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Being a Psychopath has always been fashionable as long as you are White and usually a Male in the US. This is not a recent thing. The 19th century in the West for instance is full of white male psychopaths who were considered Outstanding Citizens who vented their rage on Native Americans, Immigrants who arrived here to build railroads, cut timber, fish and work the gold mines, Treated women like dirt, etc. Oregon where you live and where I am from was and still is full of them.

There is an amazing 19th century Chinese Apothecary that was boarded up in the 1950s when the owner died that is now the Kam Wah Chung Museum, in John Day's city park. They have this amazing collection of 19th and 20th century newspaper articles in the anne off the original building about the Chinese Immigrants and often how these were treated. I recall a letter to the editor of the Oregonian in this collection written by Governor Meyer (I think) requesting that the Random and Summarily Shooting of the Chinese by the ranchers etc. Horse Riding-by Shooting) should probably stop. Was just a suggestion so the State wouldn't look bad (but implying that there was nothing intrinsically wrong with this practice).

He could have sent out the troops to stop this but he knew he would run into a phalanx of psychopaths. Instead he was too busy hosting some Austrian Immigrants who were building Timberline Lodge, the Menucha Lodge near Corbett, and of course, the Governor's Mansion. The Austrians all went back to Austria.

Currently we have Ammon Bundy and his gang of psychopaths, first at Malheur and now stirring up trouble near Klamath Falls. Obama decided to take a wait and see approach similar to Governor Meyer. I hope Biden has much less patience with them. Bundy is running for Idaho's governorship and the psychopaths of the "State of Jefferson" want to become a part of that state and I almost want to say "Good Riddance!" Oregon may end up being smaller than Rhode Island. Hopefully saner minds will prevail with that plan as I like the areas they want to claim, such as Malheur and the Wallowas.

All Trump did was add a lacquer of Gold and imaginary Billionaireship to being a Psychopath - and even with that its hardly original. Even the Egyptians who had fashionable psychopaths entombed in the Pyramids built to memorialize them weren't the first. Today we have Trump Towers. Perhaps when Trump dies, they will emulate the Pharaohs and bury all of his family and cronies in one of the Trump Towers along with him. Fortunately there will be enough honey around for embalming and we can wrap them up in Saran Wrap instead of Egyptian Cotton.

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That's a *brilliant* analysis! Thanks!

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Well said, Casey.

Furthermore, a quick fly-by of Earth and a perfunctory analysis of its wide spectrum of data loudly broadcast into space would indicate that the entire Homo sapien species is one big black hole of crazy shit! Dark matter, dark energy, and now dark thought. Throw in abject stupidity and immorality for a more complete profile.

The strong preying on the weak; fear, the principal weapon; delusion, the highest thought. This "pale blue dot" is a petri dish of dwindling resources, overpopulation, overconsumption, and likely extinction -- suicide by arrogance, a fatal disconnect from the rest of life and reality. Psychological isolation -- extreme self-centeredness and general lack of empathy for other living things -- is truly an aberration in the bigger picture, is it not?

The stubborn pride of our fragile egos is perhaps the seed of our caustic psychopathy and ultimate destruction, manifested publicly through the likes of Trump et al. but a blackness that we all harbor somewhere deep in our fearful little hearts just for the fact we are hapless members of a deluded species.

But change is not possible unless we first see and then admit the ugly truth about ourselves as a species, not just as individuals. And change is not possible unless our thinking evolves RIGHT NOW! "Tomorrow" is too goddamn late! If one is at all receptive, instead of always projecting nonsense, then the deeper awareness of our lonely, miserable plight on this godforsaken speck of dust -- and therefore the impetus to change -- happens instantly, not gradually.

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Hard to believe 10,000 years have passed since our species took the rules of Life and trough them to the wind. Reduced to its simplest form, our problems arise from the acceptance of the idea that a few should be able to acquire dominion over the many. This is a civilization structured on domination. The left/ right theater we participate in is a convenient distraction to the fact that the stage itself is the problem. A small faction of true psychopaths have nurtured the seed of evil within the masses. Some are more receptive to the calling of darkness than others, but we all have it within. Tyranny in numbers.

The goal of the monsters? To consolidate power. To leverage the existence of life against Life itself. Sounds confusing and insane. It is.

The goal of humanity? To distribute power. To leverage the diversity of life to enhance Life itself.

It's that simple.

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Amen!

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Loved them as a kid of course and read most of Louis L'Amour, but as an adult, I'm usually not a fan of the classic Western genre, with a few notable exceptions such as The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Once Upon a Time in the West, Hell on Wheels, and certain others that speak more realistically and unforgivingly to our darker nature and history. In a Valley of Violence (on Netflix) is one such film, IMO. It has all the ho-hum predictable elements, naturally -- the good guy kills the bad guys, saves the town, and gets the girl -- but the writer(s) did a masterful job of revealing the psychotic fixation on guns and death and sense of white privilege drilled into the American psyche as our European forebearers ruthlessly carved out a nation in the "New World" in their own image.

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