FTAC – The Question was “Why ISIS Now?”

05 Friday Sep 2014

Posted by commart in Facsimile Bipolar Political Sociopathy, Islamic Small Wars, Political Psychology

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malignant narcissism, political psychology

I would prefer venturing a metaphysical answer, but possibly the truth is practical: modern transportation x communications plus the unrest you mention create opportunity for the loose (with energy) to be seduced and moved to the fields of battle, which battle exists primarily in correspondence with a kind of personality. Aligned with Hitler’s famous question, “Who says I am not under the special protection of God?” are so many others asserting the validity of their own cosmic favor, whether of blood or “blood and soil”, of scholarly pedigree (who studied with whom), of nationalist superiority (so the Dallas mosque appears to have traded away a Turkish imam — Yusuf Kavakci — or one recently, an American, schooled — or groomed — in KSA). As an Out There malignant narcissist, Baghdadi in his craziness chose to exceed more limits than anyone else and press his case along the political lines of the Islamic political program _as her perceives it_ by asserting a direct line of descent from Muhammad and citing every aspect of legitimacy congruent with that assertion.

In the secular version of a similar but very different story, Viktor Orban in Hungary has been laying the groundwork for an autocratic nationalist socialist regime, claiming that such an organization produces greater wealth than would a democracy (which is true when the wealth is stolen under cover of an encompassing ideology). “Khamenei-Putin-Orban” has been the line I’ve been drawing on that, and while it doesn’t make sense in terms of state interests or ends, it makes sense in personality and the desire of each to maintain their unique feudal systems.

I’m not a know-it-all.

I’m a frustrated writer who has developed a broad awareness of some things and seems to enjoy spinning out these in-a-nutshell opinions. The part having to do with “the malignant narcissist” has held up well lo these many years; other aspects having to do with the complicity of followers and of the silent plus, at times, the genius of these loose or unhinged personalities seem to me much more troublesome.

One understands in motivation the want of greatness in one career or another, and then too one may recognize the “reparative narcissist” as well as the malignant one, but how the malignant keep sucking in their shock troops and getting their barbed wire around the lives of tens of thousands of luckless souls, from Gaza to Waziristan, only God, nature, and the universe may know.

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Aside

13 Sunday Jul 2014

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Islamic Small Wars, Political Psychology

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Islam, malignant narcissism, religion

FTAC –

My campaign is not against Muslims.

What I attempt to address, in general, is a deeply feudal intellectual environment and system that subjugates and destroys humanity by promoting and sustaining in its place the ruthless force that is the will of tyrants.

There’s portal enough right here for covering the region from “narcissistic mortification” to “malignant narcissism” to “narcissistic supply”.

We may not fully understand how or why fascists develop their “popularity” through the subjugation and sadistic control of their minions, but they do, and while events on the ground play out, some will circle these processes in mind — and processes in political psychology — to continuously draw down the reach and scope of that deeply anti-human, anti-God, and anti-social but globally distributed behavior.

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FTAC – On Turkish Courts Indicting Israeli Military in Relation to the Mavi Marmara Incident

03 Tuesday Jun 2014

Posted by commart in Anti-Semitism, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Facsimile Bipolar Political Sociopathy, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Islamic Small Wars, Political Psychology, Psychology

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anti-Semitism, dictatorship, Erdogan, fascism, malignant narcissism, Turkey

The “Gaza Boat Show” and Mavi Marmara incident trace back to deeply anti-Semitic and terrorist enthusiasms, and not only should there not have been a “compensation package” — plain political extortion! — drawn from Israel, but this drift in Turkish politics should have been stopped cold by the Turks themselves exactly when and where it started. God willing, most will understand the only true axis in conflict and conflicted Islamic-majority state politics has to do with the despotic vs the democratic. What PM Erdogan’s government and courts have done: despotic. Evil.

Source of inspiration: Schanzer, Jonathan and Merve Tahiroglu. “Schanzer and Tahiroglu: When Turkey has problems, Israel always gets the blame.” National Post, June 3, 2014.

In politics, anti-Semitism has become the signal of the criminal and weak: it’s expressed through disingenuous speech enforced, when it can be, by the tactics of political mafia. In Turkey, Prime Minister Erdogan has been tripped in his tracks a time or two by a passionate Kamalist and otherwise mixed opposition, but when the heat in the streets diminishes, he returns to the comfort of his script.

Much of what I would bring to bear in telegraphic thought has been stabilized on a few BackChannels pages: “Malignant Narcissism“, for example, and there’s another most relevant here: “Paranoid Delusional Narcissistic Reflection of Motivation“.

Appeasement fails to appease the needs of such a personality, and, in fact, encourages its development.

Speaking to the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations forum in Vienna on Wednesday, Erdoğan made the following remark: “Just as with Zionism, anti-Semitism and fascism, it has become impossible not to see Islamophobia as a crime against humanity.”

Shwayder, Maya. “Erdogan’s Anti-Zionist Comments Draws Criticism From West, But Typical For Turkey These Days.” International Business Times, March 1, 2013.

Whatever Prime Minister Erdogan may be thinking, and that may include possession of the favor of God as affirmed by Turkish realpolitik, his personality would seem to be asking a fair political question: why stop if not stopped?

Related Reference

In reverse chronological order —

Castillo, Mariano. “Turkish cops harass CNN reporter on air.” CNN, May 31, 2014.

Gezi, Kadri. “Gezi resistance anniversary recalls impact on Turkey.” Al Monitor, May 29, 2014.

Gursel, Kadri. “Erdogan’s dictator defense.” Al Monitor, May 25, 2014.

Watson, Ivan and Alan Duke. “Turkey’s Prime Minister Erdogan declares victory after local elections.” CNN, March 31, 2014.

Fisher, Max. “Here’s the video of Turkey’s prime minister comparing Zionism to fascism.” The Washington Post, May 19, 2013;

Ynet News. “It’s all personal: Op-ed: PM Erdogan’s venomous verbal attacks on Israel do not reflect Turkish people’s opinion of Israel.” March 3, 2013;

Ynet News. “Erdogan’s long-term plan: Op-ed: Turkish PM systematically imposing Islamic law; sense of helplessness, rage spreads.” September 12, 2012.

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Aside

FTAC – Focusing on Dictatorship

19 Monday May 2014

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Political Psychology

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dictatorship, malignant narcissism, political psychology, politics

As dictatorships inspire or motivate conflicts worldwide, it may be worth taking a moment to delve into the psychology involved. Getting a handle on “malignant narcissism”, “narcissistic supply”, “narcissistic mortification” and similar other terms may help open some windows and let in some insight into how cycles of despotism and subjugation come about, how they work, and why they are so difficult to diminish.

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In political psychology, one might find the principles simple enough but the machinery complex and difficult to take apart and rebuild.

As much may characterize the experiences of the states now collected under the rubric “Arab Spring” and those continuing to suffer along within systems of corruption, despotism, and patronage.

To readers even loosely in the field, whether in academe or, as I seem to be, in pseudo-academe, a model like, oh let’s just make one up, “dictatorship –> narcissism –> political and social control of others –> sadism” may beg a “so what else you got?” but what informs that apprehension may not be universal: do the subjugated know that those they have entrusted with their destiny are actually using them to abet their own aggrandizement and glorification?

Have those in the path of a Bashar al-Assad (there are many like him today) understand what echo in themselves facilitates his progress while compromising their own in their efforts to defend their people.

In the olden days, one could flee a troubled space, wander around lost for a while, perhaps create a more congenial environment for one’s own, but in a world compressed intellectually by the system on which you are reading this and physically by jets and supertankers and superhighways, where is the someplace else?

Well, there is a someplace else: the language of the mind, i.e., that which informs political concepts, including self-concept and ideas about others plus ideas about the world.

The Internet has brought about the appearance of a new global intelligentsia — with Facebook buddies from Riyadh to Islamabad, I think I can support that suggestion — and if we can take a firm step where the dynamics of dictatorship are concerned, we might allay, diminish, or eliminate much sorrow otherwise guaranteed by our ignorance with regard to a basic political and social psychology concept.

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Ukraine – GlasNo and ParaStrikeYa

04 Tuesday Mar 2014

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Political Psychology

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aristocrats, dictatorship, malignant narcissism, Putin, Russia, Ukraine, Yanukovych

German Chancellor Angela Merkel telephoned Putin the other day and found him out of touch with reality. “In another world,” she said. He lives, like the Ottoman sultan of old, in a Topkapi Palace of his own creation.

Richard Cohen: Putin’s folly in Crimea will prove costly – The Washington Post

* * *

Putin and me: 19th Century guys.

Putin OWNS a state.

I own a state of mind.

It’s not the greatest show on earth, but it’s mine.

Legally.

Basically, I mumble along (at my desk), not an oil well in sight, while Putin lives lives large, controlling state media and supporting with impunity two of the cruelest absolutists among human powers on earth: Bashir al-Assad, who some time ago sunk to dropping “barrel bombs” on children, and the religiously kleptocratic Ayatollah Khamenei.

* * *

The Tea House.Former Ukranian president Viktor Yanukovych’s Villa on the Crimea peninsula. – YouTube

I would not begrudge the wealthy their compounds, but how they get them or, if having gotten lucky — right place, right time, right man — like Khodorkovsky, how they manage the windfall might matter some to the surrounding public.

Khodorkovsky, of course, queried Putin directly over corruption, and the rest is history + pardon before Sochi + life in voluntary exile.

Speaking of Khodorkovsky, it appears he’s back in politics!

Brave man.

Khodorkovsky Offers to Mediate in Ukraine – WSJ.com; yesterday: Mikhail Khodorkovsky Comments on Ukraine Crisis | Mikhail Khodorkovsky

Among those best of breed in state-based thieving, Viktor Yanukovych, (former?) owner of the above-toured “tea house” — barely earns a ribbon, but he knows himself well enough to have skedaddled back to the shelter from whence he came.

I doubt Yanukovych will get his country back. Regarding his private properties, I’ve no idea whether any or all may be considered seized by the revolution or held for legal private reoccupation.

Related on Yanukovich’s properties: Ukraine protestors storm estate of fugitive president Viktor Yanukovich | Mail Online – 2/22/2014; Yanukovych, the luxury residence and the money trail that leads to London | openDemocracy – 6/8/2012 – backgrounder on Mezhyhirya.

Perhaps Putin and friends will put him up in a larger living space for a while:

Putin’s palace on the Black Sea for $ 1 billion (HD) – YouTube

To Putin’s credit, ownership has been long denied and press played to the effect that some unknown other Russian oligarch owns the place.

Uh huh.

* * *

As representatives of the Ukrainian Navy command in Sevastopol, nobody swore self-proclaimed “government of Crimea” and left the service. In addition, there were no cases dizertirstva Ukrainian military in Crimea, except the fact of treason former commander of the Ukrainian Navy Denis Berezovsky, writes TSN .

Источник: http://investigator.org.ua/news/120807/ Military units in Crimea remained loyal to Ukraine | Center for Investigative Journalism

In the middle east’s “Arab Spring”, revolutions have gone the way of the decisions made by senior military in the states involved. Mubarak’s army, for example, failed to intercede on behalf of his attempt to establish a family dynasty; however, having given the Muslim Brotherhood it’s chance to lead Egypt to glory, it chose to support the Egyptian People in ejecting Morsi’s party and dealing back to itself the shepherding of the state back to modernity and renewed hopes for a more earnest and moderate and helpful democracy.

Ukraine’s military would seem know the state it represents.

Additional Reference

Perestroika and Glasnost

Russia sets sights on Ukraine warships as U.S. threatens economic punishment, Pentagon suspends military ties – NY Daily News

Putin: Russia has no plans to annex Ukraine’s Crimea region – CNN.com

Russian apartment bombings – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

BBC News – Moscow theatre siege: Questions remain unanswered – 10/24/2012:

According to the results of a 2010 opinion poll, 74% of Russians did not fully trust the official version of events.

A group of victims and their relatives sued the Russian government, demanding an open investigation into the case and declassification of the relevant information. In January 2003 the Tverskoy court in Moscow rejected the claims.

BBC News – Putin: Russia not yet sending troops into Ukraine

Ukraine: Putin claims ‘unconstitutional takeover’ – live – Telegraph – 3/3/2014: “The acting president is not legitimate. The legitimate president is Yanukovich.”

Eugene Robinson: With Ukraine crisis, the U.S. has a credibility problem – The Washington Post

Richard Cohen: Putin’s folly in Crimea will prove costly – The Washington Post.

Viktor Yanukovych: From partner to violent kleptocrat – UPI.com – 2/14/2014.

Merkel tells Putin of her concern over Ukraine in call | Reuters – 2/28/2014.

Occupation of Crimea | Center for Investigative Journalism – (machine translation may be artless but it works).

Obama thrust into role as leader of the ‘West’ | The Times of Israel

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Syria – al-Qaeda – Putin – Obama – American Isolationism – Foreign Constituent Independence

29 Wednesday Jan 2014

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Fast News Share, Islamic Small Wars, Politics, Religion, Syria

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Tags

dictatorship, foreign affairs, humanism, malignant narcissism, Obama, political, politics, Putin, Syria

The United States has picked up where it left off more than a month ago and started shipping nonlethal aid to Syria in hopes that al Qaeda won’t seize it and keep it from reaching its intended rebel fighting recipients.

U.S. restarts aid to Syria, hoping al Qaeda won’t seize it again – Washington Times – 1/28/2014.

Officials may have strengthened the chain of custody by winnowing down the trustworthy to “Free Syrian Army Supreme Military Council members”.

Last night’s State of the Union Address by President Obama emphasized domestic economic progress and de-emphasized foreign policy, and that to the extent that American involvement in the Islamic Small Wars appears to have been pared back to the 12-year-presence in Afghanistan and the diminishing of Islamist strength in that theater with but a nod to the whack-a-mole games played with drones and special forces and familiar to Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia.

* * *

The number of al-Qaeda linked fighters active in Syria has mushroomed from 2,000 to more than 30,000 in just two years, a senior Israeli intelligence official has warned . . . .

Over 30,000 al-Qaeda linked fighters’ in Syria, Israeli official claims – Telegraph – 1/25/2014.

Syrians, ordinary Syrians, Syrians who bake bread or lay brick, Syrians who were hungry three years ago at the hands of their kleptocrat government and sought a better deal for themselves, have been suffering mightily between the malignancies of their regime and a now strong portion of the regime’s challengers.

Where’s Putin now?

Not a word.

Web search “Syria Putin al-Qaeda” and the top page list comes back with the mud slung in early September: it’s the Americans that have backed al-Qaeda.

We know it’s not true.

Americans have backed the above mentioned “Free Syrian Army” led, nominally, at least, by General Salim Idris. That army has found itself forked between the brutal dictator — this is one who flew jets against large noncombatant populations — and the equally unconstrained primitives of the al-Qaeda affiliates.

Read the still recent headlines:

FSA chief: Free National Army is a pipe dream « ASHARQ AL-AWSAT – 1/16/2014.

‘We don’t have long,’ say Syrian rebels locked in battle with Al Qaeda, Assad | Fox News – 1/17/2014.

President Obama turned up the populist card last night with brags about progress in the American system within its borders, from energy independence to health care, and while he proffered continued support for nascent democracies in war torn space, he made clear that American troops were staying at home.

* * *

“Dozens of Antonov 124s (Russian transport planes) have been bringing in armored vehicles, surveillance equipment, radars, electronic warfare systems, spare parts for helicopters, and various weapons including guided bombs for planes,” a Middle East security source said.

“Russian advisers and intelligence experts have been running observation UAVs around the clock to help Syrian forces track rebel positions, analyze their capabilities, and carry out precision artillery and air force strikes against them,” said the source, who declined to be identified.

Report: Russia stepping up military aid to Syria’s Assad | JPost | Israel News – 1/17/2014.

Perhaps in Putin’s cold political calculus, Syria will be held in The Bear’s paw at any price to Syria’s humanity.

President Bashar Assad’s military and the Free Syrian Army may wake up to realize that their enmity may be misdirected, for the true axis is not, has never been, Assad vs al-Qaeda but rather The People vs Assad. Forget about that old rusty post-Soviet chain: Russia – Syria – Iran | Saudi Arabia – NATO – America.

Syria is.

Syria exists for Syrians.

Syrians internally displaced or made refugee by war — about nine million souls (6.5 million IDPs; 2.1 million refugees) — need peace and home for themselves, and all they have for getting that are two armies, in body, and their differential in leaderships, that should be the last to be at their own throats.

As much hell comes from misguidance and propaganda helped along by a surrounding sea of greed.

Obama’s America with NATO returned to a defensive posture would seem to have zero interest in intervention in Syria apart from keep General Idris’s enterprise in sufficient weaponry for maintaining the three-way stalemate while talk-talk-talk fills time.

Putin’s Russia, which well may view Syria as part of its post-Soviet inheritance, seems immune to humanitarian overtures apart from bending, twisting, and spinning it some around Bashar al-Assad, who in state propaganda and RT has been made to look like a blameless angel.

So far as may be gleaned from the news online, Putin’s in it for the money and to maintain an anti-western post in a client buffer.

Compared to Putin’s glory — and how glorious that glory will be at the $50 billion Winter Olympics in Sochi — the depth and expanse of civilian Syrian suffering, in state and splayed out in the refugee camps of hosting neighbors, would seem by comparison invisible.

Here’s another cycle in headers:

Russia And China Provide Practically No Aid To Syrian Refugees | ThinkProgress – 9/3/2013.

Russia Provides $10M to Syrian Refugees | World | RIA Novosti – 10/1/2013.

Russia to Send Additional Humanitarian Aid for Syrian Refugees in Lebanon — Naharnet – 11/25/2013.

Donors Offer $2.4 Billion to Aid Syrian Civilians, but U.N. Says More Is Needed – NYTimes.com – 1/15/2014.

Get the picture?

Perhaps this will help: Russian President Vladimir Putin’s $50-billion Olympic Games | Toronto Star – 6/25/2014.

Disclaimer: I confess I now write with a “nice pen”, acknowledged as such by an expert. It’s best feature is its 21 karat gold medium-fine nib, so I know a little bit about fine things too! But my fine things would seem fit to living in a cabin, which is more or less how I live (but I can dream).

* * *

I have seen the face of suffering and hate online in many faces. Someone has been lied to or manipulated; someone has a mind confined to state media or a wallet meagerly fattened by the patronage of a despot, a shameful situation where conscience and ethics have not been entirely extinguished. What may be done to repair that person? Or, collectively, such people captive to closed information (remember: mouth – ear – mind – heart) systems?

I don’t know.

I do know the world online is larger than the space in which I live and the freedom to speak has its complement in the freedom to read, listen, or watch widely with great curiosity and with some ambition and discipline as regards discerning the nature of things.

Additional Reference

Syria talks face immediate hurdle of Assad’s refusal to step down | World news | The Guardian – 1/19/2014

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FTAC – On Syria — Mirrored Sides

09 Thursday Jan 2014

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Middle East, Politics, Psychology, Syria

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civil war, malignant narcissism, personality, political psychology, Syria

It’s not sinking in but I keep asserting this: the same personalities — different talk; same walk — occupy both sides of the combat. There is no winning, and they are proving that by mutually losing, not only treasure but also respect and self-respect. I noted earlier this morning that more than 11,000 children have died in the Syrian Civil War, most beneath the bombing on the state’s side and some at the hands of snipers aligned with the state. That doesn’t shift the black/white, good guy/bad guy thinking at all considering what the global jihad does to children. That both sides do similarly unrestrained things — they exceed limits — tells about the “malignant narcissism” of the characters driving the war. Neither care about people. The care about control, power, subjugation, and self-aggrandizement and they use fear and force to get their share of “narcissistic supply”. There’s nothing actually in the predominant warring parties — not God; not humanity — over which to bargain and make peace. In the end, they will be seen as killers and nothing else.

The key: “different talk — same walk.”

The dictator and the revolutionary have the same self-aggrandizing drive, and God above and humanity at their feet are of no real account: they have already bent words to clothe themselves and provide to themselves the exclusive privilege of determining the fates of others.

God works through both — the blood bespattered dictator and opposed zealot alike — does He not?

So they themselves might say.

The humanity of humanity may beg to differ.

Sideways Related Reference

OCHA | Coordination Saves Lives – Second International Humanitarian Pledging Conference for Syria | OCHA

As UN prepares for mammoth Syria aid conference, Assad regime keeps relief from the suffering | Fox News – 1/7/2014.

Snowmen and suffering: A bleak winter for young Syrian refugees – CNN.com – 12/21/2013.

Aid sought for Syrian refugees facing harsh winter | GulfNews.com – 1/8/2014.

Sharjah’s Sheikha Jawaher’s plea to UAE residents help Syrians as winter conditions turn ‘catastrophic’ | The National – 1/8/2014.

Champion the #childrenofsyria

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Chris Christie and “Bobby” Mugabe

09 Thursday Jan 2014

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Politics, Psychology

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dictators, election sabotage, elections, impunity, malignant narcissism, politics

“Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee,” Deputy Chief of Staff Bridget Anne Kelly emailed at 7:34 a.m. on Aug. 13, 2013.

The recipient, a Christie troll at the Port Authority named David Wildstein, emailed back at 7:35 a.m., only a minute later.

“Got it.”

In New Jersey, There’s No Exit for Chris Christie’s Bridge Trolls – The Daily Beast – 1/9/2014.

* * *

From August 2008 to July 2009, over 4,200 Zimbabweans died in one of the worst recorded cholera outbreaks in Africa.

The high death toll – far beyond the worst case UN scenario – was the result of collapsed water and sanitation infrastructure and state health services rendered dysfunctional by political tension and hyperinflation.

” . . . rendered dysfunctional by political tension and hyperinflation.”

I would have imagined that “political tension” leads primarily to heart attacks and nasty rhetoric as opposed to interference in the delivery of basic public services. Taking down water sanitation stations, however, has to do with chemicals and some routine maintenance, which may be withheld or denied by removing their funding.

I recall the Zimbabwe’s 2008 cholera outbreak as tracing back to Mugabe’s efforts to sabotage the reputation of a district-level election opponent — and I can’t find the online source for that. This may do:

Before the ZANU-PF government nationalized municipal water authorities in 2006, water treatment and delivery systems worked. The Mugabe regime, however, politicized water for political gain and profit, policies that proved disastrous, and which have clearly contributed to the ongoing cholera epidemic. All Harare residents PHR interviewed reported that trash collection has effectively ceased. Throughout 3 Harare, and especially in the poor high-density areas outside the capital, PHR investigators saw detritus littering streets and clogging intersections. Steady streams of raw sewage flow through the refuse and merge with septic waste. A current Ministry of Health official reported to PHR: There is no decontamination of waste in the country.

www.jhsph.edu/research/centers-and-institutes/center-for-public-health-and-human-rights/_pdf/PHR_HealthinRuins_Zimbabwe_Jan09.pdf – December 2008.

While the consequences differ quite between New Jersey and its governor and Zimbabwe and its President for Life (so far), the manner of control — for the malignant among narcissists, “control” over others is what it’s all about — seems dreadfully similar.

In addition to sabotaging basic services to smear opposing district politicians, we know what goes on in President Mugabe’s invention of a state inside his head that, unfortunately, has been imposed on the Zimbabwean experience of reality.

President Mugabe, this with little thanks to the hated white man — and not only white men but people of color everywhere may be thankful for that — has led Zimbabwe on a lifelong tour into the dismal regions of widespread disease, hunger, poverty, and political subjugation.

______

Apart from screwing up some east coast traffic royally, as may befit his self-concept, we don’t know what else Governor Christie may be pursuing or thinking about as regards his political enemies. What we do know — what New Jersey’s constituents may know or come to recognize — is a signal from leadership associated with venturing on to a bad track (first the poo bah slows down some traffic . . . ).

USA Today decided to have a little fun with the George Washington Bridge scandal this morning.

The newspaper offered 10 lessons Gov. Chris Christie can learn from fictional mob boss Tony Soprano in the wake of Wednesday’s news.

10 lessons Chris Christie can learn from Tony Soprano courtesy of USA Today | NJ.com – 1/9/2014.

Related: 10 lessons from ‘The Sopranos’ for Chris Christie – 1/9/2014; Punchlines: Traffic jams Chris Christie in corruption? – Comedy video (5:13) compilation – 1/9/2014. The video features the denial of responsibility well known to dictators.

* * *

▶ Chris Christie Press Conference VIDEO Q&A Christie Denies Knowledge Of Bridge Payback Scheme – YouTube – 1/9/2014.

“How did this happen?” Christie asks.

Damage control follows scandal. Christie’s conversation may well involve “credible denial”, and that’s far from Mugabe’s reflexive finger pointing at Great Britain for all of Zimbabwe’s failure, which is really the expression of his guarded inner state and his manner of responding to that turmoil.

Operating in so scathing an open democracy and with military and treasuries separate from the grasp of a governor, Christie’s political environment may have developed its share of corruption and dirt, but it’s not going to give him the excess of power that may channel into real trouble.

Whatever the trouble, Christie can still clean it up.

That’s more than one might say for “Bobby” Mugabe and a pretty good cast of well established dictators (with far greater powers and reach) worldwide.