The gangsters' mentality
by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News
Sept. 16, 2005
The whole spectrum of political thought in the US, in the whole world for that matter, is out to lunch. Liberals, conservatives, libertarians, radicals from any perspective, are just not paying attention.
From my experience and study I find it inexplicable, bordering on bizarre, and hinting at psychosis for people to make the assertion that "mistakes have been made" in the in the post WWII era of US history and these "mistakes" are what need to be corrected in order to "progress." To take this position is to frame the debate in a very misleading way.
What makes this particularly galling to me is the enormous sincerity of the vast percentage of people promoting ideologically-driven points of view. To claim that social and international policy and decision making is "in error" is to take a walk down the garden path.
Accepting this frame also makes recent world history into a Jackson Pollock painting. It makes it impossible for people to bring the facts into sharp focus. It makes us ignorant of the source of our suffering. It inadvertently provides aid to those who would inflict suffering on us. Other than that, there is little to defend, from my point of view, in the vast majority of historical and social analysis that presents itself as truth.
Not that I have an absolutist view of analysis. In fact, one of the casualties of the current pollyannaish view is a necessary breadth and depth of discussion.
The question should be, does a given analysis provide space for a significant amount of fact? Any point of view that manages to ignore the need to pay attention to salient facts is, and I am truly sorry for having to say this, lame-brained.
For instance, any explanation of recent historical and social trends must account for the success of a very narrow group of people who have come to control our fates, and the fate of the Earth itself. It is not about Capitalism vs. Socialism, or any other ism for that matter. But any explanation needs to be about how so very few got to be so powerful at the expense of the many.
Some Anarchist thought approaches this degree of realism, but it fails, as does all other ideologically-driven thinking, to account for peoples' actual day-to-day experience.
The purpose of ideological thinking is to clam dominance over other flavors of thinking, and ironically, becomes a willing tool of those of ill intent. If we let the dogma eat our homework we will keep being beaten up in the schoolyard.
Not only do we not need to consult authorities as to how to think, but the mere seeking of insight outside our daily experience invites oppression. By all means study, but always compare what you hear with what you see around you, for that is the ground of your being and the final court of opinion that needs to be consulted.
OK, here goes, this is how I see things.
The only convincing analysis I have encountered frames the issues of the day in terms of organized criminal activity. From the point of view of organized criminals, it is desirable to fight losing wars in far-off places. It makes sense to reduce populations to a state of misery and desperation. It makes sense to undermine basic societal institutions and prevent them from fulfilling their assigned roles. It makes sense to cultivate disease, street crime, addiction, hopelessness and environmental degradation. It is all good if you are on the inside of a vast criminal conspiracy.
It is not, as Senator Clinton asserts, "a vast right wing conspiracy." Gangsters are not ideologues. Lacking humanistic values or any future orientation outside their need to hold on power and wealth, their "political" views are entirely instrumental of their goals of domination and subjugation of the greatest number of people for the greatest amount of profit.
Gangsters are often viewed as mere parasites on the body politic, low class pretenders to status, an unfortunate side effect of the progress of civilization. Hogwash. Gangsters are our modern equivalent of omnivorous cannibals, who, left to their designs, will destroy the earth. Parasites design to preserve their hosts, cannibals devour theirs.
Gangsters do, like any potentates, retain in their service numerous intellectuals, the better to cement their rule with disingenuous argument. The classic, and still a favorite of literate gangsters everywhere, is The Prince, by Nicoḷ Machiavelli.
The neoconservative thinkers, especially Leo Strauss, are the most modern manifestation of intellectual service to mobsters. Anyone who defends deliberate lying, ends justifying means, and the responsibility of an elite to dominate by force all other sources of power is in the service of gangsters and does not deserve the respect of decent people anywhere.
Gangsters have no use, what so ever, for integrity. It is their prime enemy. Gangsters hold integrity in contempt. This is natural in people who have decided to make their way in life by conspiring with others of like mind to make offers that others dare not reject.
Prior to the advent of cities (which I equate with modern "civilization") people of poor moral character had little scope of action. In a community that does not tolerate anonymity of action, where people know each other well, gangster behavior is poorly tolerated.
Introduce central hierarchical authority, whether it is a grade school principal, the Supreme Court of the United States, or any army, and the scope of action of bullies is greatly enhanced. General Butler's little book War is a Racket is a good introduction to the reality that hides behind the propaganda of our times. When power over daily life shifts to remote sources, you can be sure some kind of racket will be involved.
Authority is easily bent to the uses of criminals. People living in actual communities of solidarity are not easily subverted. In fact, from one coherent point of view, centralized authority can be seen as the progenitor of all organized criminal activity and inseparable from it.
Judges can be bought. Judges that can not be bought can be neutralized. Bribery, threats, blackmail, and the whole host of despicable and covert maneuvers that we have become conditioned to accept as "politics as usual," are merely the stock in trade of cowards and bullies.
What we have been convinced is "human nature" is just the projections of the character defects of criminals on the rest of us for the purpose of disarming resistance to their rule. If we are to really liberate ourselves we must rediscover the fact that there is nothing wrong with human nature, and a lot wrong with centralized authority.
Hammurabi lamented about the problems presented when "the strong smite the weak." I suspect that this is the origin of the destructive conceptual frame that has held us in intellectual bondage ever since. In fact, and from the personal experience of any one reading this who is open to the truth before their eyes, truly "strong" people do not smite the weak.
Strength of character obviates the possibility of someone desiring to strike someone weaker than themselves. When we speak of the desire of someone stronger doing harm to someone weaker we are talking about the method of cowards, weak people who compensate for their weakness by victimizing those even weaker than themselves.
When such people combine forces we are talking about organized criminal activity, whether it occurs in the school yard or the board room. That, my friends, is our actual, real problem.
We have been taught to fear the domination of the strong, when the reality is that we are experiencing oppression by the weak who lack individual courage and fortitude. We have been conditioned to think of anyone who displays any personal power as a potential opportunist and as an enemy. The total opposite is true.
And why is this so important to understand? Whenever someone laments that we do not have "good leadership," they are playing into the hands of the criminals. In a situation such as we find ourselves in today, it is a false hope that "leaders" will bring us anything but grief.
No, if we are to free ourselves, it will not be as a result of finding the right "leaders." Actual leaders of integrity might as well have targets printed on their foreheads in today's world of criminal conspiracy.
Ideologies inherently involve an imposed hierarchy, and therefore are prime fodder for those of ill intent. Ideology divides. Love unites.
Trite though it may sound, the only "ideology" that we need to pay attention to is the ideology of love for one another.
Those who are incapable of love, who need to use and abuse their fellow primates, need to be seen as the sick and damaged humans that they are. People who "smite the weak," whether physically, emotionally, or intellectually need a carefully supervised living situation, not pedestals of power."Liberty cannot be preserved without general knowledge among people."John Adams, 1765
© by the author.
What do you think?
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Dr. Herb Ruhs & grandson
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From the point of view of organized criminals, it is desirable to fight losing wars in far-off places.
It makes sense to reduce populations to a state of misery and desperation.
It makes sense to undermine basic societal institutions and prevent them from fulfilling their assigned roles.
It makes sense to cultivate disease, street crime, addiction, hopelessness and environmental degradation.
It is all good if you are on the inside of a vast criminal conspiracy.
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|
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Say it with a bumper sticker:
$3 each, or two for $5
Gangsters have no use, what so ever, for integrity.
It is their prime enemy.
Gangsters hold integrity in contempt.
This is natural in people who have decided to make their way in life by conspiring with others of like mind to make offers that others dare not reject.
Prior to the advent of cities (which I equate with modern "civilization") people of poor moral character had little scope of action.
In a community that does not tolerate anonymity of action, where people know each other well, gangster behavior is poorly tolerated.
Introduce central hierarchical authority, whether it is a grade school principal, the Supreme Court of the United States, or any army, and the scope of action of bullies is greatly enhanced.
General Butler's little book War is a Racket is a good introduction to the reality that hides behind the propaganda of our times.
When power over daily life shifts to remote sources, you can be sure some kind of racket will be involved.
Authority is easily bent to the uses of criminals.
|
|
|
Whenever someone laments that we do not have "good leadership," they are playing into the hands of the criminals.
In a situation such as we find ourselves in today, it is a false hope that "leaders" will bring us anything but grief.
No, if we are to free ourselves, it will not be as a result of finding the right "leaders."
Actual leaders of integrity might as well have targets printed on their foreheads in today's world of criminal conspiracy.
Ideologies inherently involve an imposed hierarchy, and therefore are prime fodder for those of ill intent.
Ideology divides.
Love unites.
Trite though it may sound, the only "ideology" that we need to pay attention to is the ideology of love for one another.
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Previous articles by this author:
Nietzsche, New Orleans, and 'Nam
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Four decades in five minutes
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Habits of successful modern cannibals
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Yet another, higher dose of pain
by Herb Ruhs, MD
The war of one against all:
The roots of our enslavement
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Class warfare, anyone?
Why class war is not a fiction but a fixture of our lives
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Why "Free Speech" does not matter
by Herb Ruhs, MD
When all else fails, try the truth
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Murder by medical device
by Herb Ruhs, MD
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