low level of political education. I will do it one of this days.

[Sip]

However the funding fathers ...

 

"funding fathers"? Isn't that like "sugar daddies"

[skhara]

Could you explain please why so.

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He is against such things as affirmative action and same sex mariages. On the foreign scene: he has killed more muslims than Christians. I am voting for neither, btw.

 

For those who think that Kerry is a good choice for Armenian interests, you guys will be sorely disapointed when he gets in office.

[dianjan]

He is against such things as affirmative action and same sex mariages.  On the foreign scene:  he has killed more muslims than Christians.  I am voting for neither, btw.

 

For those who think that Kerry is a good choice for Armenian interests, you guys will be sorely disapointed when he gets in office.

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I am guessing that you are more conservative than I am. First of all, I am for same sex marriages, because everyone should have equal rights. I'm not saying that gay couples should marry in churches, however they need to be protected by the same laws that heterosexual couples are protected by. Second of all, you can't be pro Bush just because he sent troops to Iraq. This war is bringing nothing but devestation to thousands of families that are loosing their loved ones, for no reason. And, what guarantee you have that he will not turn around and start bombing some Christian country few years from now?