The last part of Fromm's trifecta of evil in the syndrome of decay is incestuous ties. For the sake of brevity, I'll skip the descriptive information relating to the Oedipus and pre-Oedipus complex. We'll focus instead upon the link between incestuous ties and our present circumstances.

Incestuous ties and narcissism are closely related with both having their roots in our early bonds with parental figures. The distinction is that narcissism results from the inability to relate in a manner acknowledging our shared humanity with others; whereas, incestuous ties refer to our inability to gain independence from those who cared for and influenced us in our early lives. Narcissism is a profound isolation from others; incestuous ties refer to a profound dependence on others. Fromm describes incestuous ties, "as being torn between two tendencies since the moment of his birth: one, to emerge to the light and the other to regress to the womb; one for adventure and the other for certainty; one for the risk of independence and the other for protection and dependence."

As was the case with narcissism, incestuous ties, in later life, can expand to include "the family, the clan, . . . all who share the same blood and have been born on the same soil. Later, when the size of the group increases, the race and the nation, religion or political parties become the 'mothers,' the guarantors of protection and love."

This passage prompted two thoughts about the Bush cartel. One, it isn't hyperbole to refer, as many do, to the "Bush Crime Family," or the "Bush Family Evil Empire." Going back to the last century and up to the present, members of the Bush family have been involved in criminal activity. Would the sons of Poppy and Babs have been able to make their way without the continuing support of their parents and their parents' friends? While the boys have become rich through the deals set up by Poppy, et al, they've left their projects in ruins more often than not. Due to incestuous ties with family and clan, George, Neil, and Jeb are not independent lads, and their disregard for the effects of their failures on the lives of thousands (and in the case of Smirk, millions), exhibits extreme narcissism, as well.

Second, the propaganda tool to institutionalize both a fear of "terror" and incestuous ties to the homeland is evidence of the Bush clan's commitment to the syndrome of decay. Hitler used the "fatherland" for the same purpose. It's instructive to keep Hitler in mind when considering the kind of cloth Smirk is cut from:

"Hitler is only one outstanding example of the 'syndrome of decay.' There are many who thrive on violence, hate, racism, and narcissistic nationalism, and who suffer from this syndrome. They are the leaders of the 'true belief' in violence, war, and destruction. Only the most unbalanced and sick among them will express their true aims explicitly, or even be aware of them consciously. They will tend to rationalize their orientation as love of country, duty, honor, etc. But when the forms of normal civilized life have broken down, as happens in international war or civil war, such people no longer need to repress their deepest desires; they will sing hymns of hate; they will come to life and unfold all of their energies at times when they can serve death. Indeed, war and an atmosphere of violence is the situation in which the person with the 'syndrome of decay' becomes fully himself." ("I hit the trifecta!" he gleefully smirks.)

Pause for a moment and place the members of the Bush cartel, and its vitriolic supporters, in the context of the passage above. Yes, . . . we have a match! September 11 was appalling to most, but for Smirk, it was energizing manna from Hades. Bush isn't as smart as Hitler, and is lame on the podium. Also unlike Hitler, Smirk has a much more powerful military to fulfill his syndrome of decay urges. The fact that Hitler was a decorated WWI hero and Smirk was a Vietnam deserter is hard to factor in. But we know from the majority of right-wing chickenhawks, you don't have to have been in wars to love them.

Via media complicity and the lack of an opposition party, Americans are being cajoled, threatened, lied to, maneuvered into embracing the syndrome of decay as their patriotic duty. To withstand this orchestrated onslaught, Fromm suggests a remedy, "Hence it is important that they [the insane men and women] be recognized for what they are: men who love death, who are afraid of independence, for whom only the needs of their own group have reality." To understand what is going on would make the more normal people among us immune from their madness. "In order to do this it is, of course, necessary to learn one thing; not to take words for reality, and to see through the deceptive rationalizations of those who suffer from a sickness that only man is capable of suffering from: the negation of life before life has vanished."

Last night, I read an excellent essay, "A Year Later: Notes on America's intimations of mortality," by Mark Skoula, in the September, Harper's . Skoula speaks directly to American group narcissism and incestuous ties. He says, "the source of this tribal identity — the three-century-old myth of American exceptionalism — is alive and well. And not just alive and well but ruddy-cheeked and thriving. Quieted for a time by prosperity, it has revived under stress." And he cites a telling experience he had, illustrating how deeply ingrained the belief in American exceptionalism can be.

A while back, Skoula says, "at the University of California, San Diego, a young woman raised her hand in the middle of a seminar I was then teaching on the first century of Rome and the dawn of the Christian Era. She seemed genuinely disturbed by something. 'I know you're all going to think this is crazy,' she said, 'but I always thought Jesus was an American.'" Skoula continues, "A lovely moment. What she articulated, as succinctly as I had ever heard it articulated, was the spirit behind three and a half centuries of American history: America as an elect nation, the world-redeeming ark of Christ, chosen, above all other nations of the world, for a special dispensation"

The unhinged quality of the Bush cartel is being amplified with each passing day. In the course of a week, it would be easy to find 75 to 100 news stories and commentaries citing the cartel's homage to the syndrome of decay. Yet, apparently, most Americans are benighted by the rosy hues of patriotic nationalism and fail to grasp the chasm between what they imagine to be true and reality. If pride goeth before the fall . . . watch out below!

For a reality check, here are some syndrome of decay items from the past week:

• The Loyalties of George W. Bush: "There is a thread running through George W. Bush's biography that connects family to power to wealth. With no assets but his name and connections, Bush became a wealthy man, and a governor, and now a President. Without those connections, he'd be nothing."

• Bush to skip Earth Summit: "Expectations Bush would not attend the summit have drawn sharp criticism from environmentalists and encouragement from U.S. conservatives who oppose new international environmental treaties or organisations."

• U.N. Report Says Planet in Peril: "The report reviews the most authoritative data from U.N. and international organizations about the use of natural resources and presents a sobering assessment of a planet in peril and in need of a massive global commitment to secure the future for the world's children."

• US considers assassination squads: "Shortly after last September's attacks, Dick Cheney, the vice-president, indicated that the administration might review the ban on assassinations, because 'to be able to penetrate organisations you need to have on the payroll some very unsavoury characters... It is a mean, nasty, dangerous, dirty business out there, and we have to operate in that arena.'"

• 'The War Crimes of Afghanistan': "And while nothing that Newsweek learned suggests that American forces had advance knowledge of the killings, witnessed the prisoners being stuffed into the unventilated trucks, or were in a position to prevent that, they were in the area of the prison at the time the containers were delivered, although probably not when they were opened, report National Security Correspondent John Barry, Special Correspondent Babak Dehghanpisheh, and Diplomatic Correspondent Roy Gutman . . . ."

• CNN documentary on Mazar-i-Sharif prison revolt: film footage documents US war crimes: "Events leading up to this final assault depicted in "House of War" confirm that this slaughter was in no way a defensive response of the US and Northern Alliance forces, but was provoked and orchestrated by Special Forces and CIA operatives on the scene with authorization at the highest levels of the Bush administration and the US military."

• Officers Say U.S. Aided Iraq in War Despite Use of Gas: "A covert American program during the Reagan administration provided Iraq with critical battle planning assistance at a time when American intelligence agencies knew that Iraqi commanders would employ chemical weapons in waging the decisive battles of the Iran-Iraq war, according to senior military officers with direct knowledge of the program."

• THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK: "On the night of June 6, President Bush began by telling Americans that he would propose 'sweeping changes that will strengthen our homeland.' He has been as good as his word. The president's overseas military and intelligence operations are going on out there somewhere in the fog war, deception and lies on all sides. Next, we will see, almost, what the White House and Pentagon and law enforcement agencies plan to do in the actual homeland itself."

• Operation Citizen Snitch sniffs out America's most unpatriotic: "While it's clear that America has enough Constitutional checks and balances to make sure it can't turn into a police state overnight, there is a growing mood of alarm that Bush and his inner circle are happy to try. And along the way, if they manage to drag America closer to a theocracy than ever before, fundamentalist Christian John Ashcroft won't be complaining."

• Camps for Citizens: Ashcroft's Hellish Vision: "Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft's announced desire for camps for U.S. citizens he deems to be 'enemy combatants' has moved him from merely being a political embarrassment to being a constitutional menace."

• Mobbs rule: "Doumar said that the Hamdi case was without precedent. Nowhere could he find a case where a prisoner was subjected to such an abrogation of rights. Hamdi, who hasn't been accused of anything, has fewer rights — actually no rights — than a convicted felon."

• If you want to talk about class warfare: ... "Some days, you have to believe that right-wing ideologues have lost touch with reality completely. Their latest proposal to prevent future Enrons is — ta-da! — cut the capital gains tax."

• Bush defies belief: "Van Eure, owner of the Angus Barn restaurant in Raleigh, North Carolina — one of the 'ordinary Americans' invited to the summit — told the president she backed elimination of inheritance taxes, a favourite White House policy. 'I'm just honoured to be sitting next to one of my heroes,' Ms Eure said."

• Dirty Dealings? Bush Is Shocked ... Shocked!: "When Bush said, 'I met WorldCom employees who no longer have work, who are disillusioned like me and others about the corporate fraud which is taking place in our country,' it might have provided comic relief if the president had turned to Pickering and Lott and asked them whether they were now sorry for creating this monster. Or maybe not; the risk is that they might have turned the question back on Bush in pointed reference to his own sordid history of business shenanigans."

• The Fundamentals Are Not Sound: "As the layoffs spread and the economy stalls, wages stagnate and companies cut back on health care. Wages won't keep up with prices. Around 40 million Americans have no health insurance, and now millions of working families will have to cut what coverage they have, unable to afford the costs that companies are passing on to them. The president's opposition to raising the minimum wage, his efforts to weaken unions and his unwillingness even to take on the drug companies to get drug prices under control have made things worse."

• President Bush's Economic Forum in Waco Should Forgo Public Relations And Examine the Real "Fundamentals" of the Economy, Which Are Not Sound: . "Throughout the recent stock market crash and the growing crisis of confidence, President Bush has repeatedly stressed his view that the 'economic fundamentals' of the country are sound. We present another view of the 'economic fundamentals.'"

• The 401(k) scam: How American workers have been robbed of their retirement benefits: "With over $7.7 trillion wiped out in two-and-a-half years by the 44 percent fall of Standard & Poor 500, many face a shrinking pension or none at all. Unlike a high-powered executive, the average worker has no broker who is constantly following investments, giving tips or advising him or her on the wisest allocations." Fortunately, everyone isn't asleep:

• Firefighters Vote to Boycott Bush Sept. 11 Tribute: "The International Association of Fire Fighters voted unanimously on Wednesday to boycott a national tribute to firefighters who died on Sept. 11, in an angry response to U.S. President George Bush's rejection of a bill that included $340 million to fund fire departments."

• Redefining The Bottom Line: The Coming Corporate Revolution?: "Among the leading crusaders for this shift in corporate priorities is Ray Anderson, the founder and chairman of the board of Interface, Inc., the world's largest commercial carpet company, and the co-chair of the President's Council on Sustainable Development during the Clinton administration. A corporate polluter and single bottom liner for two decades, Anderson became a devoted convert to the Triple Bottom Line after reading 'The Ecology of Commerce,' Paul Hawken's visionary book about socially respons ible businesses."

In the last episode of Bats in the Belfry (see below), I summarized the first part of Erich Fromm's trifecta of evil, the necrophilous orientation (love of death and destruction), operative in the "syndrome of decay." In this essay, I'll look at the second part of the trifecta, individual and social narcissism, as discussed in The Heart of Man.

Since the US is psyching itself up for yet another war, the second in less than a year against brown people embracing an unacceptable god in a region laden with oil, analyzing the role of narcissism in the context of the syndrome of decay is timely. Pointedly, Fromm says, examining "narcissism is necessary for the understanding of nationalism, national hatred, and the psychological motivation for destructiveness and war." Let's begin by reviewing what Fromm means by narcissism.

Fromm views our behavior as being directed by highly charged forces, and narcissism is one of those forces. It is, Fromm, believes, universal in humans. With infants, there is "primary narcissism." The younger the infant, the less relationship there is to the outside world. The notion of "I and thou," or "I and anything" is minimal. "The only reality that exists for the infant is itself: its body, its physical sensations of cold and warmth, thirst, need for sleep and bodily contact."

This primary narcissism holds for the insane (psychotic) as well, with one important distinction. For the infant, the outside world has not yet presented itself as real, "for the insane person it has ceased to be real."

Fromm describes a type of "narcissism which lies on the borderline between sanity and insanity [and] can be found in some men who have reached an extraordinary degree of power." Bush and Hussein would be such men. Of people like this Fromm says, "They have attained absolute power; their word is the ultimate judgment of everything, including life and death; there seems to be no limit to their capacity to do what they want. They are gods, limited only by illness and death." What leads to their instability, or enhances it, is their quest to overcome the realities of their own illness and death, they pretend not to be human. "The more he tries to be god, the more he isolates himself from the human race; this isolation makes him more frightened, everybody becomes his enemy, and in order to stand the resulting fright, he has to increase his power, his ruthlessness, and his narcissism." Given Bush's public statements (three times I believe) about preferring dictatorship as a form of governance, is there any doubt concerning his level of narcissism?

While the psychotic is the person who makes a complete break with reality, all of us, to some degree, are narcissistic. If I understand Fromm, the healthy awareness of knowing one's areas of competence, for example, differs from the negativity of narcissism in that the latter is a "preoccupation with oneself, with little interest left for the outside world." Still, we all have our individual quirks that have no basis in reality making us legends in our own minds, leaving us tainted by narcissism. But, there is a bright side to narcissism. "How could the individual survive unless his bodily needs, his interests, his desires, were charged with much energy?" Carried to extremes, however, narcissism isolates the individual, cutting him/her off from a social life, which in itself is necessary for survival. Fromm's answer to this paradox is twofold. Optimal narcissism is that which is "compatible with social co-operation." Second, narcissistic energy can serve the group when it serves the group's interests, helping the group survive.

Narcissism becomes a problem for both an individual or society when rational judgment is distorted. This happens when "the object of narcissistic attachment is thought to be valuable (good, beautiful, wise, etc.) not on the basis of an objective value-judgment, but because it is me or mine, making the value judgment prejudiced and biased." Attaching one's self interest to a flag versus a principle such as, "justice for all," is an example. When there are these narcissistic distortions, the individual can become dangerous due to anger resulting from criticism. The anger can be very intense, because the narcissistic person is both alone and frightened. If one feels he is the whole world, and he is criticized, then his wounded narcissism threatens his existence. And on a national scale, this narcissistic anger can be catastrophic, when large numbers feel wounded.

The roots of social narcissism can be somewhat benign. As mentioned above,

"The survival of a group depends to some extent on the fact that its members consider its [the group] importance as great or greater than that of their own lives, and furthermore that they believe in the righteousness, or even superiority, of their group as compared with others." In the realm of team sports, for example, a level of social narcissism would enable the group to act as a cohesive unit working to achieve a common goal. Fromm differentiates between benign narcissism and malignant forms of narcissism. The distinguishing characteristic is based upon the object of the narcissism. If the sense of elevated worth is based upon a creative achievement, not a destructive value judgment, then the narcissism tends to be benign. If it is based upon what the group has, such as good looks, the right color skin, the true religion, then it tends toward malignancy.

Let's consider a team again. If the individual members: (1) have set high personal goals and consistently met them; (2) have made it a point to be supportive and helpful to one another; (3) have an image of themselves as being the best in their sport, based upon their accomplishments, their narcissism can be seen as benign. On the other hand, if another team is comprised of individuals feeling a bond based upon: their race, the kinds of cars they drive, the social circles in which they travel, their soft drink endorsements, narcissism can be seen as malignant. In simple terms, if who you are is measured by what you have instead of what you accomplish, there is a problem. And if a nation feels it is a God given right to invade other nations in order to sustain a threatening lifestyle, there is also problem.

Propagandists take great pains to couch political speeches in ways that link political actions with concepts that have some level of group consensus. "Love of peace" can justify undeclared war. "Love of freedom" can destroy civil liberties. "Love of country" can destroy the environment. Others may resent such speeches; in "the favored group, however, everybody's personal narcissism is flattered and the fact that millions of people agree with the statements makes them appear as reasonable. (What the majority of people consider to be 'reasonable' is that about which there is agreement, if not among all, at least among a substantial number of people; 'reasonable,' has nothing to do with reason, but with consensus.)"

Since the Renaissance, Fromm believes there have been two strong, contradictory forces at work in the world: group narcissism and humanism. Sadly, group narcissism has been prevalent. "If there is a distinguishing characteristic between the two forces it is that humanists see each individual as having all of humanity within him or herself; whereas, group narcissists claim, their privileges are based on their intrinsic superiority." How pumped up can one be over the big win in Afghanistan? Well, I guess if you're proud of securing a pipeline in the name of freedom in an undeclared war against defenseless and fanatic tribal clans who had nothing to do with a highly suspicious act of "terrorism," it's OK. It's that "Power of Pride" mentality I saw on a bumper sticker today.

One Fromm antidote to group narcissism would be to leave no child behind through improved education. "The need for critical thought, experimentation, proof; the attitude of doubting--these are the characteristics of scientific endeavor, and they are precisely the methods of thought which tend to counteract the narcissistic orientation." And even though many in the industrialized nations "have 'learned' the scientific method . . . [they] never really have been touched by the method of scientific, critical thinking . . . . It seems that, on the contrary, science has created a new object for narcissism-- technique." And in far too many instances, these techniques introduce new technologies enhancing, not man's capacity for the love of life and unifying creativity, but his capacity for death and destruction. If a nation has a narcissistic obsession with its own greatness, a sense elevated by its deadly gadgetry, what choice is there but to use weapons of mass, and not so mass, destruction? Weapons R Us.

Aside from the need for improved education to overcome both our individual and group narcissism, Fromm also believed that our species, acting in unity, must accomplish tasks which would cause us to be proud of our humanity. Thirty eight years have passed since he wrote The Heart of Man, and the need to join together in overcoming global problems is more grave than ever. Rather than the Bush cartel's never ending war on the earth's disenfranchised for profit and imperial gain, disease, hunger, illiteracy, homelessness, and a seriously wounded environment are screaming for our attention. Instead, we are called upon, in the name of patriotism, to pledge allegiance to the syndrome of decay. Fromm put it best when he said, "Man can be human only in a climate in which he can expect that he and his children will live to see the next year, and many years to come." I'm reminded of the book, Love is Letting Go of Fear, by Gerald G. Jampolsky. If memory serves, Jampolsky said there are but two emotions, love and fear. Those who lean toward the syndrome of decay lean toward fear. And over the past eleven months, fear, not love, has energized the country; fear is our national motivator. Consequently, everything is contracting. Because of this fear, we are becoming isolated globally. Soon, we will called upon to rat one another out, because we will be encouraged to fear our neighbors, and our world will become smaller still. Our individual and group narcissism has been wounded, and someone is going to pay. Of course, in the end that someone is us.

Below are news items and commentaries illustrating both group and individual narcissism. It's clear the Bush cartel, in narcissistic splendor, stands proudly above the law and reason at home and represents the US as being above the law and reason abroad. The administration and its supporters are imbued with US superiority and righteousness, while the general populace remains dumbed down concerning what is real.

• Bush rhetoric scaring people: "'The third thing they are reacting to is a lack of two-way empathy between President Bush and people around the world,' Mandelson added. 'He does not seem to speak a world language. Whenever he addresses the issues he seems to be addressing the American people and their concerns.'"

• West's greed for oil fuels Saddam fever: "Vice-President Dick Cheney, who has had his own commercial interests in the Middle East, baldly described his objection to Saddam in California last week: 'He sits on top of 10 per cent of the world's oil reserves. He has enormous wealth being generated by that. And left to his own devices, it's the judgment of many of us that in the not too distant future he will acquire nuclear weapons.'"

• Oil Instead Of Blood: "The Iraqis are like you and me. They get up in the morning, they eat, they work, they go to bed at night. Is it right for us to blow off their heads and arms and legs, to pulverize their homes, to cause them untold misery? Is it the fault of the Iraqi people that they are under the boot of a despotic, unelected leader?"

• The logic of empire: "There is something almost comical about the prospect of George Bush waging war on another nation because that nation has defied international law. Since Bush came to office, the United States government has torn up more international treaties and disregarded more UN conventions than the rest of the world has in 20 years."

• Facts are the best cure for this outbreak of war fever: "Symptoms include hot flushes of rage, irrational and confused thinking, unsightly rashes of adjectives and the pathological impugning of the motives of those opposed to war."

• White House unable to see beyond toppling Saddam: "In a message that rebuffed Iraq's offers to the United Nations and members of the US Congress to visit Baghdad for talks on the country's suspected weapons sites, Mr Bush told Americans to be prepared for a series of wars against terrorism. 'There's no telling how many wars it will take to secure freedom in the homeland,' he said."

• Global Eye -- Darkness at Noon: "But the elite needs a big enemy, and bin Laden's little band of box-cutters (the FBI says they have dwindled to less than 200 members) just won't do -- not if you're looking for long-term returns on military pork, and constant diversion from injustice, inequality and wholesale corporate looting at home. And so an 'Axis of Evil' is concocted; failed states are magnified into dire threats; the war drums never cease -- and the contracts keep coming. First Iraq, then Iran, then ..."

• Fending Off The Threat Of Peace: "This is no time for the U.S. government to risk taking 'yes' for an answer from Iraq. Guarding against the danger of peace, the Bush administration has moved the goal posts, quickly pounding them into the ground."

• Think Like a Bush: Lie Coordination Bureau Needed: "One of the things we're not hearing about is how the individual state treasuries all the way to the county level are suffering under this Bushonian Economic Meltdown. I have yet to hear anywhere on ProGovNet Media (Pro-Government Network Media, i.e. Mainstream Media) that 17 of the 52 states have declared an economic state of emergency. This is all directly traceable to the Bush Regime because of the Economic Meltdown and higher unemployment benefits, which are costing the states a fortune."

• A Democracy On Corporate Autopilot: "It's the same with our leaders. They stand on the bridge making theatrical gestures they claim will steer us in a new direction while, down in the control room, the autopilot, programmed by politicians in the pocket of special interests, continues to guide the ship of state along its predetermined course."

• Unlimited Presidential Powers: "The Bush administration seems to believe, on no good legal authority, that if it calls citizens combatants in the war on terrorism, it can imprison them indefinitely and deprive them of lawyers. It took this misguided position to a ludicrous extreme on Tuesday, insisting that the federal courts could not review its determinations."

• U.S. Defies Judge on Enemy Combatant: "The Justice Department yesterday defied a federal judge's order to provide him with documents that would have supported the government's classification of a man captured in Afghanistan and being held in a Navy brig in Norfolk as an 'enemy combatant.'"

• The Coming October War in Iraq: "Yet this was a lie — Scott Ritter had come to Boston with a political agenda, one that impacts every single American citizen. Ritter was in the room that night to denounce, with roaring voice and burning eyes, the coming American war in Iraq. According to Ritter, this coming war is about nothing more or less than domestic American politics, based upon speculation and rhetoric entirely divorced from fact. According to Ritter, that war is just over the horizon."

• Secretary Norton Flouting Court on Pronghorn Protection: "Interior Secretary Gale Norton has callously ignored a court order requiring her department to take clear steps to protect Arizona's Sonoran pronghorn, which biologists estimate is down to 5080 individual animals, from extinction, according a motion filed today by Defenders of Wildlife in the U.S. District Court."

• Colombia Ratifies, #77: "Colombia today became the seventy-seventh country world-wide and the sixteenth Latin American and Caribbean nation to deposit its ratification of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Colombia's ratification occurs in the closing days of the presidency of Andres Pastrana and in the midst of a strategic US assault designed to undercut the efficacy of the new Court."

• Bush's Conspiracy to Riot: "After the Miami 'Brooks Brothers Riot' — named after the protesters' preppie clothing — no government action was taken beyond the police rescuing several Democrats who were surrounded and roughed up by the rioters. While no legal charges were filed against the Republicans, newly released documents show that at least a half dozen of the publicly identified rioters were paid by Bush's recount committee."

• Scientist's death haunts family: "The documents show that two of the key officials involved in the decision to withhold that information were White House aides Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, today the nation's vice president and secretary of defense."

• Fudging the economy: "For President Bush to assert that all this news shows the country is 'heading in the right direction' is fatuous, about as helpful to confidence as were his remarks during the recent stock market plunges."

• Obsession: Not just a cologne, but a way of governing: "Can you imagine the hysteria that would sweep through the land if people's Social Security savings had been invested in Wall Street stock, while it's been plummeting? Yet our chief executive — who is consistent if nothing else — is standing by the cockamamie idea."

• Perp Walks: "Rumors are that the president is having a hissy fit over the unending series of scandals, even considering taking away guilty executives' vacation homes and yachts, just for good measure. Yet of the 10 large corporations that have recently crashed, taking thousands of innocent investors with them, eight still have the responsible players walking the streets, a little poorer perhaps, but in no danger of being arrested."

• Bipartisan bankruptcy "reform" punishes US consumers, rewards banks: "But only hours after that bill was passed, the conference committee on bankruptcy reform agreed on measures — long lobbied for by giant credit card companies and financial institutions — that will undermine the financial position of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of 'little' people. While providing a windfall to financial institutions at the expense of ordinary debtors, the bipartisan legislation contains nothing to stop the owners and managers of major companies that file for bankruptcy from reneging on benefits to employees or outstanding bills to small suppliers."

• Enough old thinking on climate: "I have spent a lifetime observing and recording the natural world. Since the Second World War, I have watched the accelerating impact of human activities on this world. The impacts have mostly been negative and, in an increasing number of cases, devastating. E. F. Schumacher said 'the real problems facing this planet are not economical or technical, they are philosophical.' We need a swift shift in our philosophy. The Kyoto Protocol would be a good start."

• True North strong and third: "Because informed individuals can better identify the policy options of different parties, and thus their effect upon their own interests and those of others, it is not surprising that the distance between rich and poor is smaller in the high civic-literacy countries. Those excluded through lack of civic competence from informed participation tend to be those at the bottom of the social ladder, and they pay the cost."

US leaders are detached from reality and the majority of their followers are also detached from reality, either intentionally or by default. As the wheels come off of the Bush, Inc., juggernaut, the law of cause and effect will set in in earnest. Unfortunately, these narcissistic men and women in positions of extreme power will not go quietly. They forcefully came into power; they will forcefully attempt to hang on to power.

Whenever I hear or read something coming from Bush, Inc., it is always a disconnect. And it is a twofold disconnection. What Bush, Inc., says is disconnected from what it does the majority of the time. It is also disconnected from what is generally promoted in the nation as being appropriate. Yet it happily pushes ahead with one disconnected program or policy after another with little consideration given the consequences.

There is very little support or enthusiasm for getting a war on in Iraq, yet there will be a war in Iraq. Verbiage and pompousness are thrown at corporate fraud, and some theatrics are staged for selected corporate fraudsters. Yet, the scamsters behind Enrongate, Harkengate, and Halliburtongate go unindicted. The disconnects are so mindboggling as to deny reasonable discourse. One can only sputter. Are they brazen, or insane? I believe Bush, Inc., is insanely brazen. And what does that say about the supporters of Bush, Inc? But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The notion for writing this "series," which may or may not end with this part, stems from a book I read first in the 70s, and again last fall. Erich Fromm was a German born psychoanalyst and social philosopher who became a US citizen and lectured widely at American universities. The Sane Society influenced my thinking more, I feel, than any other book I've read. However, it is another of Fromm's books, The Heart of Man: Its Genius for Good and Evil (Harper & Row, 1964) that speaks directly to the time we live in, the cast of characters that have connived their way into power and those who support them.

I believe it worthwhile to try to summarize The Heart of Man in order to give wider audience to the perception that pathology is both ruling and ruining the nation. Let's just start and see where we end up.

Fromm believes the person with "conviction strong enough to withstand the opposition of the crowd is the exception rather the rule, an exception often admired centuries later, mostly laughed at by his contemporaries." Current examples of politicians who will be admired in the future, and by some now, are Representatives Lee and McKinney.

One explanation could be that because most people tend toward the comfort of herd behavior (like sheep, for example) dictators come to power. Dictators are doing their moral duty by removing from the masses "the burden of responsibility and freedom." As a quid pro quo, the masses are willing "to kill, to murder, and to strangle, and the sheep comply not because they enjoy it, but because they want to follow; and even then the killers have to invent stories about the nobility of their cause, about defense against the threat to freedom, about revenge . . . to get the majority of sheep to act like wolves." Although this notion sounds plausible, Fromm questions the validity.

Rather, he suggests the average person has the capacity for both good and evil. And, "when such men -- who in ordinary life probably would do more good than harm -- get into positions of power where they command millions of people and control the most destructive weapons, they can cause immense harm." Fromm adds, "The ordinary man with extraordinary power is the chief danger for mankind — not the fiend or the sadist."

Still, Fromm believes that for acts of mass destruction to be initiated, there must exist, deep in the personality, "a deep indifference to life, to make such acts possible." Such a person has a potential trio of vicious and dangerous orientations combined in the "syndrome of decay": "love of death, malignant narcissism, and symbiotic-incestuous fixation." This syndrome "prompts men to destroy for the sake of destruction, and to hate for the sake of hate."

In opposition to the syndrome of decay is the "syndrome of life": "love of life (as against love of death), love of man (as against narcissism), and independence (as against symbiotic-incestuous fixation)." And while either of the syndromes is fully developed in only a handful of people, "each man goes forward in the direction he has chosen: that of life or that of death; that of good or that of evil."

The syndrome of life represents the biophilous orientation in man, while the syndrome of decay represents the necrophilous orientation (an expansion upon the meaning of necrophilia as it applies to the pathological practice of having sex with a female corpse). The latter leads to pathological manifestations of violence. But Fromm points out there are less malevolent forms of violence. He classifies these as: playful violence, reactive violence(caused by frustration and revenge), violence stemming from a shattered faith, compensatory violence, and archaic blood thirst. While these "minor" forms of violence are certainly problematic in varying degrees, it is the pathological orientations encompassed in the syndrome of decay that are most problematic for our species, even to the point of threatening our survival.

"There is no more fundamental distinction between men, psychologically and morally, than the one between those who love death and those who love life, between the necrophilous and the biophilous." Fromm adds, "What matters here, as always in living phenomena, is which trend is stronger, so that it determines man's behavior -- not the complete absence or presence of one of the two orientations."

Following are the traits identifying necrophilous people:

An attraction and fascination with all that isn't alive; dwelling in the past, never the future; feelings are primarily sentimental, nursing memories of feelings from the past, which may not be authentic; "cold, distant devotees of 'law and order';" excited by death, not life; loving force as a way of life, because force can kill; loving the mechanical over that which grows; having instead of being; fearing the uncontrollability of life -- life is disorderly and chaotic; attracted by night and darkness; dreams filled with the stuff of death and decay; appearing cold with skin that looks dead, having an "expression on his face as though he were smelling a bad odor."

Fromm cautions that "the necrophilous type is by no means an abstraction or a summary of various disparate behavior trends. Necrophilia constitutes a fundamental orientation; it is the one answer to life which is in complete opposition to life; it is the most morbid and the most dangerous among the orientations to life of which man is capable. It is the true perversion; while still being alive, not life but death is loved; not growth but destruction."

By contrast, the biophilous type has a "productive orientation. The person who fully loves life is attracted by the process of life and growth in all spheres. He prefers to construct rather than retain. He is capable of wondering. and he prefers to see something new to the security of finding confirmation of the old. He loves the adventure of living more than he does certainty. His approach to life is functional rather than mechanical. He sees the whole rather than only the parts, structure rather than summations. He wants to mold and to influence by love, reason, by his example; not by force, by cutting things apart, by the bureaucratic manner of administering people as if they were things."

Very little reflection upon the behavior of the Bush cartel over the past 18 months is required to realize in which direction the needle is swinging on the life vs. death compass. Condi Rice and her dead eyes. Ashcroft always appearing as if someone farted in his presence. The snotty Smirk smirk. The sardonicus rictus grimace of von Rumsfeld. The sinister Dick sneer. The painfully pinched Ridge who appears to be coping with terminal constipation. These are giveaways to a deep seated problem.

But as Chris Floyd said recently, "'By their fruits ye shall know them.'" It is what they do and don't do that belies their love of death. Over 90% of their policies and legislation are on the side of death and/or destruction. Virtually every treaty on the side of life has been discarded. Our environment, the very essence and essential foundation of our existence and ability to go on existing as a species has been attacked via the weakening and/or abandonment of protective legislation. And the ultimate indicator of pathology is the Smirkster's frison of pleasure when he grins about the need for never ending war. He declares himself certifiable when he caps it off by equating war efforts with peace efforts. This is a guy and a group who are not on the side of life . . . making jokes about hitting a trifecta of destruction. Could it be that, like Nero, Smirk prefers fiddling on the sidelines while Israelis and Palestinians slaughter one another, while the economy and markets sink further into the muck, because he enjoys it? Watch his expressions, his gestures. This is a man who has distanced himself from empathy, compassion . . . from life.

Next week I'll continue reviewing Fromm's syndrome of decay. Here are some items from the past week that tie in with this week's theme:

• Bush's words cast an Orwellian shadow across America: "Enter America's unelected president, George W. Bush, and his 'War on Terrorism.' This war that Bush presents to the American people is a war that will not be over until he says it is. 'The prospect of a war without end,' writes historian Howard Zinn, in a March 2002 issue of The Progressive, is unlike the wars of any previous administration. 'Indeed," writes Zinn, "presidents have been anxious to assure the nation that the sacrifices demanded would be finite" with an eventual "light at the end of the tunnel.'"

• Bush ready to declare war: "President George W. Bush will announce within weeks that he intends to depose Iraq's ruler, Saddam Hussein, by force, setting the stage for a war in the Gulf this winter."

• U.S. Attack on War Crimes Court Rejected at U.N.: "U.S. President George Bush today signed into law the American Servicemembers Protection Act of 2002, which is intended to intimidate countries that ratify the treaty for the International Criminal Court (ICC). The new law authorizes the use of military force to liberate any American or citizen of a U.S.-allied country being held by the court, which is located in The Hague. This provision, dubbed the 'Hague invasion clause,' has caused a strong reaction from U.S. allies around the world, particularly in the Netherlands."

• Homicide on the rise in U.S. cities: "Federal statistics show a 9 percent jump in homicides last year in cities with 250,000 to 499,999 people, a group that includes Oakland. That's the highest increase of any group, including cities with more than a million people. Experts say the same factors are always to blame for a spike in murder rates: a lack of jobs in poor minority communities that has left too many young men with little hope for their futures. Unemployment in Oakland is at 10.2 percent — the same as it was in 1992, when 165 homicides were the most in city history." Who was in power in '92? Right, another whacko. Necrophilia isn't dead in the Bush crime family.

• Bush, Cheney under fire over offshore subsidiaries: "Democrats said revelations of offshore subsidiaries created by Harken Energy Corp. while Bush served as a director and Halliburton Co. while Cheney was chief executive offered new evidence that the president and the vice president failed to practice the corporate policies they now preach."

• One Flew Over The CEOs' Nest: "Or were they something else, perhaps? The financial equivalent of career criminals? In 'Without Conscience,' renowned criminologist Dr. Robert Hare identified the key emotional traits of psychopaths. Included in what he called 'The Psychopathy Checklist' were: the inability to feel remorse, a grossly inflated view of oneself, a pronounced indifference to the suffering of others, and a pattern of deceitful behavior. Sound like anyone you've read about recently?"

Maybe today?

Who hasn't thought insanity is the prevalent mental condition among the extreme right? For me, this awareness really kicked in during the 90s with the investigation of Clinton's penis, although Nixon's paranoia and Reagan's fanciful detachment from reality got the ball rolling. I didn't give much thought to Bush, Sr., because he struck me as a non-entity, and I was, at the time, apolitical. Now, however, I think a case could be made for some form of madness as being the norm among the right wing standard bearers.

I'm not sure where to begin. A month ago, I read a news items where foreign observers referred to US policy as "mad." (Unfortunately, the Washington Post link is no longer available.) The story planted a seed. Over the past couple of days I've also been thinking about "values." The tired right wing phrase, "family values," popped up somewhere, and I thought, "not again." It's probably a back door approach to an examination of mental instability, but writing about values might be as good an entry as any. And a reasonable initial question to ask is, "What does the nation truly value?" However, before we can attempt to answer that, let's spend a little time on the term "values" as used in family values, for example.

About 25 years ago, I can't remember the source, I came upon this definition of values which stayed with me, "A value is a deeply held belief that generates action." The reason this definition worked for me is its compatibility with a teacher I knew, who wrote an taught courses on values. Dr. Sid Simon, a professor at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, was reviled by right wing Christians for what I believe they called, "secular humanism." For the life of me, I'm not sure what sparked their revulsion, because Christ, as I understood him, would not have found the teaching of Dr. Simon, a fellow Jew, repugnant.

Let's go back to the definition of values that I posed, a value is a deeply held belief that generates action. An essay could be devoted to the statement. Here's what it means to me. There are ideas that are good and ideas that are not so good that are deeply held by all of us. And from these ideas spring our values and value systems forming our basis for action. From what I know of Plato's world of ideas, there are universal truths. One of these might correspond to John Donne's sentiment, "No man is an island, entirely unto himself; each is part of the main ..." Something like that. There is the ring of truth in that ... for me. We are chips off the same block. A "good" idea in other words in that it appears to be true.

Since we live in a dimension of dualities, for every good idea, there is a not so good one, a dark side, or a flip side. For example, "Some men are a part of the main, a piece of the whole; others are not ... too bad." A Ku Klux Klan member, a John Ashcroft, would understand. Since we have our much vaunted free will, we get to pick the ideas we want to believe in. At our peril, of course. Since the world of ideas (the mind of God?) is chock full of both "good" and "bad" ideas, could it be that the universally sane person, a saint, for example, is the one who chooses wisely? I would guess that is correct. (I misspoke above when I said I didn't know what repulsed right wing Christians about Dr. Simon's work; it's the relativism of being able to determine one's own truth based upon free will. But nine times out of ten, I believe a rational, emotionally connected person would err on the side of Christ, Buddha, Lao Tzu, whomever. Another type of person would line up with war mongers and other fellow travelers.)

So we pay our money and take our chances, which brings me to the seven criteria that Dr. Simon lists in his 1974 book, Meeting Yourself Halfway. Simon says, "Before something can be called a full value it must be:"

1. Chosen freely. Tough call, because we tend to initially inherit and accept the ideas of parents and friends as correct. If you're brought up in a crime family, the chances are that choosing a divergent path is going to be difficult. Yet, it is not impossible. Many people break the bonds of early scripting to move out and beyond their origins. George, Neil, and Jeb didn't.

2. Chosen from among alternatives. This is why propaganda is so important to those who fear the truth. "Winning hearts and minds" literally means limiting the world of ideas to only those supporting the value system of those in power. Ultimately, it is an impossible task, because the truth does eventually emerge. And if one is an evolved soul like a Gandhi, then private spiritual practice will connect him/her to the truth in spite of oppression. That could be why Gandhi said, "Truth is God."

3. Chosen after due reflection. If, after being jazzed up at a Nazi or GOP youth rally, a lad were to, in a moment of mob frenzy, embrace the idea that all Jews (or Muslims) must die and never question the idea, then reflection hasn't taken place.

4. Prized and cherished. Basically, we must feel good about what we value. This is a private, personal sense of support we give to something we hold dear.

5. Publicly affirmed. If we feel good about what we value, then we need to be willing to publicly affirm it. Ann Coulter's comments about killing liberals, I think it was, would be an example of a publicly affirmed value. She says things loud and she says them proud. Since I've personally met three or four Smirk supporters in the past two years, I suspect many of the 60% (and falling) of those who poll out as supporting his policies wouldn't stand up and be counted in a public forum.

6. Acted upon. This is, of course, the big step, going from words to action. It is where the rubber meets the road. While the majority of the key White House habitues, including the Dick and Smirk, espouse the duty and honor of putting one's flesh in the way of steel and fire, they personally and actively demurred from personal involvement when faced with a choice. But they feel OK about sending others into the fray. So, they value going to war as long as it isn't them.

7. Part of a pattern that is a repeated action. Once is not enough, in other words. If you find a wallet and return it to its rightful owner once, and spend a lot of time shoplifting, then you'd be hard pressed to say you value honesty. Dr. Simon would possibly be generous and say the return of the purse might be a "value indicator," but it's not a value. A value indicator is a leaning toward a value, but you're not there yet.

So, going down this list, you can see that a child beater could be value driven via family values. It's just that the family values of this person would be based upon ideas coming from the dark side of the ideational realm. The same would be true of Hitler, whose value system led him and a nation to protect and expand the fatherland in a special way.

If you've read this far, you might be asking, "Where are you going with this?" Fair enough. In the second paragraph, I posed this question, "What does the nation truly value?" Are there values generally held by a significant number of people in the US, maybe a majority, that would meet Dr. Simon's criteria? Or, another way, do the country's current actions at home and abroad, relate in any coherent way to values people hold dear and espouse publicly and often?

This is a very confusing time. We have the nation's selected leaders acting as representatives of the people committing actions that are raising more eyebrows than not. Yet, publicly, people like Bush, Cheney, Ashcroft, Rumsfeld, etc., say things people want to hear. Bush, Inc., talks glowingly of the value of freedom, democracy, peace, health, the environment, security, employment, justice, etc. Since they base their public pronouncements upon polls, focus groups, etc., there must be a White House belief that it's prudent to pretend to value democracy, for example. Yet their actions are 180 degrees in opposition to their words. The gap between their creeds and deeds is so vast, that as Emerson would say, "What you are shouts so loudly in my ears I cannot hear what you say." When Bush speaks out against corporate fraud, it is actually funny. The man is either a hypocrite in that he fakes beliefs, feelings, or values that he does not hold or possess, or he is psychotic in that he is so removed from reality that he isn't aware of the disconnect between what he says and what he does. Well, there is a another possibility. "Into the hands of every individual is given a marvelous power for good or evil — the silent, unconscious, unseen influence of his life. This is simply the constant radiation of what man really is, not what he pretends to be." (William George Jordan, quoted by Stephen Covey.)

There are some people who choose to be evil. They look at the fork in the road, weigh their options, and start moving down the wrong path intentionally. Bush, and the followers of Bush, Inc., are taking the nation, and the planet, into deep and dark waters with the apparent support of 60% of the people. I guess it doesn't really make any difference if they are hypocrites, psychotic, psychopathic, sociopathic, evil, or a combination. And I'm even less sure what it says about the American people.

That's what's confusing. If the people believe in values that describe the "American Way," why do they support a man and group that are then unAmerican? Or does the American Way value system apply only when the sun is shining, the birds singing, and honey flowing? Kill 3,000 out of 270 million or so, and the American Way is thrown out the window. Thinking of Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs, we immediately revert to the base level, personal safety, at the hint of danger. Maybe the American Way stuff, the Constitution stuff, the Bill of Rights stuff are not something truly valued. Maybe they are merely value indicators, things we don't prize and cherish, publicly affirm, act upon, and act upon often. They were simply mind candy to be admired from a distance when times were good. But the people of character, those who become heroic, rely upon their values, especially, when the times are tough.

Here are just a few of the items that caught my eye in relation to today's theme. Since most of the miscreants in power and their supporters say they value Christianity, I thought I'd relate the news items to some behaviors that most of them would publicly denounce as Christians:

• Anger at war crimes court deal: "President Bush's administration had been threatening to veto all future UN peacekeeping missions if the American military was not granted permanent immunity from the ICC."

Murder, maiming, torture, theft, abuse.

• U.S. Fails to Block UN Torture Amendment Vote: "The United States today failed to muster enough support to block a United Nations vote on a plan meant to enforce a convention on torture and its attempts to do so were widely criticized by European and Latin American allies."

Murder, maiming, torture, abuse.

• US raids 'killed 800 Afghan civilians': "US air strikes in Afghanistan have killed hundreds of civilians, according to a detailed on-the-ground survey that threatens to embarrass the Bush administration."

Murder, destruction of property, maiming, abuse.

• Gordon Gecko Meet Bob Novak: Greed is Good: "SHIELDS: Bob Novak, what's going on? ROBERT NOVAK, CAPITAL GANG: I'll tell you what's — well, Kate is exactly correct, only it's worse than she indicates. I have a feeling of, it must have been like in the — after the stock market crash of '29, when the government was imposing tariffs, raising taxes, tightening money, doing all the wrong things, and they couldn't figure out why the market couldn't recover. Now, all the things that are being done by the Democrats, by the Senate bill, are all counterintuitive as far as the market goes. It goes in the wrong direction. And I'll tell you this. When the chairman of the Federal Reserve, conservative like Arnold — Alan Greenspan and a conservative president like George Bush attack infectious greed, the climate of greed — greed is what makes the American system and the capitalist system work."

Greed, avarice, envy, pride.

• Capitalism Without Conscience: "There has got to be a very special place in hell for corporations willing to sacrifice the health of their customers on the altar of increased profits. If so, a toasty spot should be reserved for the folks at Wyeth who have been desperately trying to develop a drug that causes mass amnesia ever since a new study revealed that women using its wildly profitable hormone replacement drug, Prempro, showed heightened risk of breast cancer, heart attacks, strokes, and blood clots."

Murder, maiming, theft, dishonesty, greed, lying.

• No Confidence; Bush Cabal Drives US to the Brink of Collapse: "That is the classic strategy. And the funny thing is that polls indicate that 80% of the American people swallow that stupid line. What they don't understand (these classically oriented investors with this idea of averaging down which has always been popular in this country — and you can't expect them to understand because they're not being told) is that we have entered a whole new environment, that everything is falling apart, and that it isn't going to come back. And that's what I want the people to understand."

Greed, theft, avarice, lying.

• It's Still Business as Usual: "Apocalyptic rhetoric notwithstanding, Washington continues to coddle the corporate elite. Only beginning with campaign contributions, the corrupting influence of corporate money and power seeps into every pore of Washington."

Greed, avarice, lust, lying, theft.

• Bush set to flout test ban treaty: "America's nuclear weapons laboratories have begun preparations to test a new generation of arms after strong signs that the Bush administration may be about to pull out of the landmark Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty."

Massive murder, greed, dishonesty, injury.

• The last thing the US wants is democracy in Iraq: "Although everyone is lining up for or against a war on Iraq, few are asking what the war would be for. We know it would be against Saddam Hussein's dictatorship. But what will the Americans and their British sidekicks be fighting to replace the tyrant with? It's impossible to say with certainty, but most reports from Washington suggest that Bush wants another tyrant and Blair will concur."

Massive murder, lying, theft, greed.

• BUSH-CHENEY WHITE HOUSE OBSTRUCTS HALLIBURTON LAWSUIT: "Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes public corruption, today reported that security staff at The White House threatened a process server with arrest over his attempt to serve Vice President Cheney with a complaint filed against him by Judicial Watch on behalf of shareholders of Halliburton. It is a crime to interfere with service of process."

Fraud, theft, lying.

• White House Watch: The king has no clothes : "Bush and Cheney, our commanders in the war on terrorism, our cheerleaders on the economy, our ethicists on public life, our gurus of volunteerism, call for "transparency" in business, which means the stockholders are supposed to know what's going on. But they are less keen on divulging who knew what when during stock transactions that proved beneficial to them. Like, really beneficial."

Fraud, theft, lying.

• Bush's role in corporate fraud: "PRESIDENT George W. Bush has reassured us that ''From the antitrust laws of the 19th century to the S&L reforms of recent times, America has tackled financial problems when they appeared.' But the savings & loan reforms came seven years and 150 billion taxpayer dollars late. Nor did that problem merely 'appear.' It was created by a deregulation bill in 1982 overseen at that time by Vice President George Bush."

Fraud, theft, lying.

• Deadly Politics: "Every administration makes certain compromises — in policy and appointments — to satisfy important political constituencies. But most administrations draw the line at compromises that cost lives. The Bush administration now has crossed that line — not accidentally but deliberately."

Massive murder, maiming, lying.

• Strange Fruit: "'By their fruits ye shall know them.' And by their nuts as well."

And I guess we do.

Who hasn't thought insanity is the prevalent mental condition among the extreme right? For me, this awareness really kicked in during the 90s with the investigation of Clinton's penis, although Nixon's paranoia and Reagan's fanciful detachment from reality got the ball rolling. I didn't give much thought to Bush, Sr., because he struck me as a non-entity, and I was, at the time, apolitical. Now, however, I think a case could be made for some form of madness as being the norm among the right wing standard bearers.

I'm not sure where to begin. A month ago, I read a news items where foreign observers referred to US policy as "mad." (Unfortunately, the Washington Post link is no longer available.) The story planted a seed. Over the past couple of days I've also been thinking about "values." The tired right wing phrase, "family values," popped up somewhere, and I thought, "not again." It's probably a back door approach to an examination of mental instability, but writing about values might be as good an entry as any. And a reasonable initial question to ask is, "What does the nation truly value?" However, before we can attempt to answer that, let's spend a little time on the term "values" as used in family values, for example. [[ About 25 years ago, I can't remember the source, I came upon this definition of values which stayed with me, "A value is a deeply held belief that generates action." The reason this definition worked for me is its compatibility with a teacher I knew, who wrote an taught courses on values. Dr. Sid Simon, a professor at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, was reviled by right wing Christians for what I believe they called, "secular humanism." For the life of me, I'm not sure what sparked their revulsion, because Christ, as I understood him, would not have found the teaching of Dr. Simon, a fellow Jew, repugnant.

Let's go back to the definition of values that I posed, a value is a deeply held belief that generates action. An essay could be devoted to the statement. Here's what it means to me. There are ideas that are good and ideas that are not so good that are deeply held by all of us. And from these ideas spring our values and value systems forming our basis for action. From what I know of Plato's world of ideas, there are universal truths. One of these might correspond to John Donne's sentiment, "No man is an island, entirely unto himself; each is part of the main . . . ." Something like that. There is the ring of truth in that . . . for me. We are chips off the same block. A "good" idea in other words in that it appears to be true.

Since we live in a dimension of dualities, for every good idea, there is a not so good one, a dark side, or a flip side. For example, "Some men are a part of the main, a piece of the whole; others are not . . . too bad." A Ku Klux Klan member, a John Ashcroft, would understand. Since we have our much vaunted free will, we get to pick the ideas we want to believe in. At our peril, of course. Since the world of ideas (the mind of God?) is chock full of both "good" and "bad" ideas, could it be that the universally sane person, a saint, for example, is the one who chooses wisely? I would guess that is correct. (I misspoke above when I said I didn't know what repulsed right wing Christians about Dr. Simon's work; it's the relativism of being able to determine one's own truth based upon free will. But nine times out of ten, I believe a rational, emotionally connected person would err on the side of Christ, Buddha, Lao Tzu, whomever. Another type of person would line up with war mongers and other fellow travelers.)

So we pay our money and take our chances, which brings me to the seven criteria that Dr. Simon lists in his 1974 book, Meeting Yourself Halfway. Simon says, "Before something can be called a full value it must be:"

1. Chosen freely. Tough call, because we tend to initially inherit and accept the ideas of parents and friends as correct. If you're brought up in a crime family, the chances are that choosing a divergent path is going to be difficult. Yet, it is not impossible. Many people break the bonds of early scripting to move out and beyond their origins. George, Neil, and Jeb didn't.

2. Chosen from among alternatives. This is why propaganda is so important to those who fear the truth. "Winning hearts and minds" literally means limiting the world of ideas to only those supporting the value system of those in power. Ultimately, it is an impossible task, because the truth does eventually emerge. And if one is an evolved soul like a Gandhi, then private spiritual practice will connect him/her to the truth in spite of oppression. That could be why Gandhi said, "Truth is God."

3. Chosen after due reflection. If, after being jazzed up at a Nazi or GOP youth rally, a lad were to, in a moment of mob frenzy, embrace the idea that all Jews (or Muslims) must die and never question the idea, then reflection hasn't taken place.

4. Prized and cherished. Basically, we must feel good about what we value. This is a private, personal sense of support we give to something we hold dear.

5. Publicly affirmed. If we feel good about what we value, then we need to be willing to publicly affirm it. Ann Coulter's comments about killing liberals, I think it was, would be an example of a publicly affirmed value. She says things loud and she says them proud. Since I've personally met three or four Smirk supporters in the past two years, I suspect many of the 60% (and falling) of those who poll out as supporting his policies wouldn't stand up and be counted in a public forum.

6. Acted upon. This is, of course, the big step, going from words to action. It is where the rubber meets the road. While the majority of the key White House habitues, including the Dick and Smirk, espouse the duty and honor of putting one's flesh in the way of steel and fire, they personally and actively demurred from personal involvement when faced with a choice. But they feel OK about sending others into the fray. So, they value going to war as long as it isn't them.

7. Part of a pattern that is a repeated action. Once is not enough, in other words. If you find a wallet and return it to its rightful owner once, and spend a lot of time shoplifting, then you'd be hard pressed to say you value honesty. Dr. Simon would possibly be generous and say the return of the purse might be a "value indicator," but it's not a value. A value indicator is a leaning toward a value, but you're not there yet.

So, going down this list, you can see that a child beater could be value driven via family values. It's just that the family values of this person would be based upon ideas coming from the dark side of the ideational realm. The same would be true of Hitler, whose value system led him and a nation to protect and expand the fatherland in a special way.

If you've read this far, you might be asking, "Where are you going with this?" Fair enough. In the second paragraph, I posed this question, "What does the nation truly value?" Are there values generally held by a significant number of people in the US, maybe a majority, that would meet Dr. Simon's criteria? Or, another way, do the country's current actions at home and abroad, relate in any coherent way to values people hold dear and espouse publicly and often?

This is a very confusing time. We have the nation's selected leaders acting as representatives of the people committing actions that are raising more eyebrows than not. Yet, publicly, people like Bush, Cheney, Ashcroft, Rumsfeld, etc., say things people want to hear. Bush, Inc., talks glowingly of the value of freedom, democracy, peace, health, the environment, security, employment, justice, etc. Since they base their public pronouncements upon polls, focus groups, etc., there must be a White House belief that it's prudent to pretend to value democracy, for example. Yet their actions are 180 degrees in opposition to their words. The gap between their creeds and deeds is so vast, that as Emerson would say, "What you are shouts so loudly in my ears I cannot hear what you say." When Bush speaks out against corporate fraud, it is actually funny. The man is either a hypocrite in that he fakes beliefs, feelings, or values that he does not hold or possess, or he is psychotic in that he is so removed from reality that he isn't aware of the disconnect between what he says and what he does. Well, there is a another possibility. "Into the hands of every individual is given a marvelous power for good or evil — the silent, unconscious, unseen influence of his life. This is simply the constant radiation of what man really is, not what he pretends to be." (William George Jordan, quoted by Stephen Covey.)

There are some people who choose to be evil. They look at the fork in the road, weigh their options, and start moving down the wrong path intentionally. Bush, and the followers of Bush, Inc., are taking the nation, and the planet, into deep and dark waters with the apparent support of 60% of the people. I guess it doesn't really make any difference if they are hypocrites, psychotic, psychopathic, sociopathic, evil, or a combination. And I'm even less sure what it says about the American people.

That's what's confusing. If the people believe in values that describe the "American Way," why do they support a man and group that are then unAmerican? Or does the American Way value system apply only when the sun is shining, the birds singing, and honey flowing? Kill 3,000 out of 270 million or so, and the American Way is thrown out the window. Thinking of Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs, we immediately revert to the base level, personal safety, at the hint of danger. Maybe the American Way stuff, the Constitution stuff, the Bill of Rights stuff are not something truly valued. Maybe they are merely value indicators, things we don't prize and cherish, publicly affirm, act upon, and act upon often. They were simply mind candy to be admired from a distance when times were good. But the people of character, those who become heroic, rely upon their values, especially, when the times are tough.

Here are just a few of the items that caught my eye in relation to today's theme. Since most of the miscreants in power and their supporters say they value Christianity, I thought I'd relate the news items to some behaviors that most of them would publicly denounce as Christians:

• Anger at war crimes court deal: "President Bush's administration had been threatening to veto all future UN peacekeeping missions if the American military was not granted permanent immunity from the ICC."

Murder, maiming, torture, theft, abuse.

• U.S. Fails to Block UN Torture Amendment Vote: "The United States today failed to muster enough support to block a United Nations vote on a plan meant to enforce a convention on torture and its attempts to do so were widely criticized by European and Latin American allies."

Murder, maiming, torture, abuse.

• US raids 'killed 800 Afghan civilians': "US air strikes in Afghanistan have killed hundreds of civilians, according to a detailed on-the-ground survey that threatens to embarrass the Bush administration."

Murder, destruction of property, maiming, abuse.

• Gordon Gecko Meet Bob Novak: Greed is Good: "SHIELDS: Bob Novak, what's going on? ROBERT NOVAK, CAPITAL GANG: I'll tell you what's — well, Kate is exactly correct, only it's worse than she indicates. I have a feeling of, it must have been like in the — after the stock market crash of '29, when the government was imposing tariffs, raising taxes, tightening money, doing all the wrong things, and they couldn't figure out why the market couldn't recover. Now, all the things that are being done by the Democrats, by the Senate bill, are all counterintuitive as far as the market goes. It goes in the wrong direction. And I'll tell you this. When the chairman of the Federal Reserve, conservative like Arnold — Alan Greenspan and a conservative president like George Bush attack infectious greed, the climate of greed — greed is what makes the American system and the capitalist system work."

Greed, avarice, envy, pride.

• Capitalism Without Conscience: "There has got to be a very special place in hell for corporations willing to sacrifice the health of their customers on the altar of increased profits. If so, a toasty spot should be reserved for the folks at Wyeth who have been desperately trying to develop a drug that causes mass amnesia ever since a new study revealed that women using its wildly profitable hormone replacement drug, Prempro, showed heightened risk of breast cancer, heart attacks, strokes, and blood clots."

Murder, maiming, theft, dishonesty, greed, lying.

• No Confidence; Bush Cabal Drives US to the Brink of Collapse: "That is the classic strategy. And the funny thing is that polls indicate that 80% of the American people swallow that stupid line. What they don't understand (these classically oriented investors with this idea of averaging down which has always been popular in this country — and you can't expect them to understand because they're not being told) is that we have entered a whole new environment, that everything is falling apart, and that it isn't going to come back. And that's what I want the people to understand."

Greed, theft, avarice, lying.

• It's Still Business as Usual: "Apocalyptic rhetoric notwithstanding, Washington continues to coddle the corporate elite. Only beginning with campaign contributions, the corrupting influence of corporate money and power seeps into every pore of Washington."

Greed, avarice, lust, lying, theft.

• Bush set to flout test ban treaty: "America's nuclear weapons laboratories have begun preparations to test a new generation of arms after strong signs that the Bush administration may be about to pull out of the landmark Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty."

Massive murder, greed, dishonesty, injury.

• The last thing the US wants is democracy in Iraq: "Although everyone is lining up for or against a war on Iraq, few are asking what the war would be for. We know it would be against Saddam Hussein's dictatorship. But what will the Americans and their British sidekicks be fighting to replace the tyrant with? It's impossible to say with certainty, but most reports from Washington suggest that Bush wants another tyrant and Blair will concur."

Massive murder, lying, theft, greed.

• BUSH-CHENEY WHITE HOUSE OBSTRUCTS HALLIBURTON LAWSUIT: "Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes public corruption, today reported that security staff at The White House threatened a process server with arrest over his attempt to serve Vice President Cheney with a complaint filed against him by Judicial Watch on behalf of shareholders of Halliburton. It is a crime to interfere with service of process."

Fraud, theft, lying.

• White House Watch: The king has no clothes : "Bush and Cheney, our commanders in the war on terrorism, our cheerleaders on the economy, our ethicists on public life, our gurus of volunteerism, call for "transparency" in business, which means the stockholders are supposed to know what's going on. But they are less keen on divulging who knew what when during stock transactions that proved beneficial to them. Like, really beneficial."

Fraud, theft, lying.

• Bush's role in corporate fraud: "PRESIDENT George W. Bush has reassured us that ''From the antitrust laws of the 19th century to the S&L reforms of recent times, America has tackled financial problems when they appeared.' But the savings & loan reforms came seven years and 150 billion taxpayer dollars late. Nor did that problem merely 'appear.' It was created by a deregulation bill in 1982 overseen at that time by Vice President George Bush."

Fraud, theft, lying.

• Deadly Politics: "Every administration makes certain compromises — in policy and appointments — to satisfy important political constituencies. But most administrations draw the line at compromises that cost lives. The Bush administration now has crossed that line — not accidentally but deliberately."

Massive murder, maiming, lying.

• Strange Fruit: "'By their fruits ye shall know them.' And by their nuts as well."

And I guess we do.

Our archive of earlier articles by J:

"Many Moments of Bullshit:
'The decline and fall of a democracy'" (July 22, 2002)

"Bush Family Fascism:
70 Years in the Making" (July 15, 2002)

"Time for a change" (July 8, 2002)

July 1-3, 2002

June 26-28, 2002

June 10-24, 2002