Listen to a reading of this article: ❖ If the working class had as much class solidarity as the ruling class has there never would've been a ruling class. ❖ Stealing someone's labor is worse than stealing their property, because it's theft of their life; you can replace property if you want, but you can't replace hours of life. And rigging the system so people need to work longer hours in order to survive is this form of theft at mass scale.
Your point cannot be overstated. Too many people who ought to know better still seem wrapped up in personalities: "Nancy Pelosi has got to go"; "AOC is such a phoney!" Both statements are true, but mask the hundred others just as bad waiting in the wings to replace them.
I am an old woman now and although I have always recognized how the bosses steal our lives through wage slavery, I didn't really recognize how much wear and tear they do on our bodies too.
When I was young and healthy, I took the bumps and bruises, strains and sprains in stride. But they have all come back to me now as arthritis, tendinitis and other aches and pains that may or may not require medical intervention in the end.
When I was climbing poles for the phone company in San Franciscco back in the 70s and 80s, coming down hard on my ankle did not hurt too long. It healed. And so did my back injury.
But now I need to use a stick to walk on that ankle and maybe a hip replacement from what was a minor injury at the time.
So my point is that the bosses don't just rob your time, they take a long-term toll on your physical body while begrudging health care and pensions for their workers.
My problem with Donald Trump isn’t Trump himself; in a country off 330 million people there are bound to be more than a few deranged ‘charismatic leader’ types. Those who suffer from anxiety, depression, low self-image, etc., deserve our compassion—but not psychopaths. They’re often great salesmen; attractive, charming, and confident, but have zero empathy for anyone except themselves. Unencumbered by conventional moral standards, anxiety, and self-doubt, they’re often ‘successful’ in their pursuits. As a detective I watched some pass lie detector tests when their statements were proven false. In short, they’re what every corporate lobbyist wants in a politician, what every shareholder wants in their CEO, and what both Democrats and Republicans want in their President. Voila, Trump! No, my problem isn’t Trump; it’s with his “supporters”. Regardless of Trump’s stated political positions—even if they were identical to those of Bernie Sanders— his behavior was so obviously and unmistakably arrogant, narcissistic, insulting and megalomaniacal—in short, everything parents warn their children not to be—it’s hard to understand how anyone could like, let alone trust him to lead the most powerful country on earth. Trump’s long history of failed and/or fraudulent business enterprises, bankruptcies, and stiffed creditors are exactly what one would expect from such a troubled individual. It’s outrageous to say that almost half the country who voted for Trump after 4 years of his lunacy share the values of a sociopathic bully, but please, somebody, refute it. What’s even more outrageous is that the other (establishment) half does too, and the Biden administration documents precisely that, as Noam Chomsky said, “Psychopaths rule the world.”
Lol. Your problem is with Trump, admit it. You can't separate it, it's an addiction. Your dopamine receptors have been thoroughly trained into it. You need those hits. Ask yourself how it serves you to keep insisting that he was "uniquely monstrous" in his "lunacy" and why you need to do it in paragraph after paragraph after paragraph, still desperately trying to convince everyone that OMB, when the world is actually burning down and your energy and focus is still on last year's bogeyman? Because it's obvious that putting so much time and energy into yesterday's news is still serving you. I'd ask you to "refute" that, but it will just be endless paragraphs of more of the same. Rehab now, those satisfying OMB hits are just going to get harder and harder to come by.
1. Your comments seem unrelated to my remarks, which speak for themselves. 2. I didn't say Trump was "uniquely monstrous"; in my last paragraph I said that Biden was just as bad. 3. Trump's psychopathy isn't "yesterday", it's prevalent today in both parties. 4. What's "OMB", the Office of Management and Budget"?
Let's see.."deranged, arrogant, narcissistic , megalomaniac, insulting, everything parents warn children not to be (uniquely monsterous).." should I go on? How over the top can you get? This blindness to the obsession and the need to breathe life into it at every given opportunity, (while completely denying that is what you are doing and then hiding behind other aspects of the topic at hand) is typical of the OMB afflicted. Or call it TDS if that rings a bell with you, in any case it's become beyond tiresome.
Trump’s behavior was so disturbing to the mental health community that in 2017 Yale psychiatrist, Dr. Bandy X. Lee authored a book, “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump” subtitled, ‘Twenty-seven psychiatrists, psychologists, and other mental health experts argue that, in Mr. Trump’s case, their moral and civic “duty to warn” America supersedes professional neutrality’. The book became a New York Times bestseller. In an interview with Dr. Bandy Lee by Ralph Nader, Lee, remarking on Trump’s mental condition, made a point of stressing how disturbing it was that so many voters could like, let alone vote, for such an obviously deranged and arrogant man. “His madness is catching, too. From the trauma people have experienced under the Trump administration to the cult-like characteristics of his followers, he has created unprecedented mental health consequences across our nation and beyond.” —Dr. Bandy X. Lee. This phenomenon is sometimes referred to as "shared psychosis" or "folie à millions" (madness by the millions) among followers, a phenomenon that has been well documented by renowned mental health experts such as Carl Jung and Erich Fromm. Symptoms are shared when a severely mentally-impaired person is placed in a position of influence and there is sustained exposure. The treatment is separation, after which most secondary persons will return to their baseline state, and takes care of the emotional part. It’s not all in our heads. It’s in his."
I'm delighted that you have a wisdom that's superior to the US mental health community and look forward to enjoying more of your "wisdom".
Oh, please. For every dozen Liberal Trump obsessed “professionals” there were a matching dozen Conservative Obama obsessed “professionals” that published endless articles about why Obama was a malignant narcissist and needed to be removed from office immediately. The difference is that the Obama obsessed “professionals” mercifully disappeared after Obama left office, where the OMB obsessed are still shoving their crap down everyone’s throats. And gloating about their own superiority in doing so..which is the really the key here, isn’t it?
There is Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) that the Democrats suffer from and something I'll call Trump Cult Syndrome (TCS). You suffer from the latter. There is nothing in your post that remotely resembles a response to "The Gala Report".
Yes, how dare I call out a progressive sacred cow? Why, it's just not permitted! I must be one of those Trump buffoons! That's the only reasonable explanation. Case closed. Back to business as usual.
I absolutely adored Trump. I think you misunderstand his attraction. He was colon hydrotherapy for the elite - and they very definitely needed it.
He was everything you say. He was a pretty nasty piece of work. He transgressed every norm of polite behaviour. And that was his attraction. I (we supporters?) looked on in complete disbelief that he could abscond with the US presidency. What a spectacular achievement, the greatest political achievement imaginable. And did he ever go for it - he ridiculed and lambasted, he stumbled and bumbled and rumbled all over conventional wisdom and how the world “should “work.
Please note I agree with our author Caitlin - her writings are nothing if not pained expressions of disbelief about how shitty this world is and how dishonest our ruling class act. Those who do deride Trump always point to his flouting of convention; Caitlin is telling us convention is murderous greed.
Trump for me was a four year tour de force of revenge and retribution : a high colonic.
Yeah yeah he did the usual bullshit of cutting taxes on the rich and generally did nothing to make things better. But for four years the president of the United States called the assholes, assholes.
While I understand your schadenfreude, at times I have it too, the experience was nothing like the colonic you describe. The spread of TDS and TCS was astounding. It is nearly impossible now to have a rational discussion.
Trump Derangement Syndrome: anything that Trump does must be evil.
Trump Cult Syndrome: anything Trump does was inspired by God.
Trump was evil.
Whether or not he was more evil than Hillary would have been, I cannot say.
Please refer to "The Gala Report" post on:
"This phenomenon is sometimes referred to as "shared psychosis" or "folie à millions" (madness by the millions) among followers, a phenomenon that has been well documented by renowned mental health experts such as Carl Jung and Erich Fromm."
The result is we have two "sides" screaming at each other but not acknowledging that both sides have provable points and outright fantasies.
IMHO Trump just piled on with "insanity" making it possible the even greater division between the "sides" of America. This Joe Rogan interview of Jimmy Dore explains: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiLGSVH_UPA Look at the last 5 minutes for Rogan's talk.
Like other cats, I am generally quiet and I have very sharp hearing. From time to time, I have crouched under chairs in C suites, read documents over the shoulders of secretaries, and flushed pesky rodents out of politicians' offices.
I am a cat and not a psychiatrist, but I have often been behind the closed doors when the decisions were made, and I can tell you that an awful lot of business and political and other leaders exhibit behavior indistinguishable from those of high-functioning sociopaths. "High-functioning" in the sense that that can fake normality and empathy more convincingly.
Although labor theft (theft of life as you so clearly elaborate) has been ongoing since before feudalism, corporate capitalism has elevated it to a new level, an art form in service to greed. Without the least fragment of shame. When our privatized insurers title themselves "Optima Health" and other twisted linguistic absurdities and oxymorons, our rage should be unbounded as they repeatedly use the standard capitalist model of cutting labor costs. This translates to not only stealing the labor of remaining overstretched medical/hospital staff, but uncounted lives of patients who die because of such under-staffing. This is pure sociopathy and its perpetrators deserve no less than isolation from the rest of humanity and the rest of the biosphere. I'd suggest some tiny volcanic island in the Pacific where they can all be huddled together to await their inundation by rising seas, except that I'd be hesitant to further pollute the oceans with their highly concentrated toxicity.
I agree with everything you say, save one. You blame the system, but humans keep recreating the systems. They seem to arise from something in ... I won’t say human nature, but something very deep in human habit, in the “collective unconscious,” maybe ever since agriculture, when people negan to be able to accumulate food and other goods and steal them from each other. The Euroid empires had the technology and the arrogance to ramp this way up.
There’s a book called Thr Parable of the Tribes that states that if one tribe becomes aggressive toward its neighbors, they have to remake themselves in its image or be taken over, expropriated and enslaved. This is the vicious cycle: self;-defense, but also envy and emulation. One successful greedhead gives others ideas.
Revolution: you empower a cadre to expropriate the billionaire oppressors. Then they keep it and become the new billionaire oppressors.
Habits, conditioning, self-harm, dehumanizin/objectivizing of others, dogma can all be unlearned. Most have this potential. They need opportunity and encouragement.
"If the working class had as much class solidarity as the ruling class has there never would've been a ruling class."
Romantic fantasies and Les Miz aside, as long as the 1% stay united, revolutions do not happen when the 99% revolt and overthrow the 1%, because the 1% will do whatever it takes to retain power.
Revolutions happen when the 1% are divided amongst themselves, usually as a result of a disagreement how to respond to external threat or a dispute over how to divvy up spoils.
"Biden may be stopping all progress and breaking most of his campaign promises, but he did also campaign on bringing back the Obama years so in that sense he kept all his campaign promises."
Um, no. He has not reinstated JCPOA (the Iran pact), nor has he stopped the prosecution of Julian Assange. He has not "brought back the Obama years," as awful as that might be given Obama's actions in Libya, Syria, Yemen and Ukraine.
Not sure where you came from but you have emerged in my consciousness as a clear and powerful voice. I look forward to your comments.
Your point cannot be overstated. Too many people who ought to know better still seem wrapped up in personalities: "Nancy Pelosi has got to go"; "AOC is such a phoney!" Both statements are true, but mask the hundred others just as bad waiting in the wings to replace them.
Another great piece. Thank you, Caitlin.
I am an old woman now and although I have always recognized how the bosses steal our lives through wage slavery, I didn't really recognize how much wear and tear they do on our bodies too.
When I was young and healthy, I took the bumps and bruises, strains and sprains in stride. But they have all come back to me now as arthritis, tendinitis and other aches and pains that may or may not require medical intervention in the end.
When I was climbing poles for the phone company in San Franciscco back in the 70s and 80s, coming down hard on my ankle did not hurt too long. It healed. And so did my back injury.
But now I need to use a stick to walk on that ankle and maybe a hip replacement from what was a minor injury at the time.
So my point is that the bosses don't just rob your time, they take a long-term toll on your physical body while begrudging health care and pensions for their workers.
I submitted your article to The Unz Review
https://www.unz.com/news/
Good one.
Caitlin, excellent article.
My problem with Donald Trump isn’t Trump himself; in a country off 330 million people there are bound to be more than a few deranged ‘charismatic leader’ types. Those who suffer from anxiety, depression, low self-image, etc., deserve our compassion—but not psychopaths. They’re often great salesmen; attractive, charming, and confident, but have zero empathy for anyone except themselves. Unencumbered by conventional moral standards, anxiety, and self-doubt, they’re often ‘successful’ in their pursuits. As a detective I watched some pass lie detector tests when their statements were proven false. In short, they’re what every corporate lobbyist wants in a politician, what every shareholder wants in their CEO, and what both Democrats and Republicans want in their President. Voila, Trump! No, my problem isn’t Trump; it’s with his “supporters”. Regardless of Trump’s stated political positions—even if they were identical to those of Bernie Sanders— his behavior was so obviously and unmistakably arrogant, narcissistic, insulting and megalomaniacal—in short, everything parents warn their children not to be—it’s hard to understand how anyone could like, let alone trust him to lead the most powerful country on earth. Trump’s long history of failed and/or fraudulent business enterprises, bankruptcies, and stiffed creditors are exactly what one would expect from such a troubled individual. It’s outrageous to say that almost half the country who voted for Trump after 4 years of his lunacy share the values of a sociopathic bully, but please, somebody, refute it. What’s even more outrageous is that the other (establishment) half does too, and the Biden administration documents precisely that, as Noam Chomsky said, “Psychopaths rule the world.”
Lol. Your problem is with Trump, admit it. You can't separate it, it's an addiction. Your dopamine receptors have been thoroughly trained into it. You need those hits. Ask yourself how it serves you to keep insisting that he was "uniquely monstrous" in his "lunacy" and why you need to do it in paragraph after paragraph after paragraph, still desperately trying to convince everyone that OMB, when the world is actually burning down and your energy and focus is still on last year's bogeyman? Because it's obvious that putting so much time and energy into yesterday's news is still serving you. I'd ask you to "refute" that, but it will just be endless paragraphs of more of the same. Rehab now, those satisfying OMB hits are just going to get harder and harder to come by.
1. Your comments seem unrelated to my remarks, which speak for themselves. 2. I didn't say Trump was "uniquely monstrous"; in my last paragraph I said that Biden was just as bad. 3. Trump's psychopathy isn't "yesterday", it's prevalent today in both parties. 4. What's "OMB", the Office of Management and Budget"?
Let's see.."deranged, arrogant, narcissistic , megalomaniac, insulting, everything parents warn children not to be (uniquely monsterous).." should I go on? How over the top can you get? This blindness to the obsession and the need to breathe life into it at every given opportunity, (while completely denying that is what you are doing and then hiding behind other aspects of the topic at hand) is typical of the OMB afflicted. Or call it TDS if that rings a bell with you, in any case it's become beyond tiresome.
Trump’s behavior was so disturbing to the mental health community that in 2017 Yale psychiatrist, Dr. Bandy X. Lee authored a book, “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump” subtitled, ‘Twenty-seven psychiatrists, psychologists, and other mental health experts argue that, in Mr. Trump’s case, their moral and civic “duty to warn” America supersedes professional neutrality’. The book became a New York Times bestseller. In an interview with Dr. Bandy Lee by Ralph Nader, Lee, remarking on Trump’s mental condition, made a point of stressing how disturbing it was that so many voters could like, let alone vote, for such an obviously deranged and arrogant man. “His madness is catching, too. From the trauma people have experienced under the Trump administration to the cult-like characteristics of his followers, he has created unprecedented mental health consequences across our nation and beyond.” —Dr. Bandy X. Lee. This phenomenon is sometimes referred to as "shared psychosis" or "folie à millions" (madness by the millions) among followers, a phenomenon that has been well documented by renowned mental health experts such as Carl Jung and Erich Fromm. Symptoms are shared when a severely mentally-impaired person is placed in a position of influence and there is sustained exposure. The treatment is separation, after which most secondary persons will return to their baseline state, and takes care of the emotional part. It’s not all in our heads. It’s in his."
I'm delighted that you have a wisdom that's superior to the US mental health community and look forward to enjoying more of your "wisdom".
Oh, please. For every dozen Liberal Trump obsessed “professionals” there were a matching dozen Conservative Obama obsessed “professionals” that published endless articles about why Obama was a malignant narcissist and needed to be removed from office immediately. The difference is that the Obama obsessed “professionals” mercifully disappeared after Obama left office, where the OMB obsessed are still shoving their crap down everyone’s throats. And gloating about their own superiority in doing so..which is the really the key here, isn’t it?
I suggest you watch some Netflix movies, perhaps the "Rambo" series; they're exciting!
There is Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) that the Democrats suffer from and something I'll call Trump Cult Syndrome (TCS). You suffer from the latter. There is nothing in your post that remotely resembles a response to "The Gala Report".
Yes, how dare I call out a progressive sacred cow? Why, it's just not permitted! I must be one of those Trump buffoons! That's the only reasonable explanation. Case closed. Back to business as usual.
Again, a response that ignores the point, but just makes offense.
Only from your own quite lofty viewpoint.
I absolutely adored Trump. I think you misunderstand his attraction. He was colon hydrotherapy for the elite - and they very definitely needed it.
He was everything you say. He was a pretty nasty piece of work. He transgressed every norm of polite behaviour. And that was his attraction. I (we supporters?) looked on in complete disbelief that he could abscond with the US presidency. What a spectacular achievement, the greatest political achievement imaginable. And did he ever go for it - he ridiculed and lambasted, he stumbled and bumbled and rumbled all over conventional wisdom and how the world “should “work.
Please note I agree with our author Caitlin - her writings are nothing if not pained expressions of disbelief about how shitty this world is and how dishonest our ruling class act. Those who do deride Trump always point to his flouting of convention; Caitlin is telling us convention is murderous greed.
Trump for me was a four year tour de force of revenge and retribution : a high colonic.
Yeah yeah he did the usual bullshit of cutting taxes on the rich and generally did nothing to make things better. But for four years the president of the United States called the assholes, assholes.
While I understand your schadenfreude, at times I have it too, the experience was nothing like the colonic you describe. The spread of TDS and TCS was astounding. It is nearly impossible now to have a rational discussion.
What is TDS & TCS?
Trump Derangement Syndrome: anything that Trump does must be evil.
Trump Cult Syndrome: anything Trump does was inspired by God.
Trump was evil.
Whether or not he was more evil than Hillary would have been, I cannot say.
Please refer to "The Gala Report" post on:
"This phenomenon is sometimes referred to as "shared psychosis" or "folie à millions" (madness by the millions) among followers, a phenomenon that has been well documented by renowned mental health experts such as Carl Jung and Erich Fromm."
The result is we have two "sides" screaming at each other but not acknowledging that both sides have provable points and outright fantasies.
If only it was that simple. Sigh.
Thank you for that, I very much agree with you, America has become two solitudes.
Why did you dispute my colonic shtick? I thought it was clever and scatological, that’s why I use the word assholes.
IMHO Trump just piled on with "insanity" making it possible the even greater division between the "sides" of America. This Joe Rogan interview of Jimmy Dore explains: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiLGSVH_UPA Look at the last 5 minutes for Rogan's talk.
You would know!
Like other cats, I am generally quiet and I have very sharp hearing. From time to time, I have crouched under chairs in C suites, read documents over the shoulders of secretaries, and flushed pesky rodents out of politicians' offices.
I am a cat and not a psychiatrist, but I have often been behind the closed doors when the decisions were made, and I can tell you that an awful lot of business and political and other leaders exhibit behavior indistinguishable from those of high-functioning sociopaths. "High-functioning" in the sense that that can fake normality and empathy more convincingly.
Although labor theft (theft of life as you so clearly elaborate) has been ongoing since before feudalism, corporate capitalism has elevated it to a new level, an art form in service to greed. Without the least fragment of shame. When our privatized insurers title themselves "Optima Health" and other twisted linguistic absurdities and oxymorons, our rage should be unbounded as they repeatedly use the standard capitalist model of cutting labor costs. This translates to not only stealing the labor of remaining overstretched medical/hospital staff, but uncounted lives of patients who die because of such under-staffing. This is pure sociopathy and its perpetrators deserve no less than isolation from the rest of humanity and the rest of the biosphere. I'd suggest some tiny volcanic island in the Pacific where they can all be huddled together to await their inundation by rising seas, except that I'd be hesitant to further pollute the oceans with their highly concentrated toxicity.
Critical Race Theory is about "The System". Look at how it has been weaponized to support the system.
A slight disagreement on property. It takes "life units" to obtain property.
I agree with everything you say, save one. You blame the system, but humans keep recreating the systems. They seem to arise from something in ... I won’t say human nature, but something very deep in human habit, in the “collective unconscious,” maybe ever since agriculture, when people negan to be able to accumulate food and other goods and steal them from each other. The Euroid empires had the technology and the arrogance to ramp this way up.
There’s a book called Thr Parable of the Tribes that states that if one tribe becomes aggressive toward its neighbors, they have to remake themselves in its image or be taken over, expropriated and enslaved. This is the vicious cycle: self;-defense, but also envy and emulation. One successful greedhead gives others ideas.
Revolution: you empower a cadre to expropriate the billionaire oppressors. Then they keep it and become the new billionaire oppressors.
How do you fight THAT? Extinction?
Habits, conditioning, self-harm, dehumanizin/objectivizing of others, dogma can all be unlearned. Most have this potential. They need opportunity and encouragement.
"If the working class had as much class solidarity as the ruling class has there never would've been a ruling class."
Romantic fantasies and Les Miz aside, as long as the 1% stay united, revolutions do not happen when the 99% revolt and overthrow the 1%, because the 1% will do whatever it takes to retain power.
Revolutions happen when the 1% are divided amongst themselves, usually as a result of a disagreement how to respond to external threat or a dispute over how to divvy up spoils.
"Biden may be stopping all progress and breaking most of his campaign promises, but he did also campaign on bringing back the Obama years so in that sense he kept all his campaign promises."
Um, no. He has not reinstated JCPOA (the Iran pact), nor has he stopped the prosecution of Julian Assange. He has not "brought back the Obama years," as awful as that might be given Obama's actions in Libya, Syria, Yemen and Ukraine.
Other than that, spot on!
Thanks!