Co-opting Dysphoria

Once again, we find bullies, narcissists, NPDs,¹ sociopaths, and psychopaths interjecting themselves into the pain and dysphoria of others. The gay community has suffered these interlopers and agitators for years — these bully activists and extremists who flaunt and seek to impose their demands, “difference,” and frequent deviance on a co-opted group as they — the narcissists — pursue endless, narcissistic supply.² Such narcissists care nothing for the genuine dysphoria of honest, struggling souls. They care for nothing but their own supply and have found another nigh perfect cover for endless, “justified” drama and the infinite supply they crave. But their faux-campaign of pretending to promote (i.e., force) acceptance of the marginalized has horribly distorted who the genuine gender-dysphorics are. Many narcissists present whatever false persona they imagine will get the greatest attention and that will excuse or cover their predilection for manipulation, control, and excess. They have an uncanny ability to ferret out issues they can co-opt. Then, they throw everyone under the phobic bus (including other trans people) who do not give the required affirmation, admiration, validation — the requisite “narcissistic supply” —  to their narrative. With an aggressive pursuit of publicity, the infiltrators tar the co-opted community with one brush of absurd claims, gas-lighting, and frequent demonstrative deviance which is offensive to many dysphorics for whom the narcissists pretend to campaign.

The narcissists also have a predatory sense of those who can be empathed or suckered³ into their faux narrative, pretense, and absurdities. As we have seen, doctors, lawyers, judges, professors, politicians, right down to the common Joe and Jane on the street have been seduced into being “supply” and also, into assuming the role of “flying monkeys.”⁴ It's all rather stunning that things have come this far without the “woke” awakening to the false personas of the “tans”-extremists and the self-deception inherent in participatory pathology.

So, if you think you know what trans is through legacy media reports and through extremist and "monkey" posturing, try listening to this:

The Truth About Trans Kids, From Trans Adults
(Blaire White | 32:21 min.) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8GtmWxKbO8
Caution: Some profanity.

The faux in phobic is the lie that narcissists and their captured servitors demand of everyone. If we took a survey, we would find that most gay and trans persons just want to live their lives without the publicity and drama that narcissistic infiltrators orchestrate and crave. Most gay and trans are not into bullying, compelled speech, victim-status, blame, mockery, obsessive supply, and all the extremist demands, absurdities, and excesses of the narcissists with their faux-personas. Most gay and trans utterly reject the notion that: “You must do, say, agree with, (etc.) what the trans demand or you are to blame for their suicide.” Suicide is always tragic, but to weaponize it, is toxic, abusive, and unconscionable. 

Please, people, take the time to study this out,⁵ because narcissism has become an escalating mental and social contagion. Compare the narratives and demands of the “alphabet” infiltrators and their servitors with the grandiose, malignant, or communal pathologies of narcissism. (There are several references in the footnotes and thousands online.) Reflect on the role you are playing: are you supporting the faux? spreading the narcissistic infection? perpetuating narcissistic abuse⁶? or do you,  even as a gay or trans person, have the courage to publicly reject the absurdities, extremes, and co-optation?

The pursuit of narcissistic supply and the infliction of narcissistic abuse are not healthy and never will be, not even for an alleged good cause.

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1. Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) is a mental disorder characterized by a life-long pattern of exaggerated feelings of self-importance, an excessive need for admiration, and a diminished ability to empathize with others' feelings. Narcissistic personality disorder is one of the sub-types of the broader category known as personality disorders.[1][2] It is often comorbid with other mental disorders and associated with significant functional impairment and psychosocial disability. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_personality_disorder
2. Narcissistic Supply: In psychoanalytic theory, narcissistic supply is a pathological or excessive need for attention or admiration from codependents, or such a need in the orally fixated, that does not take into account the feelings, opinions or preferences of other people[citation needed]. The concept was introduced by Otto Fenichel in 1938, to describe a type of admiration, interpersonal support or sustenance drawn by an individual from his or her environment and essential to their self-esteem.] ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_supply
3. ● 8 Cues Narcissists Watch For As They Seek Narcissistic Supply (Surviving Narcissism | Aug 20, 2020 | Time 14:25) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJMB3O1e0fo
    ● 10 Behaviors That Give Supply To A Narcissist (Surviving Narcissism | Feb 18,2021 | Time 13:59) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=es80QdJ4pwo
    ● 6 Types of People Who Attract Narcissists (WATCH OUT!) (Psychology Element | Jan 30, 2022 | Time 9:00 min. ) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WE21U9wbF6Y
4. ● Are You a Narcissist’s Flying Monkey? | https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/women-autism-spectrum-disorder/202010/are-you-narcissist-s-flying-monkey
    ● Narcissists and Their Flying Monkeys
https://psychcentral.com/pro/exhausted-woman/2019/07/narcissists-and-their-flying-monkeys#1
    ● Are Flying Monkeys Also Narcissists Or Just Cowards? (Surviving Narcissism | Mar 31, 2022 | Time 13:16) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCnQslcq7pQ
    ● Narcissists And Their Flying Monkeys (Surviving Narcissism | Oct. 4, 2018 | 12:10 min.) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBIauMej5Ok
5. ●  From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_personality_disorder
DSM-5
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) describes NPD as possessing at least five of the following nine criteria.[2]
      ▪ A grandiose sense of self-importance
      ▪ Preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
      ▪ Believing that they are "special" and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)
      ▪ Requiring excessive admiration
      ▪ A sense of entitlement (unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with their expectations)
      ▪ Being interpersonally exploitative (taking advantage of others to achieve their own ends)
      ▪ Lacking empathy (unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others)
      ▪ Often being envious of others or believing that others are envious of them
      ▪ Showing arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes
   ●   From https://10faq.com/health/narcissistic-personality-disorder-symptoms/
    [Ten] Narcissistic Personality Disorder Symptoms
       ▪ Symptom #1: Lacking Empathy
       ▪ Symptom #2: Conversation Hogger
Narcissists often want to dominate the conversation, and they often want the conversation to be about their favourite subject: themselves. ... They will also have no problem with interrupting a conversation and change it to their liking. // What’s more is that the narcissist does not like to be corrected in a conversation. They expect you to agree with them all the time, and they don’t like any suggestion of disagreement. Don’t agree with what they are saying and you can expect to be rebuked, corrected and even completely ignored.
     ▪ Symptom #3: Self-Importance
... Narcissists tend to feel as though they deserve special treatment. They expect others to treat them like royalty but see no reason why they should do the same in return.
     ▪ Symptom #4: False Image Projection
The narcissist feels it is important to always give others the impression that they are highly successful [intelligent, smart, special, etc.]. 
     ▪ Symptom #5: Rule Breaking
Narcissists tend to think that they are above ‘normal’ people and this includes the rules that others are expected to adhere to. This includes social rules such as queuing and waiting for your turn as the narcissist seems to think such rules are in place only for other people to abide by. //More serious rules, such as speed limits, are also often broken. ... You can also expect them to try and have others agree to exclude them from the rules. They like to feel assured that they are above such ‘petty’ inconveniences.
     ▪ Symptom #6: Strives For Perfection
The narcissist needs everything to be perfect, all of the time.
     ▪ Symptom #7: Charming
A narcissist will often know how to turn on the charm when it suits them. 
     ▪ Symptom #8: Manipulation
A narcissist will have little problem in manipulating peoples’ thoughts and emotions to suit their needs. They will gladly try and influence other peoples’ decisions and lives with the sole purpose of benefiting themselves. They will gladly use emotional blackmail to manipulate people into doing what they want.
     ▪ Symptom #9: Desire For Control
The narcissist will usually have a strong desire to be in complete control.
     ▪ Symptom #10: Blame
When everything is going well, the narcissist is more than happy to take the plaudits. ... // The narcissistic will look to blame what they can, or who they can, when things are not going well.
6. Narcissistic Abuse:
    ● https://www.rosglasrecovery.com/signs-and-symptoms-of-narcissistic-abuse-syndrome/
    ● The Long Term Impact Of Narcissistic Abuse (Surviving Narcissism | Mar 21, 2022 | Time 14:16) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLIWJ17UNZw
    ● Signs You are Victim of Narcissistic Abuse, Not Common Abuse (Stress, Depression Management Webinar) (Prof. Sam Vaknin | Oct 15, 2020 | Time 16:11) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAcm_qqw9ts&t=321s
    ● Individuation And True Healing From Narcissistic Abuse | Sam Vaknin Richard Grannon Conversation ( Richard Grannon | Feb 15, 2022 | Time 1:14:45) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YB8Ji-_E9gE
    ●  9 different ways narcissists lash out at you (Dr. Ramani | 12:07 min.) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDQa-q5Se4w

Purple Raiment?

(A déjà vu from Juvenal¹)

Source at * below

There are many things of ill repute, ... ----things that would affix a lasting stain to the brightest of lives,----which parents themselves point out and hand on to their sons. If the aged father delights in ruinous play, his heir too gambles in his teens, and rattles the selfsame weapons in a tiny dice-box. If a youth has learnt from the hoary gluttony of a spendthrift father to peel truffles, to preserve mushrooms, and to souse beccaficoes in their own juice, none of his relatives need expect better things of him when he grows up. As soon as he has passed his seventh year, before he has cut all his second teeth, though you put a thousand bearded preceptors on his right hand, and as many on his left, he will always long to fare sumptuously, and not fall below the high standard of his cookery.

[So, w]hen [a POTUS] delights in the sound of a cruel flogging, deeming it sweeter than any siren's song, and being himself a very [tyrant] to his trembling household, is he inculcating gentleness, and leniency to slight faults: does he hold that the bodies and souls of [non-USians] are made of the same stuff and elements as our own; or is he inculcating cruelty, never happy until he has summoned a torturer, and he can brand some one with a hot iron for [being an immigrant, refugee, Mexican, Muslim, journalist, etc.)? What counsel does [a POTUS] give to his [subjects] when he revels in the clanking of a chain, and takes wondrous pleasure in branded [opponents], in prisons and his country bridewell? ... no evil example corrupts us so soon and so rapidly as one that has been set at home, since it comes into the mind on high authority. Here and there perhaps a [subject] may decline to follow the bad example: one whose soul [God] has fashioned with kindlier skill and of a finer clay; but the rest are led on by the [POTUS'] steps which they should avoid, and are dragged into the old track of vice which has so long been pointed out to them.

Abstain therefore from things which you must condemn: for this there is at least one all-powerful motive, that our crimes be not copied by our [subjects]. For we are all of us teachable in what is base and wrong; ... Let no foul word or sight cross the threshold within which there is a [POTUS]. Away with you, ye hireling damsels! Away with the songs of the night-revelling parasite! If you have any evil deed in mind, you owe the greatest reverence to the young [USians]; disregard not tender years, and let your infant [USians] stand in the way of the sin that you propose. For if some day or other [they] shall do a deed deserving the censor's wrath, and shall show [themselves] like to you, not in form and face only, but also your child in vice, and following in all your footsteps with sin deeper than your own, you will doubtless rebuke [them] and chide [them] angrily .... But how can you assume the grave brow and the free tone of [a past-POTUS] if you in your old age are doing things worse than [they] did, and your own empty pate has long been needing the windy cupping-glass? ...

No human passion has mingled more poison-bowls, none has more often wielded the murderous dagger, than the fierce craving for unbounded wealth. For the man who wants wealth must have it at once; what respect for laws, what fear, what sense of shame is to be found in a miser hurrying to be rich? ... it is purple raiment, whatever it be, foreign and unknown to us, that leads to crime and wickedness." ...

Some day you will say, 'I never taught these things, I never advised them': no, but you are yourself the cause and origin of your [subjects'] depravity; for whosoever teaches the love of wealth turns his [subjects] into misers by his ill-omened instruction. When he shows [them] how to double [their] patrimony by fraud, he gives [them their] head, and throws a free rein over the car; try to call [them] back, and he cannot stop: [they] will pay no heed to you, [they] will rush on, leaving the turning-post far behind. No man is satisfied with sinning just as far as you permit: so much greater is the license which they allow themselves!²

Why is it that almost everywhere in America, we see the unbridled pursuit, praise, and exhibiting of excess wealth?

Why do we delude ourselves that the appearance of wealth is the same as wealth?

How long this obsessive pursuit of purple raiment³ at the expense of values and Constitutional principles?

The Sorrows of Empire

http://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/the-sorrows-of-empire-1.2914071

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1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juvenal ; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satires_(Juvenal)
2. http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/juvenal_satires_14.htm (bold emphasis added)
3. Purple was the color worn by Roman magistrates; it became the imperial color worn by the rulers of the Byzantine Empire and the Holy Roman Empire, and later by Roman Catholic bishops. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple)
* By unknown renaissance artist (?) - public domain clipart, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4680697
NOTE: Regardless of who has been or could have been elected as POTUS these last six plus decades (Right or Left), the pursuit of purple raiment and shredding of the Constitution have continued unabated.

Spellbinding

Once again, leaks, hacks, and unauthorized revelations (i.e., “The Panama Papers”¹) shock / anger /sadden us as if we expected something different. How many times must this déjà vu repeat itself before we truly understand the warning:

And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. (New Testament | Matthew 19:24)

Wealth changes people, so if we are still dreaming about striking it rich, let’s read and listen to these discussions:

● The Rich Are Different: More Money, Less Empathy²

● Studies reveal the super-rich suffer anxiety, lack of empathy due to wealth³ (Time 23:25 min.)

And let us revisit this from a March 18, 2014 Déjà Vu Times post, Truly Afflicted (With Riches)!!⁴

    “Money on the Mind” (8:.55 min.)
     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuqGrz-Y_Lc&sns=em

Great wealth also seems to be accompanied by a companion condition called spellbinding. We may know we have wealth (sufficient to conceal it in shell companies) but we may never realize we have contracted the companion condition where money and its power progressively blinds and deafens us to fatal consequences.

Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. And now for a man to take up his cross, is to deny himself all ungodliness, and every worldly lust, and keep my commandments. … Therefore forsake the world, and save your souls; for what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? (New Testament | Matthew 16: 24, 26 combined with Matthew 16:25-26, 29 JST⁵)

----------------------------/
1. Panama Papers: Document leak exposes global corruption, secrets of the rich http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/panama-leak-offshore-records-putin-messi-money-1.3518951
Panama Papers reveal billions hidden in anonymous paper shares http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/panama-papers-bearer-shares-1.3525434
2. http://healthland.time.com/2010/11/24/the-rich-are-different-more-money-less-empathy/
3. CBC’s The Current with Maria Tremonti (podcast hosted by Laura Lynch Friday, April 8, 2016) at http://www.cbc.ca/radio/popup/audio/listen.html?autoPlay=true&clipIds=&mediaIds=2686455432&contentarea=radio&subsection1=radio1&subsection2=currentaffairs&subsection3=the_current&contenttype=audio&title=2016/04/08/1.3526575-studies-reveal-the-super-rich-suffer-anxiety-lack-of-empathy-due-to-wealth&contentid=1.3526575
Text summary at http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-april-8-2016-1.3526499/studies-reveal-the-super-rich-suffer-anxiety-lack-of-empathy-due-to-wealth-1.3526575
4. http://www.dejavu-times.blogspot.ca/2014/03/truly-afflicted-with-riches.html
5. JST = Joseph Smith’s New Translation of the Bible

Truly Afflicted (With Riches) !!

Back in October 2009, I wrote the following:^*

“Despite the “neon” warning that:

It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God^[1]

most of us, in our fondest dreams, wish we were smitten with riches and that we should never recover—in likeness of Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof.

“The strange thing is—if we go by scripture—there is probably no greater risk to man’s eternal prospects than to have riches. The failure rate is nigh 100%! And we should wish such a test upon our self?!

“Strange too, when we consider the story of the beggar Lazarus and the rich man^[2] At their sequential deaths, the beggar finds himself carried into the bosom of Abraham and the rich man finds himself raising pleas from hell. Where are the justice, merit, and conservative thinking in that scenario? From a trans-world perspective, it would almost seem safer to be a beggar than a rich man! Is that a contradiction or what, to our current capitalistic, individualistic, blessed-driven paradigm?!

“What is it about riches that so afflicts mankind with failure? Is it the sense of merit? Of entitlement? Of ownership? Of self-sufficiency? Of freedom and power? Of basking in glory and honor taken unto oneself?”

Then, 4½ years later, I encounter this revealing video^† that is both a déjà vu and cautionary reminder to those afflicted with riches (or the sensation thereof).

“Money on the Mind”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuqGrz-Y_Lc&sns=em

Dove-tails with last week’s post, ME, ME, MINE^‡ !! and seems another nail in the coffin of (scientifically-challenged) Objectivism.

-----------/
*    http://dejavu-timestwo.blogspot.ca/2009/10/to-those-afflicted-with-riches.html
[1] New Testament Matthew 19:24; Mark 10:25; Luke 18:24-25
[2] Luke 16:19-31
† Thanks to the blogger at http://barerecord.blogspot.ca/2014/03/247-what-influence-are-we-under.html and his side notes section part-way down his #247 post of 17 March 2014 where I first saw this video.
‡ http://www.dejavu-times.blogspot.ca/2014/03/me-me-mine.html

Babylon Boomerang

This post is in commemoration of the annual Babylon Boomerang that begins every December 26^th. In some countries, it is called “Boxing Day” in accidental acknowledgement of all the gifts (unwanted, unneeded) that giftees box up to return to the “free” market for cash (or preferably credit from the POV of a bait and switch Babylon).

Of course, for most giftees, cash is the preferential return which, in this world, in large measure, is the compensation they really needed in the first place, as in:

◦ a good job (including self-employment);
◦ good wages and benefits;
◦ generous returns for labors performed;
◦ lower mortgage / loan / credit-card rates;
◦ reasonable health, food, shelter, utility, education, & legal costs;
◦ etc., etc.

Surely, in this day of our sophistication, we can figure out a better way to give gifts that are needed and wanted—not for the building-up of Babylon, but so people can refocus from possessing things to having sufficient resources so they can devote their labors to improving and sharing the gifts and talents given of God for the good of all mankind.

Perhaps a lesson or two in the economics of Jesus might be helpful in turning this boomerang around:-)

http://dejavu-timestwo.blogspot.ca/2009/12/economics-of-jesus.html

http://dejavu-timestwo.blogspot.ca/2013/12/gods-economy-christmas-perspective.html

A Word from Adam*

(*Adam Smith, that is)

“LABOUR, it must always be remembered, and NOT any particular commodity or set of commodities, IS the real measure of the value both of silver and of all other commodities” [The Wealth of Nations, Bk 1, Ch. XI, Part III, p. 214; capital and bold emphasis added].

So why do we:

▪ attempt to minimize wages—the real measure of value?
▪ enhance quarterly profits by firing/laying off workers?
▪ list employees as liabilities on balance-sheets?
▪ marginalize/destroy unions—the advocates of labor?
▪ idealize investment wealth that too often accrues, not from labor, but from insider trading, manipulation of supply and demand, rumor-mongering, ethics violations, a host of “bottom-line” violations, doing nothing but waiting for money to make money (the practice of many shareholders), etc.?
▪ etc.?

How many of our current practices are just déjà vu versions of the Greeks, the Romans, the British, earlier Americans, (et al.), who built much of their elite wealth on the backs of slave-labor—the sweat of others, filling privileged coffers of silver and gold?

Isn’t it past time to reinstate the real value of labor? Without labor, there would be no corporations. There would be no CEOs. There would be no excess for unequal accumulation.

----------/
The Word to that other Adam was “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” (Old Testament Genesis 3:19) See also: “AND it came to pass that after I, the Lord God, had driven them out, that Adam began to till the earth, and to have dominion over all the beasts of the field, and to eat his bread by the sweat of his brow, as I the Lord had commanded him. And Eve, also, his wife, did labor with him.” (Pearl of Great Price Moses 5:1; bold emphasis added.)

Confession of a Dupe Dealer

(va: To dupers and dupees everywhere)

The Thinker by Auguste Rodin
at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor
Image from Wikimedia Commons
Public Domain: Author, Karora

On odd occasions, one can encounter contrition in the red-white-&-blue, balloon-strewn ballroom of 6-AM, post-convention chaos. That’s where I encountered PR. He was alone, seated in Thinker repose, a damp hanky drying upon his knee. He’d had a dream, he said. Maybe more like a vision. If he publically confessed, he said, there was some unspecified chance he could clear the inside edge of outer darkness. Infinitely better than achieving the nucleus, he’d been told. Thus, he’d descended from his sky-suite to make confession. Not a “public” soul was anywhere in sight. He was grateful I had come, he said. Did I think I could be considered public enough? I said I didn’t know, but perhaps we could try. (I didn’t tell him I was there to recycle the balloons. He never asked.)

He wanted his confession recorded, he said. Maybe that would make it public enough. I turned on my phone recorder. He spoke:

▪ I preached that repeating a fabrication often enough made it sound true. It does, but it’s still a lie.
▪ I claimed that crafted words would cover a multitude of sins. I was wrong.
▪ I crafted lies to malign the strengths of opponents. Such was inexcusably wrong.
▪ I thought selling colleagues my right words would be smart. It wasn’t. They sounded scripted and mindless when juxtaposed.
▪ I sponsored lies to counter worse lies. I severely offended truth.
▪ I thought pointing fingers would deflect judgment. It doesn’t.
▪ I claimed that free/unregulated markets were fair. They’re not. They never have been. They always become regulated by tyrannies of some form or other.
▪ I said unregulated markets would control greed, excess, and inefficiency through competition. It was a lie.
▪ I said profit seekers could be trusted to self-regulate. They can’t.
▪ I said invasive redistribution of wealth was wrong. I was right. Except I was wrong about the historical and persisting direction of flow.
▪ I said employees would be honestly and fairly compensated in the competitive profit system. It was mostly a lie.
▪ I disparaged the time, talents, knowledge, skills, and labor of workers as the purest form of wealth (excepting, of course, when considering the upper-crust). I was wrong to foster that demoralizing corruption.
▪ I said corporations were like people. I was wrong.
▪ I said corporations were the job creators. I was less than half-right.
▪ I claimed money did not compromise democracy—that it lubricated it. Another lie.
▪ I promoted that extremism in defense of liberty was no vice. I was extremely wrong.
▪ I said riches were God’s reward. I was wrong. They are His toughest test.
▪ I claimed socialism/communism was our worst enemy. I was wrong. We capital dupers are.
▪ … … … [etc., until—]
▪ In short, I have been a dupe dealer all my life—a 1st-class duper. Actually a super-duper. I’ve taught and scripted thousands of other dupers. I have, with my crafted words, created millions of dupees. I told myself it was justified. It was for a good cause. It was in defense of God, country, and free-markets. It turned out to be the precise opposite.
▪ I was shown an even more skilled super-duper. I was shocked. I’d been a dupee, too! OK, OK, I wasn’t really shocked. I kinda knew all along. I just didn’t want to admit—I really enjoyed being a super-duper. It fulfilled all three of the Big Temptations. It was incredibly rewarding. I was warned about that, too—about confession and then recidivism.
▪ I’m very conflicted. If this really goes public, what will become of me?
▪ Anyway, it’s all just déjà vu, from what I saw.
▪ Dupers and dupees everywhere.
▪ Hearing and hearing not. Seeing and seeing not. I read that somewhere once. I wonder where that was?

-------------/
Thanks to Calvin Trillin for sparking this title idea with “Confessions of a Dupe” from With All Disrespect: More Uncivil Liberties by Calvin Trillin © 1985, p. 80.

Growth Funds

(All indented quotes are found in Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation by Edward Chancellor, © 1999, A Plume Book. You should read this book if you are an investor and/or speculator, or if you are financially related to one.)

Not only was the “vast fund of stupidity”* a growth industry in the 1800’s, its companion fund, cupidity, was not a whit behind. The prior manias¹ were dimly remembered, BUT this new century was unfolding as a unique and exceptional age BECAUSE the Railroad was unlike anything before. This time—THIS TIME—with the Railroad, “it was different.”²

Except of course, when it wasn’t.

Times (24 Oct. 1845): “A mighty bubble of wealth is blown before our eyes as empty, as transient, as contradictory to the laws of solid material, as confuted by every circumstance of actual condition, as any other bubble which man or child ever blew before.” (p. 140)

Journalist (1849): “All rule and order are upset by the general epidemic [of speculation], as in the Plague of London, when all ties of blood, honour, or friendship, were cast away.” (p. 139)

Benjamin Disraeli (British statesman, literary figure, & eventual UK-PM; as quoted in 1849): “[There was] commercial distress of unprecedented severity—private credit was paralysed, trade was more than dull, it was almost dead—and there was scarcely a private individual in this kingdom, ... , who was not smarting under the circumstances of commercial distress …” (p. 143)

Nation (1873): Anyone who stood on Wall Street or in the gallery of the stock Exchange last Thursday, or Friday, and Saturday, and saw the mad terror, we might almost say, brute terror … with which great crowds of men rushed to and fro trying to get rid of their property, almost begging people to take it from them at any price, could hardly avoid feeling that a new plague had been sent among men, that there was an impalpable, invisible force in the air, robbing them of their wits, of which philosophy had not yet dreamt.” (p. 185)

Charles Francis Adams, Jr. (author, 1869) “ … probably no representative body were ever more thoroughly venal, more shamelessly corrupt, or more hopelessly beyond the reach of public opinion, than are certain of those bodies which legislate for republican America in this latter half of the nineteenth century. (p. 177n)

Alexander Dana Noyes (1938 re 1880s): “[There were massive frauds accompanied by] individual wrongdoing, of a kind and on a scale for which even the lax financial morality of those days provided no precedent.” (p. 187)

Letter to the Times (12 Jul 1845): “There is not a single dabbler in scrip who does not steadfastly believe—first, that a crash sooner or later, is inevitable; and secondly, that he himself will escape it. When the luck turns, and the crack play is sauve qui peut, or devil take the hindmost, no one fancies that the last mail train from Panic station will leave him behind. In this, as in other respects, ‘Men deem all men mortal but themselves.’” (p. 136)

Times change, but human nature does not. And so the FUNDS grow.³ And the sinking sense of déjà vu prevails. THUS, woe is the world as bubbles float on with technology-assisted rapidity and with increasingly manic attempts to catch them before they burst!

----------/
* A quote from Cato's Letters, January 1721. See http://dejavu-times.blogspot.com/2011/03/vast-fund-of-stupidity-recycling.html

1. Reference: The Tulip Mania (1637), John Law’s Mississippi Bubble (1720), the South Sea Bubble (1720), the mining and canal crazes (1790s and beyond), and scores of lesser manias.
2. The four most expensive words in the English language are “this time it’s different.” (Attributed to Sir John Templeton and quoted in Chancellor’s book at page 191.)
3. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_bubble for some of the many latter-day bubbles.

“Vast Fund of Stupidity [& Recycling Cupidity]”?!

(All indented quotes are found in Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation by Edward Chancellor, © 1999, A Plume Book, pp. 59, 67, 67, 69, 76, 77, 92.)

In memory of the birth of the South Sea Company (in 1711 – 300 years ago), Deja Vu Times recycles a few comments/quotes from the “bubble-bath” of 1720. These words from the 1700s are also recycled in memory of the many bubble-baths since and in expectation of The Great Bath (TGB) to come (sooner than later), if we don’t renounce this Vast Fund (and all its fundamentalists).

Cato’s Letters, January 1721: “There must certainly be a vast Fund of Stupidity in Human Nature, else Men would not be caught as they are, a thousand times over, by the same Snare; and while they yet remember their past Misfortunes, go on to court and encourage the Causes to which they are owing, and which will again produce them.”

Anonymous Insider (circa 1720): “’Twas his [John Blunt, leading schemer’s] avow’d Maxim, a thousand time repeated, That the advancing by all means of the price of stock, was the only way to promote the good of the company. [And his second maxim:] the more confusion the better: People must not know what they do, which will make them the more eager to come into our measures: the execution of the Scheme is our business; the Eyes of all Europe are upon us.”

Sir Isaac Newton (who lost £20,000 in South Sea investment): “I can calculate the motions of the heavenly bodies, but not the madness of the people.”

Alexander Pope: “I am really piqued at the stocks, which put a stop at present, to all trade and all friendship, and I fear all honour too.” // “… [give no heed to] this miserable mercenary Period; and turn yourself, in a just Contempt of these Sons of Mammon, to the Contemplation of Books, Gardens, and Marriage.”

Edward Harley (whose brother Robert was a former British Tory minister & co-founder of the South Sea Company in 1711): “… the demon stock jobbing is the genius of this place. This fills all hearts, tongues, and thoughts, and nothing is so like bedlam as the present humour which has seized all parties … and all sects. No one is satisfied with even exorbitant gains, but everyone thirsts for more, and all this is founded upon a machine of paper credit supported only by imagination …”

Jonathan Swift: “I have enquired of some that have come from London, what is the religion there? They tell me it is South Sea stock; what is the policy of England? the answer is the same; what is the trade? South Sea still; and what is the business? nothing but South Sea.”

Adam Anderson (former cashier of the South Sea Company): “… may [1720] serve for a perpetual memento to the legislators and ministers of our own nation, never to leave it in the power of any, hereafter, to hoodwink mankind into so shameful and baneful an imposition on the credulity of the people, thereby diverted from their lawful industry.”

How many more “South Sea” tsunamis and false profits can our irrationality and folly endure?

------------------/
See also:
http://dejavu-times.blogspot.com/2009/09/panglossary.html
http://dejavu-times.blogspot.com/2009/08/how-long-till-we-get-it.html
http://dejavu-times.blogspot.com/2010/02/free-fall.html

P-Con 001 ~ Enough & To Spare (Or Not) !

(P-Con = sketch-stories exploring the déjà vu of Power, Publicity, PR, & Propoganda Concerns.)

This sketch-story was inspired while watching "Donald Trump's Golf War" documentary, aired on "The Passionate Eye" - CBC News Network, Sunday, March 20, 2011; available for ONLY a limited time at http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/passionateeyeshowcase/2011/golfwar/

Free Agents, One and All !

Corporations—those bastions of hierarchy, planned economy, command-and-control, short-term rationalizing, meritorious disparity, creative accounting, externalized costs/internalized profits, and enforced consensus—ARE emphatically (you will be pleased to know) none of the above. They have changed. Transformed completely. They now believe in transparency, in democracy, and in YOU, the free consumer. YOU dictate what they produce (via China, et al.). YOU (and YOUR capital) choose what and how they market; how much mark-up is tolerable; how green is their logo.

They listen to YOU—the freely choosing, fully informed, free agents of expanding markets. YOU are the amazing, active rebels against the previous status quo, against the domineering elitism of old-style corporatism, now discredited in epiphanies of power in the people. But as they say (though who they “is” is often difficult to trace beyond the initial “sayer,” but nonetheless, THEY say) that the vacuum created by their mass exodus into democracy (from domination) is now crammed with a menagerie of “bad progressives,” and other like-minded domineering elitists, as in (liberal) journalists, academics, professionals, and critics/skeptics of any stripe who question the new, improved economy and enhanced democracy.

But YOU, the real people, are not deceived. Astutes (even juristic, fictional ones) can see the light (at the end of the train tunnel) and change (directions). Corporations have. They now believe in diversity, not conformity. Every culture, every life choice and voice, fashion and flutter, idea and incentive has equal validity¹ (and market potential!). All because of you.

That’s why supermalls are each unique; or, in the alternative—not so much—but only because YOU (WE, the people) want access to sameness.

That’s why McDonald’s, Starbucks, Yum! Brands, Nike, Tom Cruise, Haliburton, Exxon, GE, Xe,² et al. are found in nigh every nation (for your convenience, pleasure, comfort, and safety).

That’s why MS Windows^™OS is the preferred (though frequently the ONLY) choice of savvy (or not), satisfied (or not) new and old customers.

That’s why the New Corporations rush to acquire fresh (and competing) technologies, innovations, and broadcast/media licenses—to ensure YOU have the best of their choices.

That’s why they study and research YOU (your babies, tweens, and teens) (covertly of course, so as not to infringe upon your freedoms, agency, and privacy) in order to brand and deliver what YOU (and your loved ones) want—synchronized precisely with your awareness of want.

That’s why your favorite ______ (you name it) has suddenly vanished into the marketplace ether because THEY have sensed coming trends and efficiently synchronized their future with yours.

That’s why there are infinite versions of “new and improved” and why tech-support for the past becomes so rapidly passé.

That’s why escalating fees for service, support, early cancellation, late payment, refinancing, and risk are so ubiquitous and justified, because YOU have chosen to be held accountable for the costs you exacerbate for beneficent market collectives.

That’s why radio stations give local news and weather at the bottom of every hour, bi-monthly (unless pre-empted by commercial), and why it is so easy to be well-informed about local issues, elections, and politicians.

That’s why Hollywood, at the far edge of a nation of believers, keeps the name of God alive in its stimulating, cathartic movies and upon the lips of its stars and CEOs, for truly, the star-crossed maxim is, “Even profane press is better than no press!”

That’s why YOU wisely despise government—that defunct people’s collective—because it has repeatedly violated the checks-and-balances of its sacred Constitution and taxed YOU beyond endurance in changing its mission from “sheriff of the contract” to “sheriff of the common good” which is the sacred prerogative of the market’s invisible hand that was born to be free of external: checks and balances, criticism, oversight, accountability, and profit-taxing taxation.

That’s why labor has conceded the social and democratic injustices of collective bargaining, employee benefits, health insurance, job security, etc. because WE THE PEOPLE understand and support what is most advantageous to our well-being.

That’s why CEOs switch jobs (and presumably salaries and bank accounts) for trial periods with common-folk receptionists, clerks, chauffeurs, janitors, etc. to foster democratic empathy in the new democracy.

That’s why, as free agents, THE (astute) PEOPLE can be trusted to detect the smoke screens of insincerity, pretence, propaganda, hypocrisy, elitism, finger-pointing, power-plays/-grabs, and global agendas of the “bad progressives.” WE (with the ample aid of their "fair & balanced" research/reporting) can be vigilant critics and castigators of faux flips and real rip-offs.

SO, be comforted. The old-style, multinationals and behemoths—those unwieldy, inflexible, insensitive, obsessive, compulsive, conformist, inefficient, egoistic, domineering, distracted, and RAVENOUS creatures of the past—are gone. Replaced now by humble, amenable, serving, greener, slimmer global giants! [And since YOU asked, the golden scepter/cudgel has been retained only for amusing, museum display!]

[Giants, they say??!! Hhmmm! maybe, just maybe! there are more options than just meek belief/surrender!]

----------/
1. Except of course for propagandized, duped dissenters, OR where “creative destruction,” of necessity, creates an improved, more just culture.
2. Formerly known as Blackwater

Who ate my cheese?!

Several years ago, my sister asked if I remembered the book, Who Ate My Cheese? Well, we had a good laugh for the book by Spencer Johnson was named, Who Moved My Cheese?¹ Now, in light of our (cyclical) economic times, my sister’s mistake seems not so mistaken—that the real (déjà vu) story in this real (déjà vu) world is, indeed, “Who ate my cheese?”²

Thomas Frank in One Market Under God is less than complimentary—judging this Cheese book “to both call for childlike innocence before the gods of the market and openly advance a scheme for gulling, silencing, and firing workers who are critical of management—”; a book “proceeding to boast of its own powers as a tool of labor pacification.”³

All of this got me to thinking that if I were a cheese BALL (Business And Lobby Lawyer), I would recommend ramping up all the positives to counter these increasing negatives against corps, big-business, and management. I would proceed plan by over-lapping plan.

Plan A: Keep touting that the people’s cheese has merely been moved to a better place because unregulated global markets know (and do) what is best; that (management-driven) change is manifestly inspired to nurture and bless in the long-run; and that the root of all our problems is government attempts to regulate cheese, especially cheese-making and cheese distribution.

Plan B: Assure the people that CEOs (Cheese Endowed Officials) deserve all the cheese in their lives; that cheese cannot be mis-distributed in any way (except downward to the masses); that any suggestion of mis-distribution upwards is tantamount to market treason; and that anyone with a modicum of effort can become a CEO.

Plan C: Proselyte that regulating cheese—its movement and/or consumption—is anathema to democracy and is a Marxist/socialist plot to control cheese and cheese-eaters; provided however, that those who work in cheese factories must not be allowed to organize or bargain for more cheese as that would be manifestly undemocratic for CEOs and potential CEOs.

Plan D: Reassure the people that possession of cheese proves the competitive market is working fairly; that God rewards laissez-faire; and that “merit is as merit does.”

Plan E: Cannot be revealed at this time (patent, trademark, and copyright pending).

Plan F: Promote the “philosophy” that thinking cheesy thoughts will, without the least doubt, manifest an abundance of cheese in people’s lives; and if not (i.e., if the cheese is all Swiss), the transparent manifestation is that thoughts are not cheesed enough (i.e., are riddled with doubts) because in the New Economy there is no limit to cheese or how much cheese can be profitably consumed. In this profit-inspired, effluent- ^[sic?]4prone universe, everyone can “Just say cheese”!

This is manifestly true, according to ahistorical derivatives.⁵

---------------/
1. Who Moved My Cheese? An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life, by Spencer Johnson, first published in 1998; rated as the #1 book on Change. See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Moved_My_Cheese%3F
2. I just discovered today at Amazon.com that there ARE books entitled Who Ate My Cheese? © 2008 by John Nichols and Who Stole My Cheese? by Ilene Hochberg © 2003. These might be worth the read.
3. One Market Under God: Extreme Capitalism, Market Populism, and the End of Economic Democracy by Thomas Frank; Anchor Books, New York © 2000, pp. 248-250
4. Perhaps I should have said affluent! I don't know. Sometimes I get confused with all the rhetoric.
5. For thoughts on historical derivatives see http://dejavu-times.blogspot.com/2009/08/how-long-till-we-get-it.html , especially the footnote*. Also: http://dejavu-times.blogspot.com/2009/12/beyond-mark_14.html

How Long Till We Get It??!

—▪ that unregulated competition destroys competition.
—▪ that mergers and acquisitions are mere façades of growth.
—▪ that too-big-to-fail SHOULD MEAN too-big-to-be!
—▪ that short-term profit mentality does not produce long-term productivity.
—▪ that “opposites attract the same lobbyists.” (So whether conservative, liberal, Republican, or Democrat, the concessions and catering to power-brokers descends the same beaten path.)
—▪ that unregulated capitalism descends inexorably to economic tyranny, oligopoly, and monopoly.
—▪ that unregulated capitalism rewards the most anti-social motivation of mankind, i.e., unmitigated self-interest which is the cornerstone of greed, hubris, sense of entitlement, distain, illusion, elitism, corruption, etc. etc. etc.
—▪ that allowing poorly-regulated profit-seekers to manage/dictate health-care and utilities is irresponsible.
—▪ that unregulated capitalism favors the unethical.
—▪ that the ideology of meritocracy and an “even-handed” market place in unregulated capitalism is a fraud.**
—▪ that managers (i.e., CEOs, CAOs, CFOs, etc.) are NOT capitalists, but highly paid employees, courtiers, and spokesman who have too often sold their ethics for a place in the economic sun (and retirement twilight).
—▪ that big-business owners have become non-participating, alienated, aggregated-yet-isolated shareholders without responsibility, power, or interest in much but the periodic dividend.
—▪ that corporate bureaucracies are as prone to inefficiency, corruption, and intransigence as government bureaucracies.
—▪ that government, powered and driven by corporate collectives, is scarcely more democratic than old communist regimes.
—▪ that communism denies the best gifts of mankind (spontaneity, ingenuity, creativity, generosity, etc.) while unregulated capitalism denies the worst tendencies of mankind (fear, greed, hubris, elitism, selfishness, corruption, etc.) giving mankind the worst of both worlds.
—▪ that wealth created through financial manipulation is extorted wealth.
—▪ that the financial sector’s denigration of government regulation is self-serving, self-aggrandizing, and untrustworthy.
—▪ that economic elitism and plunder thrive on deregulation.
—▪ that there are appropriate, wise, and stablizing levels of regulation.
—▪ that most politicians today are not re-electable without the approval of anti-regulation big-business.

*(Suggestion to die-hard, laissez-faire capitalists: Don’t saddle your high-horses so fast, if you don’t get this. Leave them stabled and take a long, slow, inefficient walk through economic history. (Just the facts, not the propaganda.) The sad truth is, appropriately regulated capitalism can bless the world. Unregulated? Well, take that long walk. Maybe begin at the South Sea Bubble (1711-1720) or with John Law (France, 1719).
**(Put it to the test. Compare the numbers? Strictly honest, fair businessmen v. unregulated profit-seekers; prophet-led v. profit-driven. Count them one by one.)

Empty Houses

by SMSmith

Curried green
And seen if seen
In the haste
Of a summer’s morn.

Not seen
In winter days
In the overcastted late
Of dream-spent spenders
Caught
In the night
Of artificial light.

From body-tired
To mindless ease
From consuming, routined
Hours to please
Powers and privilege.

Weekend escapes
Vacation leaves
Past miles unseen
From abodes unseen
Double-locked and alarmed.

Embellished walls
Wide, mortgaged halls
All
Vaulted silence.

Emptied

In the endless search
For enough
Of more.

© 1987 by SMSmith. Some Rights Reserved. See Creative Commons License at bottom of this page.

va: Hummer Bummer

“I am so bummed,” the usually elegant Sondra said before I even had a chance to say, “How are you?”

We were meeting for our monthly Cheesecake luncheon and I had never seen, let alone heard, her so disturbed.

“You should see our neighborhood!” she exclaimed in disgust. “It looks like a war zone! Our tree-lined paradise, and now six—I tell you—six Hummers on our block alone and they can’t even be bothered to park them out of sight, because, of course, that would mean out-of-mind, which is not exactly what they hope for us Hummerless neighbors.”

I didn’t even have to raise an eyebrow for she was on a roll. “So, I tell you, if one more house on my block takes to sporting a war machine, I may just go out of my ever-lovin’-American mind and declare my own war on this freedom of excess. I mean, do they not know? do they not care how close we are to sucking fumes?”

I knew I had to calm her. Sucking fumes was several years away. And besides, America was the world’s foremost bastion of freedom and free enterprise. I told her so.

“Free to what?” she cried. “Free to leave our kids in the dark. Free to pine-beetle our way to the death of transportation, as we know it. Free to consume the rest of the world into untimely death by OUR affluenza!”

I opened my mouth to speak about the boon these Hummers might prove for alternative fuel R&D, but she was already there.

“And don’t get me started on the food-for-fuel imbecility,” she warned. “In fact, in protest, I think I shall boycott the excesses of cheesecake and buy bean-futures. Come to think of it, we should start a bean program. Hang a bean-bag on every Hummer’s side-mirror to remind them that gas has to come from somewhere!”

“That’s not likely to win friends or influence the right people,” I said calmingly.

“You mean the wrong people,” she snorted, which wasn’t an altogether pleasant sound for one who sings in the church choir. “We have got so gosh-darned confused about right and wrong in this country that we call a pig’s snout a silk purse and nobody bats an eye, cause we ought to be free to imagine and manifest the future anyway we want it.”

I had to assert some reason. “Well, you know, I’m not sure we have the right to dictate the things people choose to drive.”

“OK,” she said, throwing her hand up. “Let them buy Hummers if they must and park them as monuments to excess in their backyard flower-beds, but when they pull up to a limited resource and drain the common fuel pool a million-times faster than the—

A million times!?!” I interjected.

“I approximate,” she defended, “to a scooter.”

“Well, you can’t expect Moms, CEO’s, staunch Republicans, or confused Democrats to scooter their way to all that is required,” I argued.

“That’s it!” she exclaimed. “That’s the test.” What-is-required is pretty basic. Set a reasonable standard. We’re all in this together, so I say, for those who haven’t discovered the follies of selfishness and mindless profit, then boot-camp them for a wealth of common experience.”

I could see it was probably hopeless to reason with her. Hummers had spread the fog of war into her burbs. Nonetheless, I felt the need to caution.

“Now, Sondra, I trust you realize this is private property and those things do cost a pretty penny.”

“You’re darn right—they cost the world a pretty penny and that’s why I stand amazed that all those Hummerites and their enviers don’t seem to notice the tremors. I mean, if they’d turn off their engines, they’d feel the big-quake tensing up, and it ain’t gonna be pretty when the disaster compacter comes for the metal and rubber scraps—which by the way, is a whole other boiler that just sends me—”

“Nonetheless,” I firmly interrupted—only to be interrupted myself.

“Yes, yes, I know,” she grumbled. “I know what civil means. Honestly, I’m a Gandhi-ite at heart. I really am. It’s just this deplorable disconnect with my lips— which I guess is my whole wretched point. Oh, mercy! it’s all déjà vu Isaiah, isn’t it? This lips and heart stuff is just gonna do every-sorry-last-one-of-us in. God help us!”

Now how does one reply to that? Amen?