Saturday, July 24, 2010

People of the Lie



"[Narcissists]...project their own evil onto the world. They never think of themselves as evil, on the other hand, they consequently see much evil in others."
M. Scott Peck, "People of the Lie"

It will come as no surprise to anyone who has paid any attention whatsoever to the Conservative Movement for the last 30 years that the Breitbart BigGovernmentMiscreant site has quickly rallied itself to respond to the glaringly indisputable fact that its owner is a lying shitbag.

I hope you weren't waiting for an apology...

Here's the headline:
From JournoList to Shirley Sherrod: The Left’s Default Response Is Fascism

by John Nolte...
Since I don't link to sites run by liars and frauds, if you want any more of Nolte's scintillating defense of his meal-ticket, you'll have to Google it yourself. Suffice it to say, you'll probably want to have a Kevlar sick bag on hand.

I post it here today (along a few of the comments it generated) to underscore a larger, sadder and much more important point: sooner or later, Liberals as a Movement must come to terms with the fact that people like Breitbart -- who operate with a free hand and a blank check at the very heart of the Conservative Movement -- are not simply crazy or misguided or possessed of a strange but equally sincere ideology, but genuinely evil.

And the reason we keep banging our heads when trying to cope with evil is that evil renders our entire Liberal toolbox worse than useless.

Evil doesn't care about policy or governance. At. All. Which is why we are so often reduced to a spluttering "But don't they realize...?" incomprehension when the Right stomps on the throat of the weak and defenseless...again. While smiling...again

Evil does not have a conscience which can be appealed to, or a sense of shame which can be invoked.

Evil doesn't give a shit about fair play or reason or causality or the niceties of democracy.

When faced with positive proof that what it is doing will harm others, Evil says "Go piss up a rope, hippie."
"Evil deeds do not make an evil person. Otherwise we would all be evil. If evil people cannot be defined by the illegality of their deeds or the magnitude of their sins, then how are we to define them? The answer is by the consistency of their sins. While usually subtle, their destructiveness is remarkably consistent. This is because those who have "crossed over the line" are characterized by their absolute refusal to tolerate the sense of their own sinfulness."

— M. Scott Peck, "People of the Lie"
Instead of a conscience, evil has vanity, megalomania, greed and an all-encompassing fear that they will be found out and ridiculed for being the wretched, little scuttlefish that they are.

They live in terror that someone might see the sorry state of their mingy soul, which is why they band together for protection under the banner of an ideology which glorifies cruelty and heartlessness, and why they reserve their most furious hellfire for kindest of people.

This is why they hate Shirley Sherrod -- a woman they did not even know existed a week ago -- with such hysterical, berserk fury, why they eagerly swallow every ACORN lie that churns out of the Breitbart/Beck/Limbaugh Paranoid Conspiracy Factory and beg for more: to Evil, those who advocate publicly on behalf of kindness, justice and compassion, and who -- by lesson and language -- implore their fellow citizens to assay their souls in a clear and Christian light are the sources of scalding pain.

Every act of decency rubs Evils' nose in the horror of its polluted existence, and every public gesture of confession and humanity threatens extinction. Faced with these threats, Evil has no recourse but attack!attack!attack!

To illustrate my point, I have mined a few, representative examples from the Breitbart Commenteriate and arranged them in no particular order on the Left.

I have arranged a few quotes from M. Scott Peck's "People of the Lie" on the Right.

---------------------------------------

Rebas_Thgil...
How about we keep Breittbart's websites alive
and well, as surely Shirley Sherrod's charade is
the thing that does not advance this country.


ninecats...
the more she opens her mouth,
the more she proves Breitbart correct...

---------------------------------------
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"Think of the psychic energy required for the
continued maintenance of the pretense so
characteristic of 'the evil'! They perhaps direct
at least as much energy into their devious rationalizations
and destructive compensations as the
healthies do into loving behavior.


Why? What possesses them, drives them?
Basically, it is fear.


They are terrified that the pretense will break down
and they will be exposed to the world and to themselves."


-- Page 124
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

---------------------------------------

doawkins...
Mark Levin says she is an idiot.
Sherrod is nasty.
...
She is racist and seems to deserve trouble.
My own company handbook wouldn't allow
her to trash talk at the NAACP and get
by with it. It creates a hostile enviironment.


peaches1...
I can't believe how absolutely stupid
these people are.
They are the racists.
Every word coming out of this woman's mouth
is a lie or some sort of racist remark.
---------------------------------------

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"A predominant characteristic of the behavior
that I call evil is scapegoating.
Because in their hearts they consider themselves
above reproach, they must lash out at anyone
who does reproach them.
They sacrifice others
to preserve their self-image of perfection."

-- Page 73
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++


---------------------------------------
The_Great_Satan
Would liberals like to shut down
any broadcaster that doesn’t follow leftwing ideology? Yes.
Would liberals like to shut down talk radio? Yes.
Would liberals like to ban
Conservatives from liberal infested academia? Yes.
Would liberals like to shutdown
companies they don’t like? Yes.
Would liberals like to
imprison dissenters? Yes.

There is a name for people like this, it is Fascist.
...


pnipni
This whole thing is a disaster.
Shirley is a racist liar,
and the Democrats are mostly socialists,
and we have a mad Socialist/Fascist
out to destroy America!
...
---------------------------------------

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"Since they must deny their own badness,
they must perceive others as bad.
They project their own evil onto the world.
The evil attack others instead of facing their own failures."

-- Page 74
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++


---------------------------------------
Cali~Gal
The left is chasing it's tail, and Obama
and the thug's in-charge are getting
trigger happy. Ms. Sherrod is a phony,
paid liar and a fraud...


attila_the_pun
I think liberals do this on purpose.
Their hypocrisy is so utterly mind boggling
that it stuns any decent human being
like a taser gun, thus incapacitating them for a short time.
---------------------------------------


+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

"Utterly dedicated to preserving their self-image of perfection, they are unceasingly engaged in the effort to maintain the appearance of moral purity.
...
While they lack any motivation to be good,they intensely desire to appear good. Their goodness is all on a level of pretense. It is in effect a lie. Actually the lie is designed not so much to deceive others as to deceive themselves.We lie only when we are attempting to cover up something we know to be illicit. At one and the same time 'the evil' are aware of their evil and desperately trying to avoid the awareness. We become evil by attempting to hide from ourselves. The wickedness of 'the evil' is not committed directly, but indirectly as a part of this cover-up process. Evil originates not in the absence of guilt but in the effort to escape it."

-- Page 75

There is little point in engaging people like this directly. They are a cultural dead-loss who live 24/7 in a madhouse furnished floor-to-ceiling by Hate Media tropes and venom, and with whom we no longer even share a common vocabulary.

However, to the fake Centrists like David Fucking Brooks and Equivocators like Anderson Cooper who automatically flee and cower behind the Big Lie of "Both sides do it" every time another bigoted, psychotic wind blows inconveniently in from the Right I would ask when exactly are we scheduled to finally arrive at the Magic Reasonable Centerpoint between us and these people that will satisfy you?

How much further Right must sane people tack and how much more of what is good about America must we surrender to these scum in the name of the mindless, capitulating "compromise" that you sanctify?

To Conservative Revisionists like Andrew Sullivan I would ask, just how far back into the history of your beloved Conservative Movement do people like me need to fucking hand-walk you before it will start to sink in that the core of the Right has always been like this? That it was designed from the start to manufacture people like this?

And to my fellow travelers on the Left who despair at the realization that our homegrown enemies of democracy do not respond to reason and right, I would remind them that we have access to an inexhaustible stockpile of the one weapon against which they have always been powerless:
"The Devil, the proud spirit, cannot endure to be mocked."
-- St. Thomas More
Or, in the modern parlance...



25 comments:

Fran / Blue Gal said...

Breitbart seems to believe "fascist" means, "anyone who calls me out on my evil bullshit and expect me to be accountable for it."

The fact that if he WERE held accountable, he would be living in the proverbial refrigerator box on Lower Wacker Drive, mumbling obscenities into his own waste-infested pants, does not mean "WE" are out to destroy him. Evil destroys itself.

Rev.Paperboy said...

Evil destroys itself.

If it only destroyed itself, I'd rest a lot easier. And if Not-too-Breitbart were really held accountable, he'd be dreaming of living in that refrigerator box etc. Frankly, I'm starting to think like the conservatives often accuse the left of thinking. I'm starting to think that that those Maoist re-education labor camps might not be such a bad idea for some people. Admittedly, that way lies madness, but there a certain appeal to the idea of Breitbart, Limbaugh, Hannity, Boehner, McConnell, DeMint and the rest of them making big rocks into little rocks with very small hammers under blazing sun and the watchful eye of some sadistic goons rented from Blackwater.
Then I remember we're supposed to be the good guys.
They'd do it us if they thought they could get away with it.

Montag said...

Breitbart is a professional ratfucker. That's his job, what he's paid to do. Anyone who's not a contemporary-brand conservative is the enemy, and his job is to attack the enemy.

And, because there's no one pushing back at him, he's paid no price for what he's done, so, he'll keep right on doing it, even though his MO and his intentions are right out there in the open for all to see.

The Dems don't care to engage him and his ilk, so, for now, the best we can hope for is that he really pisses off the wrong person(s) and winds up spending his every penny on bodyguards.

That said, the MSM has repeatedly referred to him as an "entertainer," or as a "journalist." It's very important to remember that he is neither of those things. He's a ratfucker, and everything he's been doing is right out of the ratfucking manual.

Rev.Paperboy said...

i can see it now:

Jon King, CNN talking head: good afternoon America, and welcome to the best political news team in America. Today we are talking about the latest from the White House. Apparently, President Obama has apologized for the firing of a Agriculture Department employee after she was slandered on a conservative website. Joining me now is the person behind that website, ratfucker Andrew Brietbart. So Andrew, what's it like to spend all your time having carnal knowledge of rodents?

Andrew Brietbart (identified in an onscreen graphic as "professional ratfucker Andrew Brietbart": Well, Jon, you know how it is, there is no such thing as bad publicity.

tsisageya said...

Perfect perfection, Driftglass! I've read most of M. Scott Peck's books and even attended a community building workshop a few years ago. It was fantastic. I am sad to learn that he died in 2005. His People of the Lie is especially right on and so is this post. The giant, mocking laugh at the end? Priceless.

Yodood said...

"evil destroys itself"

Seeing this at just the right time to see how true it is. The degree to which the left was hurt by this is the degree of their share in the ratfucking. The flim-flam man can only profit off of people who want something for nothing. At least they have Breitbart to blame for their own cowardly rushes to judgment, he has only his own homegrown evil to dine on.

US Blues said...

While over at the Big Orange people continue to put up diaries titled: "How could they possibly do this?"


The best way to deal with people like Breitbart is with the business end of the 2nd Amendment.

Denny Smith said...

As always, superb writing, but I can't really agree with this post's conclusion.
Consider: if we take the central premise that basically the whack jobs are the "undead", i.e., not open to rational discourse, then typically our tactical response, (in this case, mockery), may well give us the warm fuzzies, but does nothing to address the problem. Just recently, we saw the blog post of the poli/sci folks from Michigan that indeed, mocking them, or providing metric tons of fact only servces to drive them deeper into their deathgrip of delusions. It's fun, but not at all productive.
Solution(s)? A few.
1) If you find yourself in a hole, .....yea, let's stop digging by refraining from using resources in a way that produces nothing but feel-good.
2) The cliche of "polarization" should be finally understood to be a working reality: they're "X", we're "Y", and the twain shall not meet. (write 'em off now...)
3) it's time to reconsider "direct action". Yea, I know, scares the shit outta' too many liberals today, but was the norm during Vietnam, Civil Rights, Woaman's rights, and historically shown to be far more effective than "...working within ths system...."
Horseshit. Challenge the undead in the streets.
Think of it this way: what does a typical MD do when he discovers a cancer in his patient? I'll tell you what he doesn't do: he doesn't negotiate with it. He doesn't enter a dialogue with it. He does not accomodate it's opinion. He does one thing, and one thing only: he uses every means at his disposal to destroy it entirely.
Perhaps this illustrates the fundamental problem, i.e., one of definition. Are the undead pathologic to the body politic?

PS: White House announced today that they predict 4 and 5% growth economically for the U.S. in 2011 and 2012 (respectively), but anticipate unemployment remaining above 9% for the next 2 years.

Rehctaw said...

And to my fellow travelers on the Left who despair

It's not despair, it's patience. Past anger, past incredulity, past desire for open and honest discourse that can never take place, there is a niche where the caring continues in the places where caring makes a difference.

It's haphazard and disorganized, fumbling and unfocused, but it's vast, effective and waiting for its time. Patiently.

Anonymous said...

After watching the various blurbs on all the Sunday morning gasbag congregations this morning (all could be boiled down to WTF is wrong with this white house...hardly a mention of Bratbart and the rat fucking inception of the whole nasty mess)I keep thinking of a conversation from a movie.
It was Gene Hackman and William Defoe in "Mississippi Burning". Defoe's character (the northern lib FBI agent) is continually infuriated at Hackman's (the southern son of a share cropper agent)for what he see's as his kid gloves attitude in dealing with the locals who all know what happened to the civil rights workers.
Then Hackman's character tells the story of his father, and the neighbor black sharecropper, and the mule...remember it? The paraphrased ending about his father being "..he was to ignorant to know that being poor was killing him."
It was basically the same story Ms. Sharrod was trying to tell.
When your entire sense of worth and indeed self image is based upon the denigration of others I am not sure if income has anything to do with it anymore. It's just a question of how it manifests itself.
Apparently the last bastion for this sickness, at all levels of income or education is nothing more than simple scapegoating. It is the default, the fall back. It doesn't require fact or reason.
You could call them sociopaths..but its more than a personality disorder. Its been elevated to a social construct, elevated to an ideology...and yes, it is absolutly evil.

Tweez said...

"Scuttlefish." "Mingy." Good god, I love you Driftglass

Anonymous said...

Somebody recently pointed out, that attempting discourse with the right at this stage of the game, is like wandering in the jungle and coming upon a tribe of people that worship monkey skulls. Exactly where is the starting point?

Kathy said...

In blightfart's opinion, and the opinions of his followers, The Left "got" honest, decent American Conservatives -such as Tom DeLay and Scooter Libby- in the *exact same way* that blightfart "got" Ms. Sherrod & the WH.

They have been brainwashed into believing their Leaders are Pure, Honest and Decent men; any evidence to the contrary that is presented is "LIES! LIBERAL LIES!" (quoted from my wingnut brother)

Therefore: Liberals slander and destroy conservatives all the time and deserve to be slandered in turn.

To them it isn't "false equivalence" it is genuine equivalence.

Of course to people like Murdoch, Rove and the less visible ruling class it is all a game and their followers are contemptible morans. But more and more it seems our Democratic leaders believe that about us Libs.

Jason said...

Great post DG. I've thought alot about this subject myself and I've reached a similar conclusion.

Reminds me of some lines from The Terminator, 'It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.' Sounds like the right wing nuts to me.


It's almost freeing in some way though knowing that you'll never truly relate to people this far to the right so I don't feel I have to subscribe to social norms when I come in contact with them.

Phil said...

I am so glad I got rid of my television.
Fuck these idiots, if they think for one second there aren't zealots on this side then God help 'em.
I am a stubborn sonofabitch and I don't tend to take a lot of shit.
This asshole will undo himself and all I have to do is sit back, drink whiskey and watch.
No muss, no fuss.
karma is a bitch with razor sharp teeth and a long memory.

Cirze said...

You give good facts, my friend.

Voices like yours must be emulated and duplicated throughout the literate world.

Else we are lost.

(And as I just read that Israel was given the go-ahead for the Iran attack, we're not getting any real communication time on the last egregiosity before the next one hits.)

You'd think it was their plan, wouldn't you?

S

we have access to an inexhaustible stockpile of the one weapon against which they have always been powerless
__________________

Anonymous said...

As a police officer I am constantly dealing with cheap hoods and criminals. during any interrogation I *know* someone's guilty when they rationalise and justify their actions. Often by placing the blame on their vicitm or minimalizing their criminal actions. Watch Newt Gingrich on Fox, his first defense is to justify his actions by blaming the Obama Administration. Gingrich is of course defending himself and his run to the Presidency by appealing to his racist conservative base. And Andrew Breitbart is no different. An outright false video and smear campaign aren't his fault but the fault of his intended victims.

Conservatives are nothing more than cheap criminals.

Klo said...

Wow. I mean, wow. This is just great. Who are you, man? You see, this is the point I try to make: it is not good against evil. Once you say it is good against evil, you are dead. It is not good against evil because we should not have to gall to say that we are good, but we sure as shit can recognize evil when we see it, and Fox News, Limbaugh and all the other conservative talking heads, etc., etc., this is the face of evil. They do real harm. But THEY have no problem making some kind of distinction between good and evil. No sir. They wrap themselves in the flag, pick up their crosses and their guns, and truly believe that they are the saviors of America, while all liberals and progressives should be exterminated. This is how you can recognize evil. Evil cannot bear to be called anything else but good. Evil must per force turn reality inside out, or else it will cease to exist. It is not a matter of making excuses. Don't make that mistake. To make an excuse for oneself is to admit that one might be something other than perfect. True evil will never, ever, ever, ever, ever, even once admit that there is anything wrong with it at all. You ever seen Limbaugh do that? You ever seen Hannity or Beck do that? You ever seen Fox News retract any of their lies and distortions, even when they are exposed for what they are? Of course not. They CANNOT, simply because of what they are. And this is the point that you have made here, Driftglass, and God bless you for it, whoever you are. You've hit the nail squarely on the head. Ye shall know them by their fruits, and what they SAY they are, or anything else they may say, just doesn't matter, and the fruit here was the destruction of an innocent woman's livelihood and reputation. Period. Period. Period. Period. Period. And stick all your other crap directly up your ass.

Anonymous said...

Gee, driftglass... I would never have guessed you for a religious man. To believe in evil is a long step toward believing in good. Either belief, being based in a morality beyond the realm of ordinary ethics, requires faith.

Peck's People of the Lie is one of my favorite books on what is predominantly a conservative pathology (though the center and the left are hardly immune). Peck captures something about human existence that I have found nowhere else. I have to say, though, that one of his references, Malachi Martin, is himself pretty deep in the fever swamps. Peck, sanely, parted ways.

I do love the advice you give through the mouth of More.

See you in church.

Anonymous said...

(PS: above post is from Charles, a co-blogger of Phoenixwoman, not from the lady).

--Charles

Kathy said...

Klo: Well put! (golf clap).

Anonymous said...

Charles: I was just going to tell you about this fabulous post, when I find that you're already here.

- PW (Charles' co-blogger)

Phil said...

Hey PW, nice to see ya again, the inter toobz can be smaller than ya think.

Smooch,

Busted.

pwapvt said...

DG some of your finest work. Thank you.

someofparts said...

reality check on this snippet-

"what does a typical MD do when he discovers a cancer in his patient? I'll tell you what he doesn't do: he doesn't negotiate with it. He doesn't enter a dialogue with it. He does not accomodate it's opinion. He does one thing, and one thing only: he uses every means at his disposal to destroy it entirely"

no
if the MD has a hardcore
narcissist for a patient,
the patient tells the MD he/she is a liar
and walks out of the hospital

think not?

I saw this done by a woman with her hip cracked clean across the pelvis - a break so bad there was only muscle holding her hip to her leg -

she told the MD she was fine and by god she was leaving that damn hospital and ya know what?

as long as she insisted on that, the MD had to leave her the hell alone and let her crawl outa there

so yeah - in a sane world no-nonsense people do the right thing and propaganda be damned

be nice if things worked that way but they really really don't- stupid and petty interests prevent right action all the time - check out the national educational stats for the last couple of decades, or watch season three of the wire