When irrational fears seem rational, press your "think" button

Nearly fifty years ago, I made a friend several states away. For three summers, I visited him and his family for about a week at a time.

His parents were good people, but, from his mom, I learned how a dose of irrational fear can throw a person way off her or his axis.

In an outburst of frustration at public pay phones, she announced her fear of contracting diseases, such as colds, from placing her facial anatomy on phone receivers.

This was in the days before cell phones, and before the widespread availability of sanitizing products.

Did she have a good reason to be wary? Sure-- about the common cold. However, even my struggling early-teen brain quickly figured out that she was alarmed by something rather trivial, while ignoring what was wrecking her.

Imagine a two-to-three-pack-a-day cigarette smoker (which she was), afraid she might catch a cold from a pay phone Imagine someone doing something so terrible to his or her lungs, and then saying that.

That panic about the dangers of pay phones, while ignoring the risks of cancer and heart disease, the certainty that the smoking will ruin the body (and the bank account) is, my few readers, an irrational fear. It's being petrified by something that has a small chance of harming you, while ignoring, often at someone else's engineering, a factor that is far, far more likely to really mess you up.

When foreign terrorists murdered some 3,000 individuals on September 11, 2001, in a despicable act, those in power at the time, primarily Dick Cheney, used that tragedy to warn Americans about the threat of foreign terrorists, while they, particularly Cheney, used that opportunity to undermine, not simply the cicil rights of Americans, but their physical and financial health, by dismantling environmental legislation that saved (of at least improved) millions of American lives, and billions (or more) American dollars.

How good a job did the Cheney/Bush team do at manipulating so many American people? On a door-to-door pre-election-day canvass just prior to the 2004 election,  as a volunteer for two progressive organizations, I encountered at least one sap who swallowed the Kool-Aid.

Our mission was to show issues to people, and ask them to vote for the environment, without our recommending any particular candidate. This being a weekday activity, most residents were not home, and we left paperwork for them to digest at their leisure. This particular older woman, one of the few live bodies I encountered, announced that her (irrational) fear of foreign terrorists outweighed her concern about clean air and water. I tried to imagine how any terrorist would seek out and bomb her row-house neighborhood, knowing at the same time what the domestic terrorists were actually doing to her air and water, and that air and water needed by any children and grandchildren.

If you don't think that preying on voters' irrational fears didn't put Cheney and Bush in the White House twice, and help real criminals topple many a fine, public-minded candidate in Congressional races, follow the money.

Cheney, who conducted secret (and illegal) meetings with representatives of dirty energy sources, announced the "need" for the U.S. to construct something over 150 (or, was it 180?) new coal-fired power plants, if we were not to fall back into the "Stone Age." As with most anti-public blowhards, Cheney was simply putting his mouth where his money was, though he must certainly have welcomed the feeling of power as well. One critic claimed that the coal industry contributed a total of some $100 million combined for the Cheney/Bush 2000 and 2004 campaigns. Whatever the contribution ("legal bribes" is one friend's term), Cheney did all he could to repay the industry, the public be poisoned.

Cheney conveniently forgot (sure he forgot) to mention that while stolen aircraft piloted by foreign (and highly brainwashed) terrorists killed some 3,000 mostly Americans, that some 25,000 Americans die prematurely each year, simply by living near--ahem--coal-fired power plants. He did not mention, as researchers like Michael Hendryx have since proven (but which any reasonably observant individual can quickly figure), that innocents living in coal-producing areas are terribly unhealthy, and have a significantly shorter life span (by some ten years, according to Hendryx's studies) than those with very similar lifestyles, but not living in coal-bearing areas.

What Dick Cheney did (and is likely still doing), and what most Republicans in major public office are doing, is helping the coal, gas and oil industries kill us (Nukes are also terrible for our physical and financial health), send our climate spinning into rash new patterns of drought, flood, famine and more, while casting deliberate and false doubt on the solar and wind-energy sectors (Back in 2008, the wind energy sector surpassed the coal industry in providing jobs, and much more healthful and sustainable jobs, too). The culprits include our friends, possible climate-denier-in-chief James Inhofe; Shelley Moore Capito (daughter of the crooked and coal-industry-loving, former West Virginia governor Arch Moore, who served prison time for stealing from a coal miners' pension fund), whom a particular writer would label a "coal whore;" just about any West Virginia governor; Mitch McConnell; Joe Manchin (former West Virginia governor, current U.S. Senator and someone with a coal-industry background, who has been a poster boy for conflict of interest); the comically inept self-promoter known as Sarah Palin; and scores of other traitors-- strong word, but how would you define someone who uses political office to deliberately and knowingly create for his fellow countrymen and women, and for their own grandchildren, a world so unhealthy, and so bad for their family finances, while taking money from these destructive industries?

Call me names for willfully hurling stones at the coal industry, but, for some five years, I made two or three trips per year, as a documentary photographer (paying my own expenses) to southern West Virginia, where I met dozens of individuals whose lives and health, and sometimes land, the coal industry aided by elected and appointed crooks) had ruined. I witnessed the extreme poverty and hopelessness, and a fair bit of resistance, where the industry bragged about "the prosperity of coal." I smelled the poisoned air, photographed the poisoned water, photographed individuals who lost their basic civil and human rights to a political system so corrupt that most Americans would deny it exists-- within our borders. I saw and photographed mountaintop removal coal mine sites where pristine headwater streams are now buried beneath hundreds of vertical feet of poisoned rubble that was once forested, game-filled mountaintops, teeming with medicinal plants, but now an industry-created wasteland. I still maintain contact and will soon re-visit some of the brave individuals who have fought for their land and for their people-- our people.

The same goes for some gas-drilling areas in my native state of Pennsylvania, where corrupt (and, may I say, plain stupid) elected officials have sold out the residents and the land to the same criminal class who did the same thing extracting coal. Again, many of these folks prey on irrational fears of their victims.

Would you trade whatever you do for a living, for the fate of a uranium miner, who is nearly certain to die early and miserably from radiation poisoning; any coal miner, who is likely to die similarly from black lung disease or silicosis (take your choice-- underground or surface mining), or quickly from a cave-in or explosion (Yeah, some former coal miners live a long time, but not very healthfully); for someone working at a plant where cancer-causing chemicals are used to wash and "clean" coal? I think not. Would Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, Bob Hope, or any booster of these industries (or any normal human being, for that matter) make that trade? I think not. Would Osama bin Laden have traded places with any of his brainwashed worker bees who crashed their hijacked planes into specified targets? Not likely. That would not help the hot shots' personal agendas-- like living, and having power.

Preying on voters' irrational fears is what has kept the Republican Party in power. Prey on irrational racial or sexual fears to promote your agenda. Con voters into supporting the fossil fuel and nuclear industries, or their lights will dim, and they'll be living in the Stone Age. How can one rely on the wind and sun, so, of course keep burning coal, and on and on, the blather goes, preying on irrational fears. The sun sets, and the wind stops blowing, offer some blowhard billboards rented by coal industry front groups. Of course, they neglect to mention that when the sun shines and the wind blows (which is always does at some time, in some place), energy from those sources is transported to the general grid, as electricity. They also neglect to mention that if the coal industry (where CEOs often become billionaires by externalizing every penny of cost possible as worker injury, illness and death; air and water pollution; public health crises; billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies) and wind energy sector each paid all their respective costs of operation, a kilowatt of electricity from coal would cost nearly three times that of a kilowatt of electricity from wind.

But, these purveyors of "evil genius," (Karl Rove comes to mind) as a savvy observer calls them, have fooled enough people to hurt all of us.

They haven't fooled "all of the people all the time," but they've fooled (scared) enough people for long enough, and controlled much of the media, to keep the dirty money rolling into and from their coffers, and to keep us from living in the healthful, functional democracy we deserve.

Woody Guthrie sang, "This land was made for you and me." It is ours. Own it!

So, Coal-Fired Power Plants are Government Facilities?

“The end of democracy and the defeat of the American Revolution will occur when government falls into the hands of lending institutions and moneyed incorporations.” 
                                                                                                 Thomas Jefferson

"Oh, crap, here we go," I thought, as the white SUV cruised down the driveway leading from the Conemaugh Generating Station, a coal-burning facility, on the Indiana County side of the Conemaugh River, northwest of Johnstown, Pennsylvania. The driver could only be heading toward me.

A few minutes earlier, after I drove through the small town of New Florence, looking for a clear view of the facility to make photographs, one presented itself, from this road, and I parked on the shoulder of the public road. From that shoulder, I'd made five or six photos (See one here, and yes, that's a wall of coal near the plant, part of the four million tons of this dirty stuff burned each year at the plant).

Coal industry big shots and their partners in crime in the coal-burning electricity-generating industry, must be more paranoid than most folks. The SUV (marked "GenOn Security"), which pulled up behind my car, must have been dispatched from the plant as soon as I'd mounted my camera on the tripod. This particular death factory (the coal-burning facility) is a subsidiary of GenOn Energy Inc.

The security guard, whose name tag identified him as Steven Lambert, might be a retired small-town police officer. He was businesslike and serious, but treated me decently. Something in his manner suggested that this could change quickly if my sarcastic side appeared. Steven stepped out of the vehicle and informed me that he had to photograph both me and my car's licence plate.

"I'm on public property," I reminded him, knowing that being legal, and two dollars, might get me a slice of pizza. He replied that he still had to make those photographs. He also asked me for my driver's license. Steven's supervisors apparently forgot to remind him that we still have our Constitution and Bill of Rights, or what's left of them. Probably few people harbor more hatred than I, for an industry whose power plants kill 25,000 Americans prematurely each year (eight times the number who died on September 11, 2001 at the hands of foreign terrorists), which steals hundreds of billions of dollars of tax money as health and environmental costs and actual subsidies, and which virtually imprisons and/or poisons everyone where coal is mined, processed and burned, and where its lethal residual ash is dangerously and irresponsibly disposed. Nonetheless, I remained grudgingly cooperative, figuring that if I protested too much, I'd soon be confronted by real police, and lose valuable photography time. With just parts of just two days to photograph this, and three other such death factories in the region, and also photograph an important anti-gas-drilling event at an organic farm farther north, down time was no option.

Steven Lambert, who seemed like a decent enough guy, albeit one working for inhuman beings, informed me that among the reasons I was not permitted to photograph the facility is its status as "a government facility."

"BS," I thought. "Is that because the government (via us taxpayers) subsidizes the fossil fuel and nuclear industries which are killing us in return?" Steven Lambert seemed to personify the succinct observation by Upton Sinclair: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon not understanding it.” According to Wikipedia, the Conemaugh facility employs some 200 individuals who also don't understand it, because they are working for the enemy, and because big coal and its allies, are often, by design, the only game in town.

Okay, I get it. Industry paranoia includes the announced fear of being targeted by foreign terrorists, so our home grown terrorists in designer suits get their facility placed on some bogus government list of potential targets. Really, with the abundance of psychopathic corporate CEOs in the U.S., how many foreign terrorists would try to buck the competition? Dick Cheney, that master fear-monger, wants us to believe that if someone takes down a coal-powered generating station, we'll all go back to the Stone Age. Actually, forward thinking groups and individuals have stopped the construction of well over 100 such facilities, and have helped shut down some older ones. Give the lead on that one to the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal campaign. Rather than marching backwards, humanity has just a chance of getting it right, if we survive the problems caused by our still-fierce addiction to dirty carbon and nuclear-based energy, and rabid corruption in much of Congress.

As evidence that fossil fuel extraction industries are killing this country, and that their CEOs enjoy special protection above the law, Wikipedia also reports that in March, 2011, PennEnvironment and the Sierra Club won a favorable (to whom, when the penalty is considered, is debatable) court ruling, finding that the plant had committed 8,684 violations of the Clean Water Act by discharging waste directly into the Conemaugh River. On June 6, 2011 GenOn agreed to a $5 million settlement, with $3.75 million going toward the restoration of the river.

If you think that five million dollars is a meaningful fine, simple arithmetic shows that the company was fined a measly $577 per violation of a landmark law instituted to protect the environment and our health. GenOn's 2011 revenue was reported as a bit over $3.6 billion, up over a billion and a third from 2010. In any case, kudos to Penn Environment and Sierra Club for simply getting these criminals into court, and winning this ruling.

In my book, when an industry CEO or director either knowingly or recklessly commits or allows even a few such violations over some length of time, that industry is gone-- faster and farther than a vintage Mickey Mantle home run. That's in a true democratic society, where government serves the people, where businesses pay all their costs of operation, and where the general public gets the information it needs to make responsible choices. In the U.S, where fascism/nazism by corporate control of the government and media exists, many corporate leaders view such fines strictly as costs of doing business, or, to use the vernacular, pay-to-play. The government, be it state or federal, really doesn't want to put these corporations out of business, and their CEOs in prison where they belong (What would happen to you or me if we had poisoned a public waterway over eight thousand times?). Instead, they keep them on as cash cows, to collect meaningless fines, and convince the uninformed that the government is really doing its job of protecting our environment and our health. One hand washes the other, and the collective grime chokes democracy. The fossil fuel industries in particular, exist today only because of generations of political corruption and immense (albeit unknowing) taxpayer assistance. In fact, these industries are models of the use of other people's money, and models of corporate welfare. We don't need the nuclear, coal, natural gas and oil industries any more than we need the cancer, of which their operations cause plenty.

So, in a system in which psychopathic (there's that word again; sorry folks, but it's generally true) CEOs have paid off all three branches of government on the state and often the federal levels, to ensure that their corporate personhoods can pollute as they please, and collect government subsidies, those who fight for human and environmental justice, often at our own expense, are treated as terrorists, when the real terrorists enjoy a free ride. And all this time, I thought that the U.S. refuses to negotiate with terrorists. We risk incarceration and surveillance for doing what's right, while these creeps (and those elected and appointed officials who support them) have gamed the system into practically guaranteeing that they can commit or permit atrocity after atrocity, and never see the inside of a prison. If there's any doubt of who's calling the shots, several years ago, Pennsylvanians learned that the Pa. Department of Homeland Security conducted spying on environmental and peace activists. Obviously, the likes of Charles and David Koch, Aubrey McClendon (recent CEO of Chesapeake Energy, among the most criminal corporation in an industry rife with thugs), and their ilk were paying someone to do their bidding-- at taxpayer expense, of course.

Chalk one up for the goats and chickens

1. "We abuse land because we see it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect." Aldo Leopold

Stephen Cleghorn is not your typical farmer, nor is he a typical sociologist. He does, however, display the tenacity and work ethic of the former, and the latter's love and understanding of his fellow beings, human and otherwise. As sensitive and loving as Stephen is, he's had enough. In fact, he's endured way too much, and he knows that the fight has barely begun.

Until the fall of 2011, Cleghorn and his late wife, Lucinda Hart-Gonzalez, combined their passion and hard work, as owner-operators of Paradise Gardens and Farms, an enchanted and enchanting 50-acre organic goat and chicken-based operation in western Pennsylvania's Jefferson County.

When non-conventional deep-shale gas drilling operations--and their casualties of fouled air and water, plunging home and land values, and reports of strange illnesses--invaded much of Pennsylvania's forests and farmland, Lucinda worried that, at best, their land would lose its peacefulness. At worst, she believed, their land and water would become poisoned, their organic operation destroyed, and their own health threatened.

Lucinda died of cancer in November, 2011. On May 10, 2012, Stephen hosted a press conference for friends, environmental activists, the local television station, and others, to witness his declaration of the farm being inviolate of gas drilling. In spite of the mineral rights being owned by an absentee couple who signed a lease to open Paradise's land for drilling, Stephen held firm that no drilling would take place on that land if he can help it. He would also scatter some of Lucinda's ashes on the farm, to proclaim the ground hallowed.

About fifty individuals were on hand at the farm on May 10 to support him. Among those speaking were Aaron Mair, a member of Sierra Club's national board of directors, Iris Marie Bloom, director of Philadelphia Pa.-based Protecting Our Waters, a small, but active and effective force in fighting "fracking" in Pennsylvania and beyond, and Ben Price of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund. Also in attendance were Bridget and Doug Shields. Both were highly instrumental in Pittsburgh's City Council enacting a ban on hydrofracking within city limits, when Doug was a council member.

Also invited were Pa. State Senator Joseph Scarnati, Pa. Speaker of the House Sam Smith, CONSOL Energy executive J. Brett Harvey, EXCO Resources executive Douglas Miller, and Larry and Maxine Burkett, who own the mineral rights (purchased in 1995 for $150, from a previous heir of the farm). Scarnati and Smith, in whose district the farm lies, have used their positions to sponsor legislation enabling the gas industry to run rampant in Pennsylvania.

They were all welcome to attend, and to add their comments (but only after Lucinda's sister spoke eloquently about her lost sibling). From start to finish, those seats remained conspicuously empty.

Weather was predicted to be partly cloudy, with a high in the upper 50s. Gusty wind and near horizontal rain greeted the opening remarks. Not long after that, as the rain subsided, and skies cleared, Cleghorn's resolve shown even brighter.

"Today," he began, "I act to declare my farm, all that lives above on its surface, the very air and sunlight that caresses and enlivens all of us here to day, and all that lies below it as firmament, I hereby declare off-limits from shale gas extraction and its toxic impacts, in perpetuity."

The American flag waving beside the crowd, noted Cleghorn, "is losing its potency as a symbol of justice and freedom. The republic for which it stands is being bought and sold as though being traded on the commodities market. We are losing our democracy. Governments are protecting corporations, not people." Specifically, Cleghorn noted, "Our political leaders . . . refuse to lead us out of a fossil fuel era that is warming our planet, and refuse to prevent the chemical contamination of our environment and food for corporate profits."

Such increased enabling of corporate criminals by some elected and appointed officials, whom I consider traitors, propelled me to join other photographers at Cleghorn's event.

Pennsylvania's recently-passed Act 13. which strips away municipal control of allowing gas drilling, said Cleghorn "is a corporate-sponsored form of organized crime perpetuated upon the people and democracy of Pennsylvania," by certain elected officials bought for that purpose by well over $4.4 million in 2010 election cycle contributions by the industry. Over two thirds of that sum, noted Cleghorn, "went to (the election of) Governor (Tom) Corbett, (to) Senator Joe Scarnati, Speaker Sam Smith and the Republican Party Committee."

Thomas Jefferson might have been thinking about individuals like Corbett, like Wisconsin's fraud "governor" Scott Walker, and other traitors pushed into office by the multi-billionaire Koch Brothers and their dirty money made by their fossil-fuel-based energy companies, and by a media that has been equally bought off by these individuals, and their junk "science" that debunks the fact that the earth is stewing from human-made carbon pollution.

Ultra-conservative knee-jerkers who regurgitate the tripe from Limbaugh, Hannity, O'Reilly and others who get rich exploiting irrational fears, and those who try to make "radicals" of those who campaign for clean air and water, for better public health, and to stop the taxpayer subsidy of polluting industries, might be interested to know that Jefferson would likely pity or loath them, especially in times like this. Have they truly forgotten about this nation being founded upon a revolution?

"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions," said Jefferson, "that I wish it to be always kept alive. I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the atmosphere."

Cleghorn, who used the term "a little rebellion" in his invitation, referenced a gas-industry executive who bragged, "'The shale army has arrived. Resistance is futile.'"

"But resistance is not futile," stressed Cleghorn, noting that the 'shale army' will soon discover that. "Resistance," he continued, "can be liberating." He also admitted, "It is also a little scary, of course."

But Cleghorn and those assembled to hear and support him, are ready for that fight.

"Why?" he asked, "Because we need a new paradigm for how we live on this Earth. Our individual acts of resistance such as this one today must be part of an ongoing organization to create a foundation of law based on the Rights of Nature."

Cleghorn, addressed the Burketts, Scarnati, Smth and gas-industry executives Miller and Harvey in their absence, saying that had they attended he would have asked them "to stand up, turn slowly and look around this beautiful farm, this beautiful farmland and woods before you. Just turn your bodies slowly around and see all of it, see and imagine it as habitat for me, my family and friends, my neighbors, these goats, the fox and the deer and the moles and the mice and the groundhogs, the ground-nesting birds and peeping frogs and the slithering snakes. 'Look Out' on this place and see it as a home for many, not as a commodity to be exploited.

Cleghorn proceeded into a reading of "Look Out," by poet, farmer and environmentalist Wendell Berry. In it, Berry mentions "The Lords of War," who "sell the water and air of life to buy fire . . . Their intention to destroy any place is solidly founded upon their willingness to destroy every place."

Following the reading, Cleghorn, with spiritual intention, and with spiritual involvement from the guests, scattered some of Lucinda's ashes upon the hilltop.

It was a good day to be a human being living with intention. The goats also approved.

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Support Your Local Psychopath?

When all evidence points to the catastrophic results of continuing to burn fossil fuels for energy (nuclear is another big lie), why do so many elected and appointed individuals in the U.S. and abroad, encourage and enable this continued disaster? Why do they pursue policies that promote floods, drought, famine, increased instability, financial chaos? In the U.S. alone, some 25,000 individuals with one common thread die prematurely each year. They live near coal-fired power plants. That's just the beginning. Coal, oil and natural gas kill throughout their toxic and politically corrupt cycles. And these industries steal hundreds of billions of dollar, if not more, in health care costs, environmental cleanup, in subsidies both direct and indirect. Nearly three years ago, Robert Kennedy Jr., speaking at Villanova University, near Philadelphia, remarked that our subsidies to the coal industry alone, exceed the then-estimated $750 billion price tag of rebuilding our national energy grid to efficiently handle transmitting energy from wind and solar sources.

One might ask, "How can these fossil fuel industry CEOs sleep at night? They surely wouldn't want a legacy of drought, famine, mass-extinction of wildlife, and millions, if not billions of cases of human misery. Would they?"

Guess what, folks? They have no trouble sleeping at night. Nor do they have trouble buying off all three levels of our government. That's much easier to accomplish when you make billions of dollars and externalize every penny of cost possible.

And, they have no qualms about selling their own children and grandchildren and ours down the river, in a world of poisoned air and water, a world increasingly marred by  industrial sites that spew forth the polluting remains of critters that bought the farm millions of years ago.

They make their horrific crimes pay by taking advantage of a basic component of human goodness. Most good people want to believe that others are basically decent people. We have also been programmed to believe that the really dangerous folks out there are desperate looking, slovenly-dressed characters who want what we have, and are bombers, mass-murderers and serial killers.

Maybe the biggest lesson to learn in dealing with our most pressing issues is that not all humans are the same. Some are either born with, or become capable of, self-serving behavior so evil that no fiction writer could create it.

Not long ago, my wife and I mentioned this startling behavior of fossil fuel CEOs to a very bright, worldly friend of ours, whose career keeps her in the Middle East much of the time. She has met with oil company tycoons, and  practically shuddered when she very deliberately said, "They're not human."

Of course, biologically, they are, but, that's about it. They're psychopaths, and they are not simply among us; they have hijacked our system of democracy. That enough members of Congress, as well as other elected officials, have the same problem, that's not so difficult.

Hervey Cleckley's classic work,  The Mask of Sanity, edited and exerpted here in a special research project of the Quantum Future School, explains this chillingly well. (I added bold character to some of the text, but changed nothing.)


"Imagine - if you can - not having a conscience, none at all, no feelings of guilt or remorse no matter what you do, no limiting sense of concern for the well-being of strangers, friends, or even family members. Imagine no struggles with shame, not a single one in your whole life, no matter what kind of selfish, lazy, harmful, or immoral action you had taken.

And pretend that the concept of responsibility is unknown to you, except as a burden others seem to accept without question, like gullible fools.

Now add to this strange fantasy the ability to conceal from other people that your psychological makeup is radically different from theirs. Since everyone simply assumes that conscience is universal among human beings, hiding the fact that you are conscience-free is nearly effortless.

You are not held back from any of your desires by guilt or shame, and you are never confronted by others for your cold-bloodedness. The ice water in your veins is so bizarre, so completely outside of their personal experience, that they seldom even guess at your condition.

In other words, you are completely free of internal restraints, and your unhampered liberty to do just as you please, with no pangs of conscience, is conveniently invisible to the world.

You can do anything at all, and still your strange advantage over the majority of people, who are kept in line by their consciences will most likely remain undiscovered...

Most of us feel mildly guilty if we eat the last piece of cake in the kitchen, let alone what we would feel if we intentionally and methodically set about to hurt another person.
Those who have no conscience at all are a group unto themselves, whether they be homicidal tyrants or merely ruthless social snipers.
The presence or absence of conscience is a deep human division, arguably more significant than intelligence, race, or even gender.
What differentiates a sociopath who lives off the labors of others from one who occasionally robs convenience stores, or from one who is a contemporary robber baron - or what makes the difference betwen an ordinary bully and a sociopathic murderer - is nothing more than social status, drive, intellect, blood lust, or simple opportunity.
What distinguishes all of these people from the rest of us is an utterly empty hole in the psyche, where there should be the most evolved of all humanizing functions. [Martha Stout, Ph.D., The Sociopath Next Door] (highly recommended)

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For those of you who are seeking understanding of psychopathy, Hervey Cleckley's book The Mask of Sanity, the absolutely essential study of the psychopath who is not necessarily of the criminal type. This book is no longer available. We have it scanned and our team of researchers spent two weeks going over the text carefully to eliminate text conversion errors. You may download the entire book FREE as a PDF from the link at left, top. (Read A Sample Chapter of The Mask of Sanity)

"Likeable," "Charming," "Intelligent," "Alert," "Impressive," "Confidence-inspiring," and "A great success with the ladies": These are the sorts of descriptions repeatedly used by Cleckley in his famous case-studies of psychopaths. They are also, of course, "irresponsible," "self-destructive," and the like. These descriptions highlight the great frustrations and puzzles that surround the study of psychopathy.

Psychopaths seem to have in abundance the very traits most desired by normal persons. The untroubled self-confidence of the psychopath seems almost like an impossible dream and is generally what "normal" people seek to acquire when they attend assertiveness training classes. In many instances, the magnetic attraction of the psychopath for members of the opposite sex seems almost supernatural.

Cleckley's seminal hypothesis concerning the psychopath is that he suffers from a very real mental illness indeed: a profound and incurable affective deficit. If he really feels anything at all, they are emotions of only the shallowest kind. He does bizarre and self-destructive things because consequences that would fill the ordinary man with shame, self-loathing, and embarrassment simply do not affect the psychopath at all. What to others would be a disaster is to him merely a fleeting inconvenience."

Revealing, and a glimpse into the mess that we're in.

"in abundance the very traits most desired by normal persons." That's what makes it easy for these individuals to buy influence even with lawmakers who should know better. That's possibly what made it easy for Penn State University to accept $88 million from East Resources (a gas-drilling company that was sold for some 4.7 billion later that year (2010), and then for Penn State researchers to convince many folks that this gas-drilling, this hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") isn't bad at all, and that we need this "clean burning" fuel. It's what make it apparently easy for National Public Radio to accept contributions from Shell, the polluting oil company that is becoming horribly polluting gas-drilling company. (One reason I no longer contribute to NPR, which has become the middle of a right-leaning road). It's also what helped the Sierra Club, at the national level, accept $26 million from the natural gas industry from 2007 through 2010 (Certain leaders endorsed natural gas as a means of getting our country away from using coal-- a possibly noble, but extremely short-sighted decision.), until new Executive Director Michael Brune turned away more of this tainted money, and set a better course. That certain leaders could buy this lie can only be explained by the persuasive power of the psychopath. 


Our system is so skewed, that crimes for which ordinary citizens would spend long years in prison for committing, produce only token fines against our worst industries-- merely the cost of doing business. If someone dumps poison down his neighbor's drinking water well, the offender will go to prison. If the corporate efforts of some gas-drilling company CEO poison many private drinking water wells, sicken people who live near gas compressor stations, ruin property values in drilling country, (as have happened in Pennsylvania, and elsewhere), they'll simply deny that their actions are connected to anyone's misfortune. And, they'll ramble on about how drilling gas is patriotic (even though it's killing American workers and American citizens, and much of the product is slated to be shipped overseas).


Did anyone go to prison after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, in which 11 workers died? Nope. Did anyone go to prison after a Massey Energy coal sludge impoundment sent 300 million gallons of toxic coal sludge into Martin County, Kentucky, and beyond, polluting water up to 70 miles away, even though company officials knew that the same impoundment had leaked a few years before? Nope. When you're a psychopath, and you fool enough people, you can get away with anything.