The Victim Affliction (20)

"If you’ve been told that you're broken enough times, eventually, you start believing it.” – Marine General “Mad Dog” Jim Mattis.

Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the overcompensations for misery. And, of course, stability isn't nearly so spectacular as instability. And being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand.”
― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

 As a means of claiming power, experts and specialists routinely designate people “at risk,” or suffering from a “stress disorder” and a multitude of other random conditions that require treatment and prevention.
This creates many major benefits – not just for the medical system which is making money and feeling good about themselves – but also for the ‘victim’ of the disease; it gives the victim a reason to feel bad, to seek sympathy, to excuse anxiety, poor performance, live in a land of irresponsibility, excuses, and attention.

I do believe there are real victims – but a real victim often does not wish to have attention – indeed, wishes the circumstances that made him/her the victim never happened. A real victim tries to overcome his problems – you will rarely see him posting on facebook about them – unlike those suffering from  victim delusion; where there is some sort of payoff (emotionally, financially ) for embracing the ‘woe is me’ status.
Some people play the victim role discreetly.
Often times, the people who seem the strongest; always there for you and everyone else, are often times so strong for you because they are too fearful to face their own challenges and demons.
They use the victim roll as reasons why they gain weight or can’t lose weight. Why they can’t find a better job (or a different job).
Why they can’t find a partner to share their life with.
They take a break-up devastatingly for years. Or use that as an excuse not to get back in the water.
“There might be a dangerous shark like my last boyfriend!”
Yes, I agree. But it depends on where you are swimming. You don’t find sharks if you’re in pool.
 I don’t believe everyone needs to have ‘someone’ in order to be happy. I see many single people and I think they are genuinely very happy!
But the difference between happy single and sad single is that those who are ‘sad’ single usually are boo-hooing they can’t ‘find anyone good’ or giving you reasons why they want to be in a relationship, they just can’t.  


“To suffer unnecessarily is masochistic rather than heroic.”
― Viktor E. Frankl

I know many men who have been in the military and in police units and have been involved in terrifying situations and they rarely speak of it. Or if they do, they do so not to say, “poor me” – but to say, “I’m grateful I’m here.” “I miss those who are gone.” “This is a reason we need to change…”
But yet, there are some people who can’t let go of a minor incident that happened years prior.
He’s that person who, years and years after the incident, always manages to somehow, no matter what we you are talking about, it loops back to that incident.
His situation is quite trivial compared to many others, yet he refuses to let it go. He believes he has PTSD because, unfortunately, a psychologist suggested he did, and society has embraced the PTSD diagnosis as the new “disease” of the decade.
That is not to say that PTSD is not real – but unfortunately, some people claim they have PTSD after going through minor events. Also, PTSD gives you the label you are emotionally unstable.  War is difficult. Being a cop or firefighter or paramedic is difficult. But part of the ‘badge of honor’ is being a strong person and understanding that death and tragedy are as much a part of life as joy.

When I watched the movie American Sniper about Chris Kyle – three things resonated with me.
1) If you’re given a talent or skill – use it. There is no shame in dedicating yourself, your life, to that talent. If you find you are happiest doing what you do – should you worry that you won’t find a partner? No. I think society is a bit to blame for this. You do not need a partner for life to be fulfilling. And if you choose to marry a person with talent or who wants to dedicate their life to something noble; understand that. I know so many wives who complain their husband is never home – but they are more than happy to spend his money.
2) Don’t apologize for your talent. Chris Kyle was an excellent marksman. Because he was in the military, which sometimes gets a bad rap from almost every side (don’t forget the military created America, freed slaves, saved Jews, and is fighting terrorism).
3) Don’t allow society to tell you that you’re crazy. When Kyle came back from his tours, he was having a difficult time adjusting to life.  WHICH WAS NORMAL. If you take a military guy, who woke up every day with a great purpose (to defend freedom!), then put him back in ‘regular’ life – where there is no schedule dictated for him, no hard and fast rules; it’s going to feel uncomfortable. Now add a society made up of academic types and media types who believe “war is bad” (but we’ll take the benefits of freedom while someone else fights for it!) and that soldiers must not be okay after they return back home. From the movie portrayal, it felt like Kyle’s wife unfortunately, bought into the society stigmata of soldiers.  I don’t know her, and from interviews I’ve seen her do, I believe she has a huge heart and suffered a tragic loss (and ironically, she is not acting like a victim, but more like a warrior!) and truly thought she was caring for her husband when she worried about him having PTSD (which he then internalized as: well, society says I must be having a hard time, my family think I’m having a hard time…if everyone thinks I’m having a hard time, they must be right!).

This is one of the most brilliant explanations on PTSD by Marine General “Mad Dog” Jim Mattis.
The appropriately nicknamed Mad Dog took aim at a Post-Traumatic Stress in a speech at San Francisco's Salute to Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans in April of 2014.

"You've been told that you're broken," said Mattis, "That you're damaged goods" and should be labeled victims of two unjust and poorly executed wars. The truth, instead, is that we are the only folks with the skills, determination, and values to ensure American dominance in this chaotic world. Our nation has a "disease orientation" toward combat stress. In America, victimhood is exalted. The problem is, eventually, we start believing it. We start seeing ourselves as broken. We buy into the myth.
The alternative is something so obvious that it is pathetic we don't talk about it more. There is also Post-Traumatic Growth. You come back from war stronger and more sure of who you are."

The labeling of veterans as broken, is job security for many predators in the civilian world.
If the larger part of society views the lions of America, the men and women with the most courage, as ‘crazy’ – who would possibly want to join the military and protect our nation?

Life – it will suck, people.

 Life is full of challenges – and that is what makes life beautiful. Meeting the obstacles with strength and determination. Death – part of life. You grieve and then you move on because life is short.
But the self-absorption of a "martyr" or a victim and - as George Orwell puts it: “the penchant to make dragons out of mice” can also be found in manipulators because the person selling the victim/martyr affliction knows
1) it becomes an excuse for laziness (can’t exercise – can’t work, can’t can’t can’t)
2) people pay attention  to “poor so and so” and are so afraid to ‘offend’ a VICTIM that they remain silent which only enables and emboldens them to maintain Victim Status.
Part of our empathy for victims and the reason we are so compassionate is because we hope if we were ever to become a victim, we would want someone to help us. Call it karma, call it the “Golden Rule” – when we observe a car accident, we are partly attracted to the destruction because we think, “Well, at least it’s not me.”
If 3 out of 10 people get into car accidents and we pass one, we are quietly relived that because it happened to someone else, we have less chance of being involved in an accident.
In the early days of America – people  refused to BE victims. Fall down seven times, get up 8.  The birth of America was based on the idea that anything is possible – anyone can succeed with determination and hard work, creative ideas, and an optimistic attitude.
Education, medicine, marketing, opinion science, media - all have contributed to elevating the idea of victim, that we aren’t responsible for our problems, and we can’t solve them without some sort of intervention.
The failure of programs to alleviate suffering is not only an acceptable outcome but in many ways the preferred one!  Sometimes people in the “helping professions,” (medicine, opinion science, addictions, etc) acquire a vested interest in the study, management, and prolongation—as opposed to the solution and resulting disappearance—of sufferers’ problems. This is why so many programs initiated to conquer a problem end up, instead, adding to it, building sprawling factories, office buildings, research centers, where the helpers and the helped become endlessly, increasingly co-dependent. Even where there are no material benefits to addressing, without ever reducing, other people’s suffering, there are emotional benefits for those who regard their own compassion as the central virtue that makes them good, decent, and admirable people—people whose ‘sensitivity’ readily distinguishes them from mean-spirited evil people.
“Pity is about how deeply I can feel,” wrote the late political theorist Jean Bethke Elshtain. “And in order to feel this way, to experience the rush of my own pious reaction, I need victims the way an addict needs drugs.”
The Victim Affliction  works not only for the ‘everyday’ person, it’s also used as an excuse for selling people on politicians/celebrities/sports stars –
Consider this notorious “Victim” as described by a popular author:

“A pitiful, puppy dog expression, the face of a man suffering under intolerable wrongs. He views himself as the victim of oppression -  He is the martyr, the victim and much like Christ was crucified and suffered unjustly, he gives the appearance to others that he is like  the Greek Titan, Prometheus,  chained to a rock. A self-sacrificing hero fighting single-handed against all odds.  If he were killing a mouse he would know how to make it seem like a dragon. He makes the people believe that he is fighting against destiny, that he can’t win, and yet that he somehow deserves to.” – 

The popular author was George Orwell and he was talking about Adolph Hitler. Of course, now, we know the evil Hitler unleashed, but at the time, people loved Hitler. He promised them salvation. He gave the illusion of being unjustly oppressed by the universe, by the Jews (people need a villain to go after) - and Hitler appealed to peoples emotion (sense of compassion) and his victim status to manipulate seemingly intelligent, bright, people to commit horrible crimes and murder on children, women, men.

I urge you when you watch “leaders” or people who want to lead – are they making dragons out of mice? Are they portraying themselves as victims or as warriors?  Do they constantly make excuses for troubles or problems, do they victimize themselves or others? A true leader will encourage optimistic, creative solutions and encourage determination and will to overcome obstacles with character and confidence.

Consider this speech Michelle Obama gave vs the video clip from the movie Runaway Slave which seeks to empower black people and expose how culture/society government is continuing to victimize and keep black people dependent.



Runaway Slave the movie:



Aaron Alexis was responsible for killing several people at a Navy Ship Yard in Washington DC in 2013. He was a homegrown terrorist: he was the political and psychological creation of a psychiatric/political establishment committed to making excuses at all costs.
Media, politicians, celebrities continue to insist   we outlaw guns. But outlawing guns won’t do anything to alter the idea that esteemed psychiatric professionals are pushing; that none of us are responsible for managing our emotions.  We are being sent the message we are unable to think independently, solve our problems, and create an incredible life without ‘expert’ help.

There was a reason we were given a brain and a conscious. It's time to start using both.

The Education Exaggeration (18)

Education Exaggeration
“Common sense is in spite of, not the result of, education.” ― Victor Hugo

Interesting Note: Ever notice on book blurbs  the book promises to “Intellectually satisfy” or that the book is “Intellectually substantial.”  What is really means to say is: The author has gone to an Ivy League school and the book is for those with an expensive education.  Talk about  a pompous *superior status* label.

The push for many centuries of “higher education” has had the effect of making us lose confidence in our independent ability to create or become anything meaningful without a college degree.
College education began to throw stones at religion, philosophy,  and among the broken remains,  two things rose to take their place: science and technology.
Cause and Effect:
As technology created more convenience, more comfort, and more leisure time, it created less tension, less personal challenges to strive for. When we are in a ‘tension-less’ state,  our true courage and confidence is sucked dry.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, philosopher and fan of nature in 1700’s said; “The study of the sciences is much more apt to soften and effeminate men’s courage than to strengthen and animate it.” Far better, Rousseau said, to live like the ancient Spartans, who fought and died for their country and banned all trade and artistic production.
Now, look, I’m not suggesting we ban anything and absolutely am a fan of art, education, EVERYTHING within a balance. But I do find some truth to Rousseau’s observation.
Just as some men are born to fight, to be in the military, to be cops, to be boxers, MMA fighters – some men are born to work in the educational field.
However – I think what has shifted is that those men (and women) who dedicate their lives and rely on physical courage, are more personally fulfilled. They put their courage on the line daily. The educators, well, not so much. Though their calling is worthy, they seem to be envious of those who are strong and that envy rears its ugly head by taking an air of superiority and painting cops, military, as demons.
Suddenly, our strong who protect us are seen as villains and those in education are seen as liberators.
Yet, who is the first person a professor calls when someone is parked in his designated parking spot? Security!

“People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.” – George Orwell

I spent many years as an Amazon Vine Reviewer. I read many, many books and there has been a huge change coming out of the publishing world. Authors (who are professors) are writing fiction books that demonize the military, cops, etc. They are hypocritical though, because without the military, without cops, we would not be free to pursue our individual dreams.  I’ve read ‘non-fiction’ books written by professors (overwhelming, professors are liberal) spreading fear about climate change, food “insecurity” etc, but they do nothing to alleviate it (see Compassion Distraction), but promise they (the social scientists the climate scientists) will ‘save us’ from all the disasters looming.
All in all, a majority of education has become the new religion and tries to make people feel they are worthless and meaningless if they don’t have a college education.

"The most ridiculous, most despicable of all con artists are those pompous, condescending, so-called 'intellectuals' who purport to use the intellect to 'prove' the worthlessness of human intelligence -- and thereby, of the intellect.  They don't even seem to realize all they're doing is admitting their own self-negation in the most pathetic way possible, in public, to all but the most gullible." -- Rick Gaber

When I started to explore why so many people seemed so unhappy in America, good fortune led me to the writing of Albert Hoyt Hobbs. I was able to buy used copies of his books very cheap. If you can’t find his books ,try the library.
Albert Hoyt Hobbs was a bold professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Pennsylvania from 1937 – 1980.
Independents and Conservatives are extremely under-represented in the field of Behavioral Sciences and that is the way it has always been.

Liberals have not only 'taken over' behavioral sciences (and college campuses in general), they have created a hostile environment (liberals, being intolerable? What!! Absurd!!) for those who think logically and believe in self honor/value, independence, and personal determination and responsibility.

I can't even remember what led me to his books...perhaps because I've been a student of the behavioral sciences and when I woke from my deep political slumber to realize all the crappy choices I made in life were based on Liberal Values, I started searching for Conservatives in behavioral sciences which was like trying to find a bacon burger at a Vegan Festival - luckily, I discovered Man is Moral Choice (published in 1979)...and then also The Vision and the Constant Star (published in 1956) and The Claims of Sociology: A critique of textbooks (published in 1951).
Talk. About. Taking. Off. Blinders.
Wow.
Conservative professors were extremely rare (and still are) in the field of sociology, psychology, and his controversial views made him an outcast among his colleagues.

Early in his career at Penn, Mr. Hobbs examined hundreds of sociological textbooks and discovered they contained no science; true science involves studies where one can verify one's findings, people can’t be subject to clinical study because people are people. There are too many variables, they lie, they try to please the researcher, and any ‘study’ involving people can be manipulated. The textbooks he examined were light on facts and heavy with opinions. The problem was that they shared "a one-sided, liberal point of view," he wrote.

Among other things, they didn't like capitalism, they promoted forms of socialism, they criticized education that stressed traditional, classic values, and critical of individual enterprise.

For Mr. Hobbs, who described himself as a philosophical conservative, individuals came first, and so did individual morality. "Man has a capacity for moral behavior and this capacity must be allowed to function. . . . People are responsible for their moral behavior," he said in a 1980 interview.

Mr. Hobbs observation explains why we, as a society, are so unhappy. Media and current culture tell kids that they can be nothing unless they go to college, then in college they teach kids that, basically, individuality does not matter, and you aren’t responsible for determining your path in life, so basically, your life is meaningless.

The Expert Illusion (17)

When there is too much information to know, it becomes valuable to rely on reason, on personal experience.  It becomes significant to know where when how and who to trust.

“The television commercial has mounted the most serious assault on capitalist ideology since the

publication of Das Kapital. To understand why, we must remind ourselves that capitalism, like science and liberal democracy, was an outgrowth of the Enlightenment. Its principal theorists, even its most prosperous practitioners, believed capitalism to be based on the idea that both buyer and seller are sufficiently mature, well informed and reasonable to engage in transactions of mutual self-interest. If greed was taken to be the fuel of the capitalist engine, then surely rationality was the driver. The theory states, in part, that competition in the marketplace requires that the buyer not only knows what is good for him but also what is good. If the seller produces nothing of value, as determined by a rational marketplace, then he loses out. It is the assumption of rationality among buyers that spurs competitors to become winners, and winners to keep on winning. Where it is assumed that a buyer is unable to make rational decisions, laws are passed to invalidate transactions, as, for example, those which prohibit children from making contracts...Of course, the practice of capitalism has its contradictions...But television commercials make hash of it...By substituting images for claims, the pictorial commercial made emotional appeal, not tests of truth, the basis of consumer decisions. The distance between rationality and advertising is now so wide that it is difficult to remember that there once existed a connection between them. Today, on television commercials, propositions are as scarce as unattractive people. The truth or falsity of an advertiser's claim is simply not an issue. A McDonald's commercial, for example, is not a series of testable, logically ordered assertions. It is a drama--a mythology, if you will--of handsome people selling, buying and eating hamburgers, and being driven to near ecstasy by their good fortune. No claim are made, except those the viewer projects onto or infers from the drama. One can like or dislike a television commercial, of course. But one cannot refute it.” Neil Postman

Expert Illusion - PhD in Happiness

Today, information from one group is pretty much as good as information from another. The tendency is to take such sources at face value. Why? Because we’re distracted by so many news stories, we’re lazy, and we’ve been conditioned to believe that anything labeled “Statistics Show” “Polling Proves” “Data Results Are Clear.”

Acronyms convey expert status, expert knowledge - the more titles behind someone’s name, the more our eyes glaze but we immediately believe them because they must be smarter. It’s become almost ridiculous what people add behind their names, but even more ridiculous that we believe they are smarter than we are simply because we see a few initials behind their name like  Ph.D. FBI. CIA. MENSA (a group of REALLY smart people). Master’s Degree.  Dr. Doctorate. Director. CEO. CCO. PA.

Most of us don’t bother to do research to find out if the diplomas or experience they have really exists. We’re distracted. We’re lazy. We’re trusting.  And when people do discover the truth, they are too afraid of being attacked or sued, isolated, or losing their status, or job, and so they remain silent.

Here are some few actual examples (though names have been changed).

Ms. Smith graduated from Harvard with BA in Political Science, and earned an MA in Foreign Affairs from University of Virginia. She was the Directorate (what the hell is a Directorate?) of Intelligence at the CIA as an analyst focusing on Middle Eastern leadership issues. She was the media spokesperson of the CIA.

Mr. Smith: Greater Philadelphia Area | Law Enforcement

Civil Rights Committee at International Association of Chiefs of Police, Core Faculty, School of Public Service Leadership at Capella University,...

Adjunct Faculty at Montgomery County Community College, Adjunct Faculty at Chancellor University, Adjunct Faculty at The National Graduate School...

Education: PHd from Walden University, FBI National Academy, Mercy College, Bellevue University, Montgomery County Community College

As mentioned previously, as a paramedic,  I always found those with “street” experience – the men and women who had worked for years – had much more knowledge than someone who graduated from some elite medical school. Street smart has always proven to be much more significant than book smart. 

There’s also a trend to make up terms for classic words – advertising executives call themselves “brand ambassadors” or “change agents.” 

What if I told you there is woman who is a ‘happiness expert’? She has studied happiness and written a book about it. You’d shrug. Sounds okay, but…doesn’t sound like she has any ‘real’ authority…right?

But then, what if I tell you that she is Christine Carter, Ph.D.,  a sociologist and happiness expert at UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center, an interdisciplinary research center that “translates” the study of happiness, resilience, and emotional intelligence for the public.

Well, now that changes everything, doesn’t it? If you saw all that written on a book blurb about her, you’d immediately give it more credibility because you recognize the college, the term “sociology,” and so, obviously, if she went to college for it…she must be smart!

When I read that blurb on a book she had written, I had to laugh. I thought it surely was made up, a joke to see if people would believe it. Who knows…maybe it did start off as a joke but people are so eager to believe in “expert” status that they fell for it and it stuck! 

You’d probably be sucked in to buying her book because she has “expert” status simply because she has ‘studied’ happiness at a well known college.

Remember, the behavioral sciences are not regarded as a valued, authentic science by actual scientists.  Behavioral science is extremely subjective because each person has different emotions, different experiences, and also has the ability to lie in order to either impress the interviewer or to hide true feelings out of fear.

There is an old movie from 1969  called Putney Swope – it makes fun of the advertising industry and how  consumers are clueless but so are advertising agents. It opens with a helicopter  dropping off a man with long hair, carrying a brief case, wearing a  leather jacket with “Mensa-member” written on the back of the jacket. He is an advertising guru and is dropped off onto the roof of  a Manhattan high-rise. Then, he makes his way to a board room where advertising executives are sitting around a conference table. They have called in this ‘expert’ to provide them with a tag line for the beer company they are representing.  The ‘Mensa’ Hells Angel walks to the front of the room with his briefcase and says: “Beer is for men who doubt their masculinity. Beer is Peepy Dicky”

Yep. The “Expert” said, “Beer is Peepy Dicky.”

One of the agency board members summed it up perfectly well in after hearing the MENSA guy deliver his “peepy-dicky,” proclamation  “Well, it must be true; we paid a shit-load of money for it.”

This is a great example of how people will buy anything if it’s from a so called expert (especially one with  such an elite educational status “Mensa”). 

When it comes to “news” information is hard to trace once it has been filtered through news reports or news websites. Stories gain more credibility because they appear to have been vetted by independent, “critical” journalists. Such information-laundering makes stories and facts seem clean when in fact they may be very dirty, e.g., “Reliable sources say . . .” or “An expert in the field reports.”

But as we’ve seen increasingly, every news station today has an agenda. Run by either the left or right, it’s hard to find unfiltered, unaltered, news.  And unfortunately, because of our crisis in character, (why tell the truth? It’s rare there are consequences if you lie…) very few are vetting ‘news’ stories and simply running with a story because “if CBS, or CNN, or Fox News” said it, it must be true!

Ed Bernay’s is a great example of manufacturing illusion with his numerous  “front groups.” Granted, it was probably much more difficult to trace where the roots of the front group led; and for the most part, people were quite honest until Bernays and his peers created “public relations” which was really private delusion and public confusion.

The Radio Institute of the Audible Arts, for instance, appeared to be promoting a public cause, but Bernays’s whole reason for proposing it was to advance the private interests of its founder, the Philco Radio and Television Corporation. Bernays worked with legitimate charities but failed to point out that his corporate client was paying the bills and benefiting from the link. The National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis agreed to help the United Fruit Company challenge a rumor that bananas caused polio.

Corporations, fundraisers and politicians are attempting to turn the American mind into a kind of zombie jell that will buy, give or vote at their command, and we are too lazy, distracted, and confused to do otherwise.

Superior Status Excuses, Illusions and Delusions (16)

An illusion seeing something that isn’t real and not realizing it’s not real. Delusion is when the audience not only knows they are being tricked, they convince themselves it’s actually magic. Often the payoff in delusion is that feeling of being in on a ‘secret’ or in the ‘superior’ group. All the following tricks and tools of corruption and deception work on our fears of status – of being insignificant and isolated.  Most of these delusions appeal to us by making us feel superior or part of a special crowd.
All these illusions and delusions offer us excuses…and there are true excuses. But sometimes we choose to fall back on an excuse in an attempt not to try, so we won’t have the uncomfortableness of failing. The more we use excuses, the more unhappy we become and the more we seek to escape life rather than embrace it with all its highs and lows, good and bad, and beauty and adversity.

“There are many who find a good alibi far more attractive than an achievement. For an achievement does not settle anything permanently. We still have to prove our worth anew each day; we have to prove that we are as good today as we were yesterday. But when we have a valid alibi for not achieving anything we are fixed, so to speak, for life.”
― Eric Hoffer

The Compassion Distraction
“Compassion”—or “empathy,” or even “kindness”—is routinely used not just as a virtue, but it also conveys to us the ultimate badge of honor.  
Unfortunately, compassion has seriously been hijacked by exploiters, hypocrites, and half-wits (who perhaps aren’t so stupid after all). Compassion has been hijacked by exploiters who seek to work on our fears of illness, poverty, isolation. Not too long ago, helping the less fortunate was something we did out of the kindness of our hearts. We didn’t advertise it. We didn’t seek recognition.
Today people proudly wear stickers that say “I donated today!”  and businesses hang paper stars with the names of people who have donated.
I call it “The Compassion Distraction” because it’s no longer about doing things out of the goodness of your heart, it’s about doing things to SHOW off or because you’ve been unknowingly guilted into doing it. Compassion distraction is also used to alleviate the guilt of the guilty; it keeps reality at bay.
A great quote that has great meaning: Envy assails the noblest: the winds howl around the highest peaks – Ovid.

What that quote means is that those with power, or fame, or anyone at the “top” often find that they are disliked, simply because they have reached the top – so those who are envious will often ‘howl.’  – Envy is one of the of the 9 Tools of Massive Distraction but it’s also an important reasoning behind the Compassion Distraction of Today.
Often, at the forefront of fundraising or awareness campaigns (many of which are simple business organizations operating using a “non-profit” as a fake/front group for large corporations who then use celebrities to deliver their “Save the…Insert Trendy Disease or Cause Here” message.
Celebrities often agree to be the spokesperson because – as the quote tells us – celebrities, for all their fans, have a lot of haters too.
So when the celebrity says, “Look, I want to help starving kids in third world countries!” They are often trying to deflect the jealousy people feel toward them as if saying; “See, don’t hate me for what I have, I help the less fortunate!”
In reality though…if they really wanted to help the less fortunate, they would. Almost every donation or telethon or song or documentary they do…all tax write-offs. They have no skin in the game, though they give the illusion they do.
There are a few exceptions – a few celebrities who live their creed.

It’s easier to donate a few thousands to charity and give the illusion of being self-sacrificing than to base self-respect on actual personal actions.

The Compassion Distraction reminds me of religious people who attend church, lead youth groups, donate every week, yet they cheat on their spouse, have road rage, and kick their dogs.
It's easy to give the appearance of ‘caring’. But you know and your conscious knows when you are being dishonorable, phony, fake.  You can fake virtue for an audience. You can't fake it in your own eyes. Well, you may be able to for a-while, but not for very long.
Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than going to a garage makes you an automobile. Take politics – the media frames the political parties like this: Democrats are compassionate, they help the underprivileged. Republicans only care about money and want to create wealth.
I can’t begin to tell you the countless Democrats I know who resemble the quote when refigured;

“Being a Democrat doesn’t make you any more compassionate than going to an airport makes you a plane.”

The trick is to move the curtain of compassion they hide behind and look at their actions. A person who truly believes wealth is ‘evil’ would not be driving around in a Mercedes.
People who say one thing and do another spend their lives running from the truth; they hide it and escape themselves by using drugs/sex/food – whatever vice they can in order to numb their knowledge they aren’t true.

When you see a “Kids with cancer” jar in front of a cashier or worse, when a cashier asks you if you’d like to ‘donate to help bring happiness to a family with cancer.” It defuses questioning, obscures the reality of where that money is REALLY going, and prejudges YOU. Who can be against aid to the less fortunate? If you don’t put money in the “compassion” cup or if you tell the cashier “No, not today, thank you.”
You might leave feeling just a bit ashamed. And, guess what, this is the PLAN. I worked in retail and our company hounded customers to donate to St. Jude. Our managers got a bonus if we raised a-lot of money for St. Judes (check out the salary the St. Jude’s CEO’s are making) . The cashiers were told to phrase the question like this: “Would you like to help a child suffering with cancer?”
Well, what is a customer supposed to say to that?
NO?
Then he/she will look like a heartless fool!
If someone left a big donation (over 5 bucks) we were supposed to ring a bell and all the other cashiers would clap and say thank you.
So – what do we have here? Appealing not only to our status (Wow, that person is awesome!) but also we look good in the eyes of others and we, temporarily, feel we served humanity.  Then we reason to ourselves that flipping off the guy driving slow in front of us is okay because we donated to the cancer jar (so we can’t be all that bad).

Non-profits, awareness groups (save the lizard, save the short tail cats, save the weeds!), use the compassion distraction by seeking out and then rectifying “suffering situations,” thereby transforming compassion  into  a group of people who have a mission not for minimizing misery but rather,  maximizing the bank account and the outward appearance of righteousness of those running/involved in the organizations.
Clifford Orwin, a political scientist who has examined the subject painstakingly, and believes our quick inclination to be distressed by others’ suffering confirms the ancient Greek philosophers’ belief that nature intended for human beings to be friends. But compassion is neither all-important nor supremely important in life and, especially, in politics. It would be nice to have government officials who feel our pain rather than ones who act like supreme rulers and pretend to comprehend . We should care less about politicians pretend compassion and more about politicians respect for us; for our rights to accomplish individual dreams; our personal ability and responsibility, and to feel and heal our own pains without their interference. Phony Compassion is killing the very idea of the foundations of America: Personal happiness achieved after personal accomplishment and personal struggle.

“Doing good is often harder than do-gooders realize, but doing good is also more about the doing and the doer than it is about the good. Too often we treat gestures as the equivalent of deeds, and intentions as substitutes for personal actions and accomplishments.”

“Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.”
― Eric Hoffer
This quote is so true. It’s been mentioned in previous chapters but it is so true. And it was written many, many years ago.

If we look at civil rights – it was a grand cause, a just cause.  And it absolutely did make a difference. In 2008 we elected the first black president. Though certainly in politics, many black and women held positions long before Barack Obama.
But as I write this in 2015 – the modern civil rights movement that began in 1955 has been hijacked by “leaders” in America, certain celebrities, who would have us believe that there is still great oppression of blacks in American. It went from a movement, to a business (for Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, and the Obama’s), and now, it is a racket, stirring up anger and division and pitting groups against each other.
This is creating anger and violence instead of creative optimistic solutions.

Social Awareness T-shirts: Again, another trendy yet tribal “belonging”  signal: I CARE!! I’m with the times! But the majority of us don’t realize that we are actually being exploited by corporations who run under the guise of these social campaigns – and the exploiters are using our deep need for belonging and status, working on our emotions (right sided brain) to buy pink things in support of breast cancer (yet heart disease is the number one killer of women!). And the CEO of the Susan Komen foundation  in 2011 made almost a million dollars according to her tax records. Wow. Think of the money that could be going for research instead of a ridiculous salary for a position that is basically showing up to fundraisers and making champagne toasts!
I very rarely donate money to anything unless I know for a fact that the CEO isn’t living the high life – that they are actually spending the money on the cause they say they are (okay, I never donate to anything except my local SPCA and also I buy a poppy from the Vets on Veterans Day). Everything else, I either offer to donate my time, some Tweets or Facebook posts, or donate an actual item (toys, clothes, food).

Selling Superior Status (15)

We will pay attention to people/products/ideas that use 6 “magic” words with the promise to improve our lives. The magic words are:  Easier, Better, Faster, Healthier, Safer. Happier.

Because if we improve our life, we improve our status – if our life is better (at least on the surface), we feel more confident, more significant.

When people sell products or ideas, they try to appeal to buyers by promising a product or idea will make life better – most of the time, they are selling things that will make us feel we either belong to the group we wish to identify with, or we are better than others, or that life has no meaning, so live it up because what does it matter? You'll understand the 'no meaning so live it up' by the time you reach the end of the book.
 Often, if something is sold as ‘easier’ or ‘faster’  we are tempted because it saves us time. It’s human nature for us to try and save energy so we can use that energy to pursue other interests that are important to us– so we have a tendency to try things that promises us a short cut . Basically, what I’m saying is, that most of us are lazy! And we’ve gotten lazy because we’ve been led to believe that success can be instant. Just upload a video, have it go viral, and you’ll be instantly famous! This diet plan will give you instant success – in just 5 days you can lose 10 pounds!
Marketers/Exploiters also know that health (the loss of it) is one of our basic fears along with security (you and your family will be safe!), and happier, well, that’s what were all searching for, right?
Bottom line, all of these selling (marketing) points (Easier!Better! Faster!Safer!Healthier! Happier!) work on our desire to be successful, to be valued, so we have more chance of survival and  our life will have meaning.

It’s amazing, when you stop to consider how we are constantly searching and striving for improvement. Next time you go shopping or watch a commercial – try to catch yourself falling for the “IMPROVED” promise…or reading an article online or in a magazine  that promises to tell you what the secret to getting a good night sleep is, the secret to good sex, the secret to the best chocolate chip cookie, the secret to...
“What the advertiser needs to know is not what is right about the product but what is wrong about the buyer.”


While our desire for improving our life is commendable, we’re also easily distracted. We’ll give up tried and true methods (eat in moderation) for a new "scientifically proven diet program" if it promises us faster results and less sacrifice – but much of that attraction to the new plan is because it’s popular (it’s the new IT thing!), and you want to appear as if you’re just as clued in as the rest of the popular crowd. Or, it may not even be the ‘popular’ crowd – but it’s the crowd or group you identify with.
We become so preoccupied and lulled into a false sense of security that our attention is easily sidetracked by people who want to sell us something or want to control us for the sake of making them feel more powerful, more valuable.

Chapter one of Something That Will Change Your Life covered the 6 Basic Fears: Death, Disease, Dependency, Poverty, Insignificance and Isolation.
With the arrival of behavioral sciences and professional marketing in the late 1800’s came a combined assault on our ability to reason by using the 9 Tools Of Destruction, stoking our basic fears and “Selling” everything from politics to ideas to inventions to products to fund raisers…selling all these things was very  easy to do if it was sold using the false illusion of “experts” “science” “statistics” “studies.”
And so selling, marketing and advertising wasn’t just about liquid detergent and cars – it opened up a whole world of manipulation based on our desire for status and our instinctual fears.

Bacon Bananas Bernays (Chapter 14)

“Two most magic words “Studies show…”

“If a tabloid prints a sex crime, it's smut, but when The New York Times prints it, it's a sociological study.” Adolp Ochs – founder of the New York Times


Here’s a fascinating item: Ed Bernays (another guy from Austria/Germany who later moved to the United States and worked for President Woodrow Wilson and Calvin Coolidge) is known as one of the “fathers” of Advertising/Spin/Public Relations. And guess what? Ed Bernays was the nephew of Sigmund Freud.
 Bernays had grown up watching people fall under the spell of his Uncle Sigmund– simply because Freud stated he had “Science” backing his opinions.
Bernays learned that the fastest way to convince people was to say “According to Doctors…”  or “According to Scientists” and people were trusting because remember,  America was built on character – on people being honest and because we’ve been taught that the highly educated (doctors, scientists, etc) are superior.  

In 1925, the Beech-Nut Corporation was trying to sell bacon but no one was eating it. Bacon was not popular (hard to believe!), no one ate it for breakfast. Breakfast in the 1920’s consisted of a cup of coffee and toast. So Bernays approached a doctor with a simple question: Was a hearty breakfast better for a person or no breakfast? Once he had the obvious answer, he then asked whether bacon and eggs could be considered a hearty breakfast. Again the doctor agreed. That was all he needed; Bernays repeated this process with many more doctors, using this vague method to get doctors to agree that fried fatty meat (and I love bacon, by the way!) is a healthy way to start your day. Newspapers across the country treated the publicity stunt as a scientific study and ran story after story about how, if you weren't starting the day with a big plate full of bacon and eggs, you were signing your own death certificate. Beech-Nut's sales soared and everyone went bananas for bacon.
Speaking of bananas…
Bernays was hired by United Fruit to sell bananas. So Bernays created a mass market via sneaky methods. He found an old report by a doctor on the beneficial effects of bananas on infant digestion.  He created a fake/front organization with an innocent sounding yet convincing name: the Medical Review of Reviews. The MRR distributed copies of the report and relayed the information to mass media outlets such as newspapers and women’s magazines. The technique worked. Bananas were the new super food thanks to the approval of  ‘Modern Medical Science’ and earned the reputation of a healthy food, with United Fruit, of course, the undisclosed beneficiary of a doctored report which became a trend which has become a habit.

With bacon and bananas, Bernays realized how easily people fall for what he called ‘spinning’ and also what we call “doctoring the facts” All it takes is a few sentences of citing ‘scientific research’ and people are sold. Bernays believed that behind every campaign, the marketing/public relation guru should use the phrase ‘based on psychology and sociology.’

Aristotle believed that appealing to emotions (fears/desires) rather than reason was the fastest way to sell people on an idea.
Bernays took the wisdom from the great Philosophers and re-crafted, repackaged it as the “Science of Marketing.”
Bernays combined creative ‘science’ with bold stunts like the one he did to sell cigarettes at the Easter Parade in 1929.

In 1929 the American Tobacco Company had a problem. Men were smoking, but women were not. They hired Bernays and even though there was evidence that smoking was hazardous, Bernays was aware that women, who had only been allowed to vote since 1920, were still fighting to be taken seriously.
So he took the cigarette, called them “Torches of Freedom" and had his secretary Bertha Hunt, send a telegram to ‘beautiful’ women from a list of elite, wealthy, families. The list had been provided by the editor of popular women’s magazine – (this was long before Google and Facebook sold personal information!). Bernays secretary appealed to the women by using their emotions and desire to be significant.  He asked them if  “they would join in doing something that would strike a match to light women's freedom!”
The targeted women arrived and took part in a carefully staged event -  that was made to look like a spontaneous event - and marched down Fifth Avenue on Easter Sunday, 1929.
Bernays had notified the press beforehand to what was going to happen. Though it appeared to outsiders to be a spur-of-the-moment incident, everything had been perfectly scripted.  Bernays recast smoking as an act of women's liberation, the parade made headlines coast to coast, and convinced a generation of women to start smoking - increasing profits for Bernays tobacco company client.
Ironic, isn’t it, that our rational, practical, mind knew all along that  putting chemicals into our body wasn’t beneficial- HOWEVER, smoking was billed as a “women’s right – a women’s choice!” And by using attractive women in “news stories” sold a whole country on smoking; Beautiful rich women smoked. Smoking was a symbol of freedom. Smoking was cool, hip, and rebellious!
Bernays understood that people respond more quickly when using emotions –by using something that was socially and symbolically important. And the instinct in terms of cigarettes wasn't to convince women that buying cigarettes made any rational sense or that the money they would spend or what they were putting into their body made sense. It was to tap into something that was instinctively important; our biological desire to be significant and to be independent.  Bernays appealed t the women that they were sending the message of  freeing themselves from the idea it was okay for men to smoke but distasteful for women.
Everybody wants to be liberated, “free” and the cigarette sent a message of status (all the elite pretty girls are smoking), and stood for freedom (which is quite ironic because cigarettes made us addicted, dependent and sick).

These same techniques are still regularly used to market health fads, dietary supplements, and hijack social movements (feminism, civil rights, children’s rights, religious rights),  into selling often questionable products and/or ideas.

“Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.”
― Eric Hoffer

These techniques are nothing but illusions disguised as news, or issues on talk shows. They appear as scientific reports and studies from ‘independent testing firms’ - the primary recipients who you know nothing about (like bananas and the United Fruit Company,  bacon and the Beech-Nut Corporation) and these companies benefit while you pay.

The Middle American Information Bureau and the Medical Review Reviews were only two fake “front groups” of many that Bernays set up during his career to get out supposedly “neutral” information. If a client was willing to pay enough money, Bernays set up front groups for every client that he could, and he had over 400 clients over the years.

Do you ever notice that as soon as someone quotes a statistic…if  the statistic is coming from an authentic sounding institution, you don’t really question it.
Take this study from The International Psychology Institute (IPI): “In a factor analysis of 200 Men, Cognitive Scientists found women 80% more attractive if they were wearing red lipstick.”
What you don’t know it that the International Psychology Institute doesn’t really exist – it’s a P.O. Box somewhere in New York. The IPI is really a front group – an offshoot of a cosmetics corporation – and that ‘study’ will be posted on an advertisement for their new line of red lipstick.

If the organization sounds legitimate, we don’t question the studies. If the studies are being reported in a newspaper or on a major news network, we often believe them. Perhaps the organization is real, but understand that, just like Bernays always did, the studies or statistics have been manipulated to ‘prove’ their opinion is true.  But maybe what they aren’t telling you is in the survey of  men who found the women wearing red lipstick were more attractive it was because they were being comparing women wearing lipstick with pictures of women who had just rolled out of bed…or perhaps they were comparing a woman with a rock and posing the question; “Which do you find more attractive?”
Terms like “factor analysis” “ multifaceted scaling” and “ data clustering” all sound impressive but they are simply just words and phrases that sound really intellectual.

When Ed Bernays became involved in “Public Relations” there were only a few people in that field. Now, we have over 150,000 people using manipulated data to sell us ‘information’ which will help make us ‘better’ people.

Bernays, like his Uncle Freud, didn't believe in God. He believed the PR man was God: that PR people had to tame the unruly masses, to give them order and to lead them in a- “socially useful direction” But that social direction was one that served his clients.

As I write this, Hillary Clinton has been exposed for running a front organization called “The Clinton Foundation.” Millions of dollars were donated to it by people looking for favors and people who actually believed the foundation was doing good work. It’s not just democrats or republicans or marketers who do this; you see it all the time with people on social networks using social causes, ‘social awareness campaigns. ’  You see it on Go Fund Me sites…people pretending  they have cancer or are raising money to help a need family or ill dog…in essence, these are personal front organizations.

The solution is awareness – and some legwork. The bad news is, it might take a bit of time. The good news is, we have more access to information now more than ever. But always remember, don’t stop when your search leads you to “The Foundation For Women’s Equality” – don’t stop when you see 12 names listed on the board of directors. Sadly, you have to drill all the way down to make sure you aren’t being misled. That you are donating money to an actual organization that is using the money for what they say. That the organization citing statistics and studies isn’t a fake organization created by a company trying to tell you something. And that something, is often not just products, but also ideas (compassion) regarding social “justice.”
People rarely have the time to investigate – and that’s exactly what these front organizations are counting on.

Read more about Ed Bernays in the book "The Father of Spin" by Larry Tye

Psychology (13)

Psychology got its start around 1874 in Germany. Psychology gives temporary answers to our constant inquisitiveness, our thirst for questions, and insatiable curiosity of why we do what we do.

Religion replaced Greek and Roman mythology and ever so slowly Science was beginning to replace religion.

The elite wealthy began to view Religion as the poor man’s education; science, especially psychology,  was for those who were superior; those who could afford the price tag that came with many years of college education.  

But true science is objective investigation (left side of our brain) and behavioral science relies on emotion (the right side of our brain). Scientists argue that Psychology and Behavioral Science is not really a science at all because there are too many variables. When investigating or studying people, we are all different. We have the ability to lie, to mislead, or mask our emotions. An atom, a molecule, a star, can’t manipulate the scientist. A human, however, can.

Most experiments, studies, and theories that the first psychologists and social scientists created have been widely disproven.

 Sigmund Freud, the first well-known psychologist was from Austria (which later became Germany), announced with scientific flourish that humans have specific fears: they are afraid of death, ill health, and long for security, status and safety. That men are constantly striving to improve (for internal satisfaction as well as to improve status). 

This was nothing new…philosophers like Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle had made the same discoveries long  before but Freud repackaged the message and stated he had ‘Science’ to back it up. Most psychologists and ‘behavioral’ scientists are repackaging ancient philosophers observations in order to gain status and influence.

Freud needed to create something different, he needed something more than a new ‘spin’ on old ideas in order to gain status and credibility, set himself apart from others. He found that something by using sex. In the late 1800’s – talking about sex was taboo, rebellious. Sex in those days was quite mysterious compared to sex these days. Freud claimed he had new revelations about sex. Scintillating, shocking revelations! One theory Freud believed (and convinced) people of…was that every son wanted to sleep with his mother and every daughter wanted to sleep with her father.  His sexual ideas have since been proven wrong and at best, untestable, and have been replaced with new theories.  Freud’s theories were offensively sexist – but he was called an ‘intellectual,’ a doctor: so people naively believed him.

Something That Will Change Your Life

There is a famous quote in advertising: In order to sell the cure, you must first create the disease.

And basically, that is what Freud did. He was a marketer who appealed to our curious nature and offered us explanations not backed by mythology, but backed by ‘studies.’

 He also appealed to our desire for Status – you were “in the know” you were “superior” to others if you rattled off Freud’s studies. If anyone disagreed and questioned Freud’s creepy obsession with sex and children, the questioner was labeled as ignorant, or “out of it.” As I’ve tried to point out in previous chapters, we’ve been conditioned to believe that doctors, indeed, ‘intellectuals’ are much smarter than average “common” humans.

Freud tried to convince us that ‘common’ people have no understanding of our deepest needs and we could not trust our most traditional cultural beliefs.  

But it wasn’t just Freud. John Watson, the founder of behaviorism, proclaimed that free will was an illusion and that our behavior, in the end, was not unlike that of pigeons.

The Psychology scene exploded.

 More and more parents flocked to psychologists in an effort to raise ‘better’ children. The demand  created a new breed of  psychologist: “Child Psychologists.”

With so many child psychologists, I have to wonder how on earth did parents ever raise children for thousands of years without the aid of a behavioral doctor?

With the arrival of child psychologists, many parents no longer listened to their instincts; they relied on books written by doctors of psychology or sociology about how to raise their children because… intellectuals must surely know better than the instincts of a mother or father!

The first child psychologists in the 1900’s advocated being strict, cold; show no emotion. Then along came Benjamin Spock  in 1946 with a book about how to raise babies (I remember this book being on my mother’s book shelf). He went totally in the opposite direction and advised parents to allow children to do anything. Using Spock’s approach, parents began to feed self-indulgence instead of instilling self-control; homes were becoming child-centered. As parents elevated children’s “freedom of expression” and natural cravings, children became more outspoken, defiant and demanding instant gratification. In fact, they came to view gratification as a right.

At the time these psychologist published their books, they were praised and lauded and parents eagerly tried their methods. It was the New Improved Science.

Every few years – a new “scientific” method is discovered – and the old method (which, don’t forget, had been THE ANSWER) is then tossed to the side and mocked and the new ‘discovery’ is celebrated.

Parents and people who disagreed with the “New Science” are ridiculed, labeled old fashioned, stupid, ignorant…after all, what could parents who never went to school know about raising kids?

And so the cycle continues: Psychologists and doctors, come out with BRAND NEW SCIENCE on how to raise kids, or get healthier, or cure disease!

Anything touted by Doctors: advice, books, and articles…instant credibility. For ages, priests and religion guided people, now we are being guided by the superior science/medical community. Every week there is a new book or article with ‘breaking’ new ideas.

Doctors and Scientists are the new priests.

Take these popular “scientifically” proven ideas:

As I write this in the spring of 2015, putting butter in your coffee is now healthy. When, less than a year ago, we were warned that butter would cause our arteries to clog.

Years before that, margarine was the new, smart thing to eat (proven by science!) because it was healthy and better for you. People ‘in the know’ stopped using butter. Then, years after “smart” people had embraced the margarine revolution, NEW studies came out and said “Stop the presses! Chemicals are NOT good for you. Go back to butter!”

But, then butter became a villain yet again as NEW “scientific studies” show that DAIRY is causing harm to our body.

I may have believed this years ago, but after being told every few years that something was bad, then it was good, then it was bad again…I’ve finally realized to listen to my body; not a scientific study that is funded by a manufacturing corporation or a scientist/doctor ‘discovering’ something ‘new and improved”  to guarantee not only will you elevate your status if you believe him, it certainly won’t hurt that you’ll be elevating his status also.

Other odd scientific claims: Coffee beans digested whole by monkeys which are pooped out (yes, you read that correctly, POOPED out), and sold for ridiculous amount of money at high end kitchen stores because the beans (experts claim) offer the best nutrients.  These beans, called  Kopi Luwak, are expensive and cost 359.00 for 16 ounces (at the time of this writing).

We’ll suspend our rational mind, reason, instinct, and logic  – if science, “wellness experts”, doctors, or celebrities tell us so. 

For example fish eggs. Call it caviar and charge ridiculous amounts of money for it and claim it’s a rich man’s delicacy and it becomes a superior status symbol.

We don’t TRUST that we know what is best for us because we’ve been conditioned to believe we are not as worthy or as smart as those born into wealth who could afford to be educated while we common people worked in the fields or ‘blue collar’ jobs.

You are not stupid; you’ve only been conditioned to believe you are.