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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on April 3, 2018 at 12:13 am
The late Robert Benmosche, then CEO of American International Group (AIG), had some blunt advice to college graduates searching for work in a tight job market.
Robert Benmosche
“You have to accept the hand that’s been dealt you in life,” Benmosche said in a 2013 interview on Bloomberg Television. “Don’t cry about it. Deal with it.”
Typical advice from a one-percenter whose company, AIG, suffered a liquidity crisis when its credit ratings were downgraded below “AA” levels in September, 2008.
So how did AIG “deal with” its own crisis? It went crying to its Uncle Sugar, the United States Government, for a bailout.
Which it promptly got.
The United States Federal Reserve Bank, on September 16, 2008, made an $85 billion loan to AIG to meet increased collateral obligations resulting from its credit rating downgrade–and thus saving it from certain bankruptcy.
In return, the Government took an 80% stake in the firm.
(The bailout eventually ballooned to $182 billion in exchange for a 92% stake.)
College graduates, said Benmosche, needed to seize the opportunities that become available to them, even if their options are limited.
“They want me to talk to the students and give them a sense of encouragement, especially with the high unemployment,” said Benmosche.
“My advice will be, ‘Whatever opportunity comes your way, take it. Take it and treat it as if it’s the only one that’s coming your way, because that actually may be the truth.’”
Yes, if you have the opportunity to cry yourself into a multi-billion dollar loan from the Federal Government, by all means, do so.
Of course, willing-to-work college graduates who can’t find willing-to-hire employers won’t be able to count on a generous bailout from the Federal Government.
To which most of them will owe hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loans.
It’s long past time to apply to “untouchable” CEOs like Robert Benmosche the same criteria that Right-wing Republicans demand be applied to welfare recipients.
Republican lawmakers have vigorously pursued welfare drug-testing in Congress and more than 30 states.
Some bills have even targeted people who claim unemployment insurance and food stamps, despite scanty evidence the poor and jobless are disproportionately on drugs.
The concept of background screening is actually sound. But Republicans are aiming it at the wrong end of the economic spectrum.
Since 2008, the government has handed out billions of dollars in bailouts to the wealthiest corporations in the country.
The reason: To rescue the economy from the calamity produced by the criminal greed and recklessness of those same corporations.
For example:
According to the Special Inspector General for the TARP bailout, the total commitment of government is $16.8 trillion dollars with the $4.6 trillion already paid out.
And it’s equally important to remember that welfare recipients did not:
- Hold CEO positions at any of the banks so far bailed out;
- Run such insurance companies as American International Group (AIG);
- Administer the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, known as Freddie Mac;
- Command the Federal National Mortgage Association, known as Fannie Mae.
The 2010 documentary Inside Job chronicles the events leading to the 2008 global financial crisis. One of its most insightful moments occurs at a party held by then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.
“We can’t control our greed,” the CEO of a large bank admits to his fellow guests. “You should regulate us more.”
Greed is defined as an excessive desire for wealth or goods. At its worst, greed trumps rationality, judgment and concern about the damage it may cause.
Greed begins in the neurochemistry of the brain. A neurotransmitter called dopamine fuels our greed. The higher the dopamine levels in the brain, the greater the pleasure we experience.
Cocaine, for example, directly increases dopamine levels. So does money.
Harvard researcher Hans Breiter has found, via magnetic resonance imaging studies, that the craving for money activates the same regions of the brain as the lust for sex, cocaine or any other pleasure-inducer.
Dopamine is most reliably activated by an experience we haven’t had before. We crave recreating that experience.
But snorting the same amount of cocaine, or earning the same sum of money, does not cause dopamine levels to increase. So the pleasure-seeker must increase the amount of stimuli to keep enjoying the euphoria.
In time, this incessant craving for pleasure becomes an addiction. And feeding that addiction–-with ever more money–becomes the overriding goal.
Thus, the infamous line—”Greed is good”—in the 1987 film, Wall Street, turns out to be both false and deadly for all concerned.
But the situation need not remain this way.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on March 28, 2018 at 12:12 am
Most Americans believe that Nazi Germany was defeated because “we were the Good Guys and they were the Bad Guys.”
Not so.
The United States—and its allies, Great Britain and the Soviet Union—won the war for reasons that had nothing to do with the righteousness of their cause. These included:
- Nazi Germany—–i.e, its Fuehrer, Adolf Hitler—made a series of disastrous decisions. Chief among these: Attacking its ally, the Soviet Union, and declaring war on the United States;
- The greater material resources of the Soviet Union and the United States; and
- The Allies waged war as brutally as the Germans.
On this last point:
- From D-Day to the fall of Berlin, captured Waffen-SS soldiers were often shot out of hand.
- When American troops came under fire in the German city of Aachen, Lt. Col. Derrill Daniel brought in a self-propelled 155mm artillery piece and opened up on a theater housing German soldiers. After the city surrendered, a German colonel labeled the use of the 155 “barbarous” and demanded that it be outlawed.
- During the battle of Stalingrad in 1942, Wilhelm Hoffman, a young German soldier and diarist, was appalled that the Russians refused to surrender. He wrote: “You don’t see them at all, they have established themselves in houses and cellars and are firing on all sides, including from our rear–barbarians, they used gangster methods….”
German soldiers in Stalingrad
In short: The Allies won because they dared to meet the brutality of a Heinz Guderian with that of a George S. Patton.
This is a lesson long ignored by the liberals of the Democratic Party. As a result, Republicans now hold both houses of Congress and the Presidency.
An example of this occurred as recently as March 25.
On CBS’ “Sunday Morning,” former President Jimmy Carter said that even if Special Counsel Robert Mueller found evidence that President Donald Trump had broken the law, “my own preference would be that he not be impeached.”
Instead, Carter would want Trump to “be able to serve out his term, because I think he wants to do a good job. And I’m willing to help him, if I can help him, and give him the benefit of the doubt.
“You know, I have confidence in the American system of government. I think ultimately the restraints on a president from the Congress and from the Supreme Court will be adequate to protect our nation, if he serves a full term.”
Jimmy Carter
Since becoming President on January 20, 2017, Trump has:
- Fired FBI Director James Comey for refusing to pledge his personal loyalty—and for investigating documented ties between Russian Intelligence agents and the 2016 Trump Presidential campaign.
- Threatened to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who was assigned to take over that investigation after the Comey firing.
- Repeatedly attacked the nation’s press as “fake news” and “the enemy of the American people.”
- Contemptuously dismissed the warnings of American Intelligence agencies that Russia tried to subvert the 2016 Presidential campaign—and plans to do the same for the upcoming mid-term elections in November.
- Repeatedly praised Russian dictator Vladimir Putin—and refused to enforce Congressionally-mandated sanctions against Russia for its attempted subversion of the 2016 Presidential election.
Trump, in short, is not going to be “helped” by the humility of a Jimmy Carter.
Barack Obama, like Jimmy Carter, believes in rationality and decency. Like Carter, he feels more comfortable responding to attacks on his character than attacking the character of his enemies.
As a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, Obama was one of the most academically gifted Presidents in American history.
Yet he failed—like Carter—to grasp and apply this fundamental lesson taught by Niccolo Machiavelli, the father of modern political science.
In The Prince, Machiavelli warns:
From this arises the question whether it is better to be loved than feared, or feared more than loved.
The reply is, that one ought to be both feared and loved, but as it is difficult for the two to go together, it is much safer to be feared than loved….
And men have less scruple in offending one who makes himself loved than one who makes himself feared; for love is held by a chain of obligations which, men being selfish, is broken whenever it serves their purpose; but fear is maintained by a dread of punishment which never fails.
Obama’s failure to recognize the truth of Machiavelli’s lesson allowed Republicans to thwart many of his Presidential ambitions—such as picking a replacement for deceased Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.
Throughout 2016, liberals celebrated on Facebook and Twitter the “certain” Presidency of Vermont U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders or former First Lady Hillary Clinton.
They fully expected to win the White House again, and thought they might retake the Senate—and maybe even the House of Representatives.
But Donald Trump had a different plan—to subvert the 2016 election by Russian Intelligence agents and millions of Russian trolls flooding the Internet with legitimately fake news.
For Democrats to win elective victories and enact their agenda, they must find their own George Pattons to take on the Waffen-SS generals among Republican ranks.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on March 23, 2018 at 12:22 am
Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks appear every Friday on the PBS Newshour to review the week’s major political events.
On March 25, 2016, Shields—a liberal, and Brooks, a conservative—came to some disturbingly similar conclusions about Donald Trump.
Eerily, their conclusions echo those reached by former Panzer General Heinz Guderian about German dictator Adolf Hitler.
Guderian created the concept of motorized blitzkrieg warfare, whereby masses of tanks and planes moved in coordination to strike at the vital nerve centers of an enemy.
Heinz Guderian
As a result, Guderian enabled Hitler to conquer France in only six weeks in 1940, and to come to the brink of crushing the Soviet Union in 1941.
He recounted his career as the foremost tank commander of the Third Reich in his 1950 autobiography, Panzer Leader.
Moderator Judy Woodruff noted that “polls show Trump’s standing with women voters has worsened in recent months.”
A Washington Post/ABC News poll revealed that 64% of women said they had a strongly unfavorable reaction to Trump. That was 18 points higher than it was in August, 2015.
Judy Woddruff
This led David Brooks to declare that Trump has shown “a consistent misogynistic view of women as arm candy, as pieces of meat. It’s a consistent attitude toward women which is the stuff of a diseased adolescent.”
Judy Woodruff noted that Fox News Correspondent Megyn Kelly “has asked him tough questions” in a recent debate.
MARK SHIELDS: “She just asked him tough questions and was totally fair, by everybody else’s standards.
“But there is something really creepy about this that’s beyond locker room. It’s almost like a stalker, and I just—I thought this was—it actually did the impossible. It made Ted Cruz look like an honorable, tough guy on the right side of an issue.”
Donald Trump
HEINZ GUDERIAN: Once in power, Hitler quickly—and violently—eliminated his opposition.
He make no attempt to disguise this aspect of his character, because the opposition was weak and divided and soon collapsed after the first violent attack.
This allowed Hitler to pass laws which destroyed the safeguards enacted by the Weimar Republic against the the dangers of dictatorship.
MARK SHIELDS: “And I don’t know at what point it becomes…politically, he’s still leading. And I would have to say he’s the overwhelming favorite for the Republican nomination.”
HEINZ GUDERIAN: Hitler promised to “make Germany great again” both domestically and internationally. And this won him many followers. In time he controlled the largest party in the land and this allowed him, by democratic procedure, to assume power.
DAVID BROOKS: “The odd thing about [Trump’s] whole career and his whole language, his whole world view is there is no room for love in it. You get a sense of a man who received no love, can give no love, so his relationship with women, it has no love in it. It’s trophy.”
HEINZ GUDERIAN: [Hitler] was isolated as a human being. He had no real friend. There was nobody who was really close to him.
Adolf Hitler
There was nobody he could talk to freely and openly. And just as he never found a true friend, he was denied the ability to deeply love a woman.
DAVID BROOKS: “And [Trump’s] relationship toward the world is one of competition and beating, and as if he’s going to win by competition what other people get by love.”
HEINZ GUDERIAN: Everything on this earth that casts a glow of warmth over our life as mortals—friendship with fine men, the pure love for a wife, affection for one’s own children—all this was and forever remained unknown to him.
DAVID BROOKS: “And so you really are seeing someone who just has an odd psychology unleavened by kindness and charity, but where it’s all winners and losers, beating and being beat. And that’s part of the aurhoritarian personality, but it comes out in his attitude toward women.”
HEINZ GUDERIAN: He lived alone, cherishing his loneliness, with only his gigantic plans for company. His relationship with Eva Braun may seem to contradict what I have written. But it is obvious that she could not have had any influence over him. And this is unfortunate, for it could only have been a softening one.
* * * * *
In his bestselling 1973 biography, The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler, British historian Robert Payne harshly condemned the German people for the rise of the Nazi dictator:
“[They] allowed themselves to be seduced by him and came to enjoy the experience….[They] followed him with joy and enthusiasm because he gave them license to pillage and murder to their hearts’ content.”
On November 8, 2016, 62,979,879 ignorant, hate-filled, Right-wing Americans catapulted Donald Trump—a man with an “odd psychology unleavened by kindness and charity”—into the Presidency.
And thus this man—“who received no love, can give no love”—assumed all the awesome power that goes with that office.
Future historians—if there are any—will similarly condemn those Americans who stood by like “good Germans” and allowed their country to fall into the hands of a ruthless tyrant.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on March 22, 2018 at 12:30 am
“Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority; still more when you superadd the tendency of the certainty of corruption by authority. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it.”
—Lord Acton
Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks appear every Friday on the PBS Newshour to review the week’s major political events.
On March 25, 2016, Shields—a liberal, and Brooks, a conservative—came to some disturbingly similar conclusions about the character of Republican Presidential front-runner Donald Trump.
As the business magnate moved ever closer to winning the 2016 Republican Presidential nomination, both columnists appeared increasingly dismayed.
David Brooks and Mark Shields
Eerily, their conclusions about Trump’s character echoed those reached by former Panzer General Heinz Guderian about German dictator Adolf Hitler.
Guderian created the concept of motorized blitzkrieg warfare, whereby masses of tanks and planes moved in coordination to strike at the vital nerve centers of an enemy.
As a result, Guderian enabled Hitler to conquer France in only six weeks in 1940, and to come to the brink of crushing the Soviet Union in 1941. He recounted his career as the foremost tank commander of the Third Reich in his 1950 autobiography, Panzer Leader.
Heinz Guderian
Moderator Judy Woodruff opened the discussion by alluding to the blood feud then raging between Trump and his fellow Republican, Texas U.S. Senator Eduardo “Ted” Cruz.
Both were seeking their party’s Presidential nomination—and both were ruthlessly determined to attain it.
Cruz accused Trump of being behind a recent National Enquirer story charging him with having a series of extramarital affairs.
An anti-Trump Super PAC posted on Facebook a photo of a scantily-clad Melania Trump—his wife. The photo had been taken 16 years ago when, as a model, she posed for British GQ. Its publication came just ahead of the primary caucuses in sexually conservative Utah, which Cruz won.
Trump quickly responded on Twitter, accusing the Cruz campaign of leaking the photo, warning Cruz: “Be careful or I will spill the beans on your wife.”
Cruz struck back, defending his wife, Heidi, and calling Trump a coward. The next day, Trump retweeted an unflattering image of Mrs. Cruz.
Heidi Cruz
By MaverickLittle (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
This “war of the wives” had cost Trump dearly in his standing with American women. In March, a Washington Post/ABC News poll showed that 64% of women felt highly unfavorably disposed toward him.
DAVID BROOKS: “The Trump comparison of the looks of the wives, he does have, over the course of his life, a consistent misogynistic view of women as arm candy, as pieces of meat.
Donald Trump
“It’s a consistent attitude toward women which is the stuff of a diseased adolescent. And so we have seen a bit of that show up again.
“But if you go back over his past, calling into radio shows bragging about his affairs, talking about his sex life in public, he is childish in his immaturity. And his–even his misogyny is a childish misogyny….
“He’s of a different order than your normal candidate. And this whole week is just another reminder of that.”
HEINZ GUDERIAN: As Hitler’s self-confidence grew, and as his power became more firmly established both inside and outside Germany, he became overbearing and arrogant. Everyone appeared to him unimportant compared to himself.
Previously, Hitler had been open to practical considerations, and willing to discuss matters with others. But now he became increasingly autocratic.
Judy Woodruff asked Mark Shields if the uproar over Donald Trump’s disdain for women could really hurt his candidacy.
MARK SHIELDS: The ad featuring a scantily-clad Melania Trump “elicited from Donald Trump the worst of his personality, the bullying, the misogyny, as David has said, brought it out.
“But I think it’s more than childish and juvenile and adolescent. There is something creepy about this, his attitude toward women.
“Take Megyn Kelly of FOX News, who he just has an absolute obsession about, and he’s constantly writing about, you know, how awful she is and no talent and this and that.
Megyn Kelly
“And I don’t know if he’s just never had women—strong, independent women in his life who have spoken to him. It doesn’t seem that way….”
Judy Woodruff noted that Kelly “has asked him tough questions” in a recent debate.
MARK SHIELDS: “She just asked him tough questions and was totally fair, by everybody else’s standards.”
HEINZ GUDERIAN: Hitler’s most outstanding quality was his will power. It was by this that he compelled men to follow him. When Hitler spoke to a small group he closely observed each person to determine how his words were affecting each man present.
If he noticed that some member of the group was not being swayed by his speech, he spoke directly to that person until he believed he had won him over. But if the target of his persuasive effort still remained obstinate, Hitler would exclaim: “I haven’t convinced that man!”
His immediate reaction was to get rid of such people. As he grew increasingly successful, he grew increasingly intolerant.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on March 1, 2018 at 12:08 am
There was a time when Republicans saw—and portrayed themselves—as America’s foremost defenders against Communism.
This was particularly true during the early 1950s. Case in point: Wisconsin United States Senator Joseph R. McCarthy.
Elected to the Senate in 1946, he rose to national prominence on February 9, 1950, after giving a fiery speech in Wheeling, West Virginia:
“The State Department is infested with communists. I have here in my hand a list of 205—a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department.”
Joseph McCarthy
No American—no matter how prominent—was safe from the accusation of being a Communist or a Communist sympathizer—”a Comsymp” or “fellow traveler” in the style of the era.
So Red-baiting Republicans like McCarthy and then-Vice President Richard M. Nixon would feel dumbfounded at the following news:
On February 20, a purge of Russian “bots” by Twitter sparked outrage by—yes!—Right-wingers.
Bots are fake accounts used to spread propaganda or advertising campaigns. Investigations by the House and Senate Intelligence Committees have uncovered massive efforts by Russia to throw the 2016 Presidential election to Donald Trump.
Their weapon of choice: Swamping “social media” sites like Facebook, Google and Twitter with genuinely fake news.
The Twitter purge came a week after Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicted 13 Russians and three Russian companies for interfering in that election. The indictments detailed an elaborate plot to wage “information warfare” against the United States.
Right-wingers suddenly found thousands of their Russian bot followers had disappeared—and accused Twitter of secretly deleting like-minded accounts.
“Twitter is currently purging the followers on conservative accounts only. I just lost 3000 followers in one minute,” tweeted Candace Owens, director of urban engagement for Turning Point USA. This is a student organization promoting limited government and free markets.
Bill Mitchell, a Right-winger known for his controversial tweets defending President Donald Trump, claimed that he lost roughly 4,000 followers overnight.
“This is a damn joke,” tweeted Mike Zollo. “Twitter is absolutely censoring conservative and right wing speech for no damn reason other than their disagreement with it. But, liberals can write vile comments and threaten us with no punishment.”
From the end of World War II to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, it would have been unthinkable for a Republican Presidential candidate to find common cause with a Soviet dictator.
But that utterly changed when Donald Trump won, first, the Republican Presidential nomination and, then, the White House. Trump lavishly praised Russian President Vladimir Putin—and even called on him to directly interfere in the 2016 Presidential race.
On July 22, 2016, Wikileaks released 19,252 emails and 8,034 attachments hacked from computers of the highest-ranking officials of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). Early reports traced the leak to Russian hackers.
“Russia, if you are listening,” Trump said at a press conference in Doral, Florida, “I hope you are able to find the 33,000 emails that are missing—I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
This was nothing less than treason—calling upon a foreign power, hostile to the United States, to interfere in its Presidential election.
On December 16, 2016, then-FBI Director James B. Comey and Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. agreed with a CIA assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election in part to help Donald Trump win the White House.
Trump, however, has steadfastly denied any such role by Russia: “I think it’s ridiculous,” he told “Fox News Sunday.” “I think it’s just another excuse. I don’t believe it….No, I don’t believe it at all.”
The last time dictator-worshiping Fascists found common cause with dictator-worshiping Communists was in August, 1939.
Germany’s Fuhrer Adolf Hitler and the Soviet Union’s Joseph Stalin agreed to end—at least temporarily—their years of violent rivalry and personal slander.
The reason: Hitler planned to invade Poland, and feared he would have to fight its allies, France and England, if he did. He didn’t want to have to fight the Soviet Union, too.
And Stalin saw Hitler’s warlike ambitions as useful to his own dreams of conquest: He wanted—and got—the eastern half of Poland, while Hitler’s legions occupied the western half.
So why would Donald Trump—the arch capitalist—find common cause with Vladimir Putin, the arch Communist?
Simple: Each had something the other wanted.
First, Putin: He wanted a President who would withdraw the United States from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)—which would instantly render that alliance kaput. And give Russia a free hand to attack Europe.
And Trump had repeatedly said the United States was paying an unfairly large portion of the monies needed to maintain that alliance.
Then, Trump: He wanted to be President—to enrich himself and his family, to become the center of the world’s attention, and to destroy anyone who dared confront or contradict him.
And in supporting his dictatorial agenda, his millions of Right-wing followers have found common cause with the followers of a Communist dictator’s agenda.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on February 16, 2018 at 12:03 am
On February 14, Nikolas Cruz found an unforgettable way to celebrate Valentine’s Day.
The 19-year-old former student returned to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and allegedly slaughtered at least 17 people.
As in: “What are all these allegedly dead people doing here?”
The massacre has now become one of the 10 deadliest mass shootings in modern United States history.
He carried out his massacre with at least one AR-15 assault rifle and multiple magazines.
Although he had posted “I wanna die Fighting killing shit ton of people” he didn’t have the nerve to shoot it out with police SWAT teams. Instead, he concealed himself among the hundreds of students fleeing the school.
Nikolas Cruz posted this picture of himself on the Internet
Investigators used school security videos to identify Cruz and found him in a nearby neighborhood in Coral Springs, Florida.
Cruz had posted “I am going to kill law enforcement one day they go after the good people.” But he was arrested without incident.
Like so many other mass killers, he didn’t have the courage to shoot it out with armed police. He could only prey on defenseless men, women and children.
According to a CNN law enforcement source, he is now talking with investigators.
As always, most Republican lawmakers believe the answer to halting such future attacks lies in giving everybody a firearm.
That, of course, is the standard mantra of the National Rifle Association (NRA), which lavishly bankrolls the GOP.
(In 2016, the NRA spent more than $36 million on elections. Donald Trump proved the largest beneficiary—netting more than $21 million.)
But it it true?
On July 7, 2016, five Dallas police officers were shot and killed by a disgruntled ex-Army Reserve Afghan War veteran named Michah Xavier Johnson. Another seven officers and two civilians were wounded before the carnage ended.
The shootings erupted during a Black Lives Matter protest march in downtown Dallas.
Texas has long been an “open carry” state for those who want to brandish rifles without fear of arrest. And about 20 people wearing “ammo gear and protective equipment [had] rifles slung over their shoulder,” said Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings.
“When the shooting started, at different angles, [the armed protesters] started running,” Rawlings said, adding that open carry only brings confusion to a shooting scene. What I would do [if I were a police officer] is look for the people with guns,” he said.
“There were a number of armed demonstrators taking part,” said Max Geron, a Dallas police major. “There was confusion about the description of the suspects and whether or not one or more was in custody.”
A 2012 Mother Jones article on “More Guns, More Mass Shootings–Coincidence?” offered a striking finding: After analyzing 62 mass shootings over a 30-year period, the magazine determined: “In not a single case was the killing stopped by a civilian using a gun.”
So much for the ability of gun-toting, untrained amateurs to “stop a bad guy with a gun.”
But even highly-trained shooters—such as those assigned to the United States Secret Service—don’t always respond as expected.
On May 15, 1972, Alabama Governor George C. Wallace was campaigning for President in Laurel, Maryland. He gave a speech behind a bulletproof podium at the Laurel Shopping Center. Then he moved from it to mingle with the crowd.
Since the 1968 assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy, all those campaigning for President have been assigned Secret Service bodyguards. And Wallace was surrounded by them as he shook hands with his eager supporters.
Suddenly, Arthur Bremer, a fame-seeking failure in life and romance, pushed his way forward, aimed a .38 revolver at Wallace’s abdomen and opened fire. Before the Secret Service could subdue him, he hit Wallace four times, leaving him paralyzed for the rest of his life.
Arthur Bremer shoots George Wallace
Nor was he Bremer’s only victim. Three other people present were wounded unintentionally:
- Alabama State Trooper Captain E C Dothard, Wallace’s personal bodyguard, who was shot in the stomach;
- Dora Thompson, a campaign volunteer, who was shot in the leg; and
- Nick Zarvos, a Secret Service agent, who was shot in the neck, severely impairing his speech.
None of Wallace’s bodyguards got off a shot at Bremer—before or after he pulled the trigger.
On October 6, 1981, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat was reviewing a military parade in Cairo when a truck apparently broke down directly across from where he was seated.
Anwar Sadat, moments before his assassination
Suddenly, soldiers bolted from the rear of the vehicle, throwing hand grenades and firing assault rifles. They rushed straight at Sadat—who died instantly under a hail of bullets.
Meanwhile, Sadat’s bodyguards—who had been trained by the CIA—panicked and fled.
Sadat had been assassinated by army officers who believed he had betrayed Islam by making peace with Israel in 1977.
The ultimate test of the NRA’s mantra that “there should not be any gun-free zones…anywhere” will come only when one or more heavily-armed gunmen target an NRA convention.
It will then be interesting to see if the surviving NRA members are as quick to blame themselves for being victims as they are to blame the victims of other mass slaughters.
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In Bureaucracy, Entertainment, History, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on February 12, 2018 at 12:25 am
On August 30, 2017, an article in Salon sought to explain why President Donald Trump was so popular among his supporters.
Its headline ran: “Most Americans Strongly Dislike Trump, But the Angry Minority That Adores Him Controls Our Politics.”
It described these voters as representing about one-third of the Republican party:
“These are older and more conservative white people, for the most part, who believe he should not listen to other Republicans and should follow his own instincts….
“They like Trump’s coarse personality, and approve of the fact that he treats women like his personal playthings. They enjoy it when he expresses sympathy for neo-Nazis and neo-Confederate white supremacists.
“They cheer when he declares his love for torture, tells the police to rough up suspects and vows to mandate the death penalty for certain crimes. (Which of course the president cannot do.)
“…This cohort of the Republican party didn’t vote for Trump because of his supposed policies on trade or his threat to withdraw from NATO. They voted for him because he said out loud what they were thinking. A petty, sophomoric, crude bully is apparently what they want as a leader.”
Donald Trump
According to a Pew Research Center survey, they only comprise 16% of the population. That leaves 65% of Republicans who are revolted by Trump’s personality and behavior.
But they are being advised by GOP political consultants to vigorously support him.
“Your heart tells you that he’s bad for the country,” one anonymous consultant told the Salon reporter. “Your head looks at polling data among Republican primary voters and sees how popular he is.”
It’s precisely these hard-core Fascists who come out in mid-term elections—and they’re scaring the remaining 65% who make up the GOP establishment.
Their highest priority, after all, is to hold onto their privileged positions in the House and Senate. And anything that might jeopardize that—including what’s best for the country—can go hang.
Perhaps it’s time for Republicans to remember the lesson taught by High Noon, the classic 1952 Western starring Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly.
Town marshal Will Kane (Cooper) has just marred Amy Fowler (Kelly) a Quaker. It should be the happiest day of his life. But shortly after the ceremony, word comes that Frank Miller—a notorious murderer Kane once sent to prison—has been released.
Even worse, Miller and three other killers are coming into town on the noon train—to kill Kane.
Kane’s first instinct is to flee: He and his wife get into a buggy and dash out of town. But then his sense of duty takes over. He returns to town, intending to recruit a posse.
But this proves impossible—everyone is scared to death of Miller and his gang. And everyone Kane approaches has a reason for not backing him up.
Even Amy—a fervent believer in non-violence—threatens to leave him if he stands up to Miller. She will be on the noon train leaving town—with or without him.
When the clock strikes noon, the train arrives, and Kane—alone—faces his enemies. He shoots and kills two of them.
Then, as he’s pinned down by the third, he gets some unexpected help—from his wife: Amy shoots the would-be killer in the back—only to be taken hostage by Miller himself.
Miller tells Kane to leave his concealed position or he’ll kill Amy. Kane steps into the open—and Amy claws at Miller’s face, buying Kane the time he needs to shoot Miller down.
It’s over.
At that point, the townspeople rush to embrace Kane and congratulate him. But he’s now seen them for the cowards they are and holds them in total contempt.
Saying nothing, he drops the marshal’s star into the dirt. He and Amy then get into a buggy and leave town.
Fred Zinnemann, the film’s director, intended the movie as an attack on those frightened into silence by Joseph McCarthy, the infamous Red-baiting Senator from Wisconsin.
Gary Cooper won a Best Actor Academy Award for his performance.
Today’s Republicans would do well to find the same courage as Will Kane—and choose love of country over love of self.
Human nature being what it is, that is highly unlikely to happen.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on December 26, 2017 at 3:26 pm
On March 19, 1945, facing certain defeat, German Fuhrer Adolf Hitler ordered a massive “scorched-earth” campaign throughout Germany.
Albert Speer, Minister of Armaments for the Third Reich, was appalled. All German agriculture, industry, ships, communications, roads, food stuffs, mines, bridges, stores and utility plants were to be destroyed.
Albert Speer and Adolf Hitler pouring over architectural plans
If implemented, it would deprive the entire German population of even the barest necessities after the war.
Now living in a bunker 50 feet below bomb-shattered Berlin, Hitler gave full vent to his most destructive impulses.
Adolf Hitler addressing boy soldiers as the Third Reich crumbles
“If the war is lost,” Hitler told Speer, “the nation will also perish. This fate is inevitable. There is no necessity to take into consideration the basis which the people will need to continue even a most primitive existence.
“On the contrary, it will be better to destroy these things ourselves, because this nation will have proved to be the weaker one and the future will belong solely to the stronger eastern nation.
“Besides, those who will remain after the battle are only the inferior ones, for the good ones have all been killed.”
Republicans have adopted the same “my-way-or-else” stance as Hitler. Like him, they are determined to gain and hold absolute power—or destroy the Nation they claim to love.
Take their current attitude toward—and attacks on—the U.S.Department of Justice and its chief investigative agency, the FBI.
On May 9, 2017, President Donald Trump fired FBI Director James Comey. Comey had been leading an investigation into alleged collusion between Trump advisers and Russian officials when he was fired.
At first, Trump claimed that he fired Comey for mishandling the FBI’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server.
James Comey
But, during a May 10 meeting at the White House, Trump admitted to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak: “I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.”
Following the uproar over Comey’s firing, on May 17, the Justice Department appointed former FBI director Robert Mueller as Special Counsel to investigate any links the between Russian government and Trump campaign members.
Congressional Republicans joined Democrats in praising the appointment.
- House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, who had relentlessly pursued Hillary Clinton, said: “Mueller is a great selection. Impeccable credentials. Should be widely accepted.”
- “I commend (Department of Justice) for bringing in an independent voice to help bring clarity to this situation,” said Senator Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
- House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said, “My priority has been to ensure thorough and independent investigations are allowed to follow the facts wherever they may lead. That is what we’ve been doing here in the House. The addition of Robert Mueller as special counsel is consistent with this goal, and I welcome his role at the Department of Justice.”
Yet, since May, Trump, his shills in Congress and Right-wing Fox News have relentlessly attacked Mueller’s integrity and investigative methods. This despite the fact that Mueller was appointed by Republican President George W. Bush and served with an impeccable reputation for 12 years as FBI director (2001-2013).
The attacks grew increasingly vicious as Mueller uncovered evidence linking former high-ranking members of the Trump Presidential campaign to Russian Intelligence officials:
- Former national security adviser Michael Flynn pleaded guilty in December to lying to the FBI about his private conversations with Russian ambassador Kislyak. He is now cooperating with Mueller’s office.
- Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his deputy Rick Gates were indicted in October. They have pleaded not guilty and ordered under house arrest.
- George Papadopoulos, the former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser, pleaded guilty in October to lying to the FBI about his dealings with two Russians who had ties to the Russian government.
And the Republican response?
- “A witch hunt continues against the president with tremendous bias, no purpose and no end in sight,” charged Rep. Matthew Gaets (R-Florida).
- Gaetz joined Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Arizona) and Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) in demanding that Mueller resign because he was the FBI director in 2010 when Federal agencies approved the sale of Uranium One, a Canadian energy company, to a Russian nuclear-energy firm.
- “I think the public trust in this whole thing is gone,” said Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), a founder of the Right-wing Freedom Caucus.
- “Let’s start off with the head of the snake,” said Sean Hannity, the Fascistic commentator on Right-wing Fox News. “Mueller’s credibility is in the gutter tonight with these new discoveries, his conflicts of interests, his clear bias, the corruption are on full display. Mueller is frankly a disgrace to the American justice system and has put the country now on the brink of becoming a banana republic.”
There are three reasons for these attacks:
First, Republicans fear that Trump’s followers—the hard-core Fascists who turn out in mid-term elections—will reject them if they reject Trump.
Second, they fear that if Mueller’s investigation leads to Trump’s impeachment, they will be turned out of Congress—as many were after Richard Nixon resigned in disgrace.
Third, reports have circulated that many Congressional Republicans have received financial (and possibly intelligence) support from the Kremlin.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on November 30, 2017 at 12:03 am
As a whole, Democrats have shown themselves indifferent to or ignorant of the power of effective language.
Many of them—such as former President Barack Obama—believe: “I’m not going to get into the gutter like my opponents.”
Thus, they take the “high ground” while their sworn Republican enemies undermine them via “smear and fear” tactics.
In the early 1950s, slander-hurling Wisconsin U.S. Senator Joseph R. McCarthy demonstrated the effectiveness of such tactics. Wrote Pulitzer-Prize winning author David Halberstam, in his monumental study of the origins of the Vietnam War, The Best and the Brightest:
“But if they did not actually stick, and they did not, [McCarthy’s] charges had an equally damaging effect: They poisoned. Where there was smoke, there must be fire. He wouldn’t be saying these things [voters reasoned] unless there was something to it.”
Joseph McCarthy
Tyrants are conspicuously vulnerable to ridicule. Yet, just as Democrats proved unwilling to use this powerful weapon against McCarthy, they have failed to do so against Donald Trump.
For example: Trump has often expressed admiration for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.
But not a single Democrat has dared nickname him “TrumPutin,” “Red Donald,” “Putin’s Poodle” or “Wannabe Czar.” Similarly, his vice president, Mike Pence, could be labeled “Vice Putin.”
Trump has repeatedly assaulted the press, judiciary and Intelligence agencies. Yet no Democrat has damned him as having a Fascistic agenda.
Nor, as a whole, has the press dared to respond in kind to his increasingly vicious attacks on the First Amendment.
Trump has labeled established news media as “fake news.” He has called reporters “the enemy of America.” He has tweeted images of a “Trump train” running over a CNN reporter and of himself beating up someone covered by a CNN logo.
His target of choice is CNN, which has been particularly effective in uncovering the truth behind his almost daily lies. On at least one occasion, he told a CNN reporter: “You’re fake news.”
Yet no reporter—for CNN or any other news outlet—has called him a “fake President.”
CNN has started running an ad featuring a shiny red apple, while a voice-over intones:
“This is an apple. Some people might try to tell you that it’s a banana. They might scream banana, banana, banana over and over and over again. They might put BANANA in all caps. You might even start to believe that this is a banana. But it’s not. This is an apple.”
Unfortunately, many viewers might mistake the “apple” for Apple. Many Americans fail to grasp the subtleties of symbolic imagery. Thus, a more effective ad could feature a picture of Trump in an SS uniform, complete with swastika, and the following message:
“This is a Fascist. Some people might try to tell you that he’s a democrat. They might scream democrat, democrat, democrat over and over and over again. They might put DEMOCRAT in all caps. You might even start to believe that he is a democrat. But he’s not. This is a Fascist.”
Nor, in this YouTube-obsessed age, have Democrats assailed Trump with a ridiculing music video. In the hands of a creative writer, for example, the classic rock-and-roll song, “Rockin’ Robin,” could become a Democratic party anthem:
TRUMPY TRAITOR
(To be sung to the tune, “Rockin’ Robin”)
He Tweets in the White House all the day long
Screamin’ and a-schemin’ and a-doin’ what’s wrong.
All the Special Agents in the FBI
Hope he goes to prison to the day he’ll die.
Trumpy Traitor (tweet tweet)
Trumpy Traitor (tweet tweet)
Go Trumpy Traitor
‘Cause they’re gonna bust your ass tonight.
Every act of treason, every act of crime—
America has never seen a bigger slime.
Bob Mueller’s ready, the cops are closin’ in
To put a grand finale to your reign of sin.
Trumpy Traitor (tweet tweet)
Trumpy Traitor (tweet tweet)
Go Trumpy Traitor
‘Cause they’re gonna bust your ass tonight.
Eric’s getting ready for his next big steal
While Daddy hugs Ivanka—who lets out a squeal.
Don Junior’s got the Russians coming once again—
It’s party-time for traitors and their lives of sin.
He Tweets in the White House all the day long
Screamin’ and a-schemin’ and a-doin’ what’s wrong.
Handing out secrets to the KGB
The biggest Right-wing traitor that you’ll ever see.
Trumpy Traitor (tweet tweet)
Trumpy Traitor (tweet tweet)
Go Trumpy Traitor
‘Cause they’re gonna bust your ass tonight.
Well, Eric’s getting ready for his next big steal
While Daddy hugs Ivanka—who lets out a squeal.
Don Junior’s got the Russians coming once again—
It’s party-time for traitors and their lives of sin.
He Tweets in the White House all the day long
Screamin’ and a-schemin’ and a-doin’ what’s wrong.
Handing out secrets to the KGB
The biggest Right-wing traitor that you’ll ever see.
Trumpy Traitor (tweet tweet)
Trumpy Traitor (tweet tweet)
Go Trumpy Traitor
‘Cause they’re gonna bust your ass tonight.
Democrats and the media are fighting an openly Fascistic administration with tactics of a Shirley Temple. So long as they do so, they will continue to decline in influence.
Their only hope lies in combating the Heinz Guderians of the Republican Party with the all-out tactics of a George S. Patton.
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In History, Politics, Social commentary on November 29, 2017 at 12:36 pm
A major reason for Donald Trump’s appeal during the 2016 Presidential campaign was: “He’s not like other politicians.”
And he wasn’t.
The vast majority of politicians adhere to an unwritten rule: Even when you criticize another politician, you do so in a reasonably dignified manner.
Trump threw that rule—along with many others—out the window. In its place, he gave his opponents—Republican and Democrat—a series of disparaging nicknames.
And, as President, he has continued to do so.
His main sources of public defamation have been Twitter and the speeches he makes. Among the insulting nicknames have included:
- “Jeff Flakey” – Jeff Flake, Arizona United States Senator.
- “Crazy Megyn” – Megyn Kelly, Fox News’ then-anchor, perhaps the only member of this Right-wing propaganda outlet that Trump disliked.
- “Liddle Bob Corker” – Bob Corker, United States Senator from Tennessee
- “Psycho Joe” and “Dumb as a Rock Mika” – Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, hosts of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
- “Lyin’ Ted” – Texas United States Senator Eduardo “Ted” Cruz.
- “Crazy Bernie” – Vermont United States Senator Bernie Sanders.
- “Low Energy Jeb” – Jeb Bush, the former governor of Florida.
- “Crooked Hillary” – Hillary Clinton, former First Lady, New York United States Senator and Secretary of State.
- “Little Marco” – Florida United States Senator Marco Rubio.
- “Rocket Man” – North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un (because of his series of missile launches)
- “Al Frankenstein” – Al Franken, United States Senator from Minnesota.
- “Pocahontas” – Elizabeth Warren, United States Senator from Massachusetts.
Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks appear every Friday on the PBS Newshour to review the week’s major political events.
On May 27, 2016, Shields—a liberal, and Brooks, a conservative—reached some disturbingly similar conclusions about the character of Republican Presidential front-runner Donald Trump.
David Brooks and Mark Shields
MARK SHIELDS: “Donald Trump gratuitously slandered Ted Cruz’s wife. He libeled Ted Cruz’s father for being potentially part of Lee Harvey Oswald’s assassination of the president of the United States, suggesting that he was somehow a fellow traveler in that.
“This is a libel. You don’t get over it….
“…I think this man may be addicted to the roar of the grease paint and the sound of the crowd, or however it goes, smell of the crowd.”
Donald Trump
DAVID BROOKS: “Trump, for all his moral flaws, is a marketing genius. And you look at what he does. He just picks a word and he attaches it to a person. Little Marco [Rubio], Lyin’ Ted [Cruz], Crooked Hillary [Clinton].
“And that’s a word. And that’s how marketing works. It’s a simple, blunt message, but it gets under.
“It sticks, and it diminishes. And so it has been super effective for him, because he knows how to do that. And she [Hillary Clinton] just comes with, ‘Oh, he’s divisive.’
“These are words that are not exciting people. And her campaign style has gotten, if anything…a little more stagnant and more flat.”
Only one opponent—who was not a Presidential candidate—managed to stand up to Trump: Massachusetts U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren. Whenever Trump attacks her, Warren strikes back—sometimes even more harshly.
As Mark Shields noted:
“Elizabeth Warren gets under Donald Trump’s skin. And I think she’s been the most effective adversary. I think she’s done more to unite the Democratic party than either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders.”
From June 15, 2015, when he launched his Presidential campaign, until October 24, 2016, Trump used Twitter to fire almost 4,000 angry, insulting tweets at 281 people and institutions that had somehow offended him.
Warren has dared to do what no other Democrat—or Republican—has: Attack Trump head-on, with the kind of blunt, insulting language he has lavished on his opponents.
Among the jabs she has thrown at him on Twitter:
- “But here’s the thing. You can beat a bully—not by tucking tail and running, but by holding your ground.”
- “You care so much about struggling American workers, @realDonaldTrump, that you want to abolish the federal minimum wage?”
- “@realDonaldTrump: Your policies are dangerous. Your words are reckless. Your record is embarrassing. And your free ride is over.”
Nor is Twitter her only weapon.
On March 31, Warren appeared on The Late Show, with Stephen Colbert. Her take on the egotistical billionaire:
“Donald Trump is looking out for exactly one guy, and that guy’s name is Donald Trump. He smells that there’s change in the air and what he wants to do is make sure that that change works really, really well for Donald Trump.
“The truth is, he inherited a fortune from his father, he kept it going by cheating and defrauding people, and then he takes his creditors through Chapter 11.”
When Colbert said that Trump had never broken the law, Warren replied that he had never broken the law “and been caught.”
For David Brooks, Warren’s tactics prove a depressing, lose/lose situation:
“And so the tactics…is either you do what Elizabeth Warren has done, like full-bore negativity, that kind of [get] under the skin, or try to ridicule him and use humor. Humor is not Hillary Clinton’s strongest point.”
As a whole, Democrats have shown themselves indifferent to or ignorant of the power of effective language.
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LOAN-TEST CEOS LIKE WELFARE APPLICANTS: PART ONE (OF TWO)
In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on April 3, 2018 at 12:13 amThe late Robert Benmosche, then CEO of American International Group (AIG), had some blunt advice to college graduates searching for work in a tight job market.
Robert Benmosche
“You have to accept the hand that’s been dealt you in life,” Benmosche said in a 2013 interview on Bloomberg Television. “Don’t cry about it. Deal with it.”
Typical advice from a one-percenter whose company, AIG, suffered a liquidity crisis when its credit ratings were downgraded below “AA” levels in September, 2008.
So how did AIG “deal with” its own crisis? It went crying to its Uncle Sugar, the United States Government, for a bailout.
Which it promptly got.
The United States Federal Reserve Bank, on September 16, 2008, made an $85 billion loan to AIG to meet increased collateral obligations resulting from its credit rating downgrade–and thus saving it from certain bankruptcy.
In return, the Government took an 80% stake in the firm.
(The bailout eventually ballooned to $182 billion in exchange for a 92% stake.)
College graduates, said Benmosche, needed to seize the opportunities that become available to them, even if their options are limited.
“They want me to talk to the students and give them a sense of encouragement, especially with the high unemployment,” said Benmosche.
“My advice will be, ‘Whatever opportunity comes your way, take it. Take it and treat it as if it’s the only one that’s coming your way, because that actually may be the truth.’”
Yes, if you have the opportunity to cry yourself into a multi-billion dollar loan from the Federal Government, by all means, do so.
Of course, willing-to-work college graduates who can’t find willing-to-hire employers won’t be able to count on a generous bailout from the Federal Government.
To which most of them will owe hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loans.
It’s long past time to apply to “untouchable” CEOs like Robert Benmosche the same criteria that Right-wing Republicans demand be applied to welfare recipients.
Republican lawmakers have vigorously pursued welfare drug-testing in Congress and more than 30 states.
Some bills have even targeted people who claim unemployment insurance and food stamps, despite scanty evidence the poor and jobless are disproportionately on drugs.
The concept of background screening is actually sound. But Republicans are aiming it at the wrong end of the economic spectrum.
Since 2008, the government has handed out billions of dollars in bailouts to the wealthiest corporations in the country.
The reason: To rescue the economy from the calamity produced by the criminal greed and recklessness of those same corporations.
For example:
According to the Special Inspector General for the TARP bailout, the total commitment of government is $16.8 trillion dollars with the $4.6 trillion already paid out.
And it’s equally important to remember that welfare recipients did not:
The 2010 documentary Inside Job chronicles the events leading to the 2008 global financial crisis. One of its most insightful moments occurs at a party held by then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.
“We can’t control our greed,” the CEO of a large bank admits to his fellow guests. “You should regulate us more.”
Greed is defined as an excessive desire for wealth or goods. At its worst, greed trumps rationality, judgment and concern about the damage it may cause.
Greed begins in the neurochemistry of the brain. A neurotransmitter called dopamine fuels our greed. The higher the dopamine levels in the brain, the greater the pleasure we experience.
Cocaine, for example, directly increases dopamine levels. So does money.
Harvard researcher Hans Breiter has found, via magnetic resonance imaging studies, that the craving for money activates the same regions of the brain as the lust for sex, cocaine or any other pleasure-inducer.
Dopamine is most reliably activated by an experience we haven’t had before. We crave recreating that experience.
But snorting the same amount of cocaine, or earning the same sum of money, does not cause dopamine levels to increase. So the pleasure-seeker must increase the amount of stimuli to keep enjoying the euphoria.
In time, this incessant craving for pleasure becomes an addiction. And feeding that addiction–-with ever more money–becomes the overriding goal.
Thus, the infamous line—”Greed is good”—in the 1987 film, Wall Street, turns out to be both false and deadly for all concerned.
But the situation need not remain this way.
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