From: "Alamaine, IVe" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: October 27, 2008 4:52:36 PM PDT
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [ctrl] VERDICT OF HISTORY ON BUSH WILL BE HARSH
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://impeachforpeace.org/impeach_bush_blog/?p=5829
October 27, 2008
Bush "exhibit number one for the danger of having a nut job in the
oval office"
Filed under: Impeachment News - Mikael @ 8:31 am
VERDICT OF HISTORY ON BUSH WILL BE HARSH, AUTHOR SAYS
By Sherwood Ross
The judgment of history may well be that the United States has been
"taken
into, and kept in, the Iraq War by a guy who is not quite right in his
head," a
distinguished legal scholar says.
"It may take 25 or 50 years, but it is almost certain that one day this
character will be exhibit number one for the danger of having a nut
job in the
oval office," says Lawrence Velvel, dean of the Massachusetts School
of Law at
Andover.
Writing in his latest book, "An Enemy of the People,"(Doukathsan
Press) Velvel
said, "In everyday life, someone who refuses to recognize the actual
facts of
the world around him, and who instead lives in a dream world in his
head, is
regarded as not being sane, as being, to use the blunt words, insane
or crazy.
Why is it different when it is a national leader who refuses to
recognize facts
in the world and instead lives in a dream world in his head?"
Velvel goes on to say, "Most interesting is the idea that Bush suffers
from a
condition called `dry drunk´. Essentially, this means that even if one
eventually stops drinking, as Bush did, years of alcoholism cause
irreversible
damage to brain chemistry. Results of this damage include such Bushian
traits
as rigid judgmentalism, irritability, impatience, grandiosity, obsessive
thought patterns, incoherent speech and other unlovely characteristics."
"Bush also seems to have chacteristics," Velvel continues, "that,
whether or
not they are characteristic of `dry drunks´ are symptomatic of people
who don´t
fully have a grip. These include immense anger, exploitativeness,
arrogance,
lack of empathy, and difficulties arising from relationships with one´s
father."
"With regard to the specific analyses of Bush, there seems to be wide
agreement
that Bush is a sociopath, defined, one gathers, as someone who feels
no empathy
with others, who cannot feel for others, who does not feel or care for
their
pain (to use Clintonian jargon,") Velvel writes.
"That Bush is utterly devoid of empathy seems plainly true to me. Unlike
Lincoln or even Lying Lyndon Johnson, who sent people to their deaths
but
agonized over it, Bush is thought by the shrinks, and appears to the
lay eye,
to give not one damn about how many Americans he kills, let alone
Iraqis."
Explaining why Bush can´t feel guilt, Velvel writes: "Given his defense
mechanisms, one gathers, and his psychology of having to overcome
obstacles,
overcome his father, etc., one gathers that Bush is a sociopath (or
another
word for it, a psychopath). Using charm as a vehicle for
aggrandizement, he
can´t allow himself to feel guilt and so feels no empathy for all
those he
smashes up in his pursuit of is grandiosity and delusions."
Velvel professes amazement that a man of Bush´s character could rise
to the
White House: "One wondered how he could have been picked as the
nominee and
then elected. After all, it was clearly early-on that he not only had
been a
long-time drunk, but had failed at every business venture, so that
time and
again he had to be rescued by Daddy´s friends and wanna be friends."
He goes on to say, "Bush´s life refutes fundamental values we grew up
with:
hard work, competence, intelligence, modesty. His life, with its
drunkenness,
serial failures, lack of competence, repeated salvation via Daddy and
Daddy´s
friends, all followed by the presidency no less, and by disastrous ill-
considered policies, makes a joke of the values we absorbed as youths
and still
try to live by."
Living in his Father´s shadow, Velvel writes, "his own lack of
diligence and
intelligence caused him to be mediocre or a failure everywhere for
about 25
years; he was mediocre at Andover; he was mediocre at Yale; he was a
drunk to
the point where he could cure himself only by stopping cold turkey...
conceivably
he escaped a securities prosecution only because Daddy was president."
Velvel writes, "One view is that Bush has a narcissistic personality.
Due to
insecurities, he has constructed a grandiose vision of himself and is
thus
immune to the criticisms or views of those who do not go along with
his views.
Because he is no intellect (to put it mildly), he dismisses intellect
entirely,
and utilized his strength, personal affability, to win over others.
Narcissistically, he apparently will do anything to protect his psyche
from the
destruction of being shown wrong-including causing the deaths of
thousands of
Americans and Iraqis in pursuit of a mere long shot opportunity to
proceed."
The author believes it is necessary for psychiatrists to investigate
political
personalities to find out what makes them different from the rest of
us once in
power. "It seems to me that people in today´s America who seek and
reach office
are different from you and me and other decent people in this
society," Velvel
writes.
"They are willing to say and do things that would make a lot of the
decent
people gag, maybe make all of the decent people gag. Psychiatry should
investigate, should analyze, what kind of people these are who will
say and do
these things, and why they are like they are. Why investigate and
analyze this?
For the obvious reasons, so that we can know what we are faced with,
and can
start looking for and electing a better kind of person."
Dean Velvel is cofounder of the Massachusetts School of Law at
Andover, a law
school purposefully dedicated to providing minorities, immigrants, and
working-
class students a quality, affordable legal education. The dean has
been honored
for his contributions to the reform of legal education by The National
Law
Journal and has been described as a leader in the law school reform
movement by
The National Jurist.
(Sherwood Ross is a Miami-based writer who formerly worked for major
dailies
and wire services. Currently he is Media Consultant to Massachusetts
School of
Law at Andover. Contact him at [EMAIL PROTECTED] )
(Submitted directly to IFP by the author)
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Alamaine, IVe
Grand Forks, ND, US of A
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusion is called a
philosopher." - Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914)
"Being ignorant is not such a shame as being unwilling to learn." -
Poor Richard's Almanack, 1758 (Benjamin Franklin)
~~~~~~~
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