Crooked Lawyers for 9/11 Truth: Phil Berg suspended

Like the David Cole-stein situation, I'm a bit surprised I didn't hear about this earlier.  A throwaway comment at JREF a couple days back about Phil Berg possibly being disbarred inspired a Google search and it's not pretty.  For those who are wondering  "Phil who?", Mr. Berg is a long associate of Webster Tarpley, and patriot groups and Larouchies, was a signatory on the Kennebunkport Hoax document, and was better known for trying to rope any warm body into his misguided and possibly fraudulent RICO suits:

 http://911blogger.com/news/2005-04-13/update-911-rodriguez-rico-lawsuit

 An update to the 9/11 Rodriguez RICO lawsuit?

Posted by dz on Wed, 04/13/2005 - 4:54am

A while back there was a RICO lawsuit that was being handled by William Rodriguez. One of those represented was Ellen Mariani. Well, since then she has left the lawsuit, but apparently William Rodriguez, and Phillip Berg, have stayed busy at work.
A RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) lawsuit is a type of lawsuit developed origionally to try gangs, and now being used to try large portions of our government.
Phil Berg updated his blog on March 28th and at that time he posted a 180 page report outlining the case. I am about to go over it, thanks to indymedia for the link!
indymedia link
direct link to 180 page report(PDF)
911fortheTruth.com (official site)
 http://911blogger.com/news/2005-05-17/update-phil-berg-and-his-rico-lawsuit

Update on Phil Berg and his RICO Lawsuit

Posted by dz on Mon, 05/16/2005 - 7:27pm

Philadelphia Lawyer, Who Filed RICO Case Against Bush and Cronies, Embarks on European Speaking Tour to Spread Word About Government Complicity in 9/11

But since filing a 2004 federal RICO lawsuit against President Bush and others for complicity in 9/11, the former Pennsylvania District Attorney, finally knows what it’s like to try and scale the world’s tallest peak.
..
Without much support or media attention at home, Berg this week is leaving on a 7-stop European tour to try and raise money and public awareness about the U.S. government’s involvement in 9/11. The speaking tour begins in Amsterdam then continues to Berlin, Paris, Madrid, London and Vienna.

 http://911blogger.com/news/2006-09-07/rodriguez-withdraws-his-rico-suit-against-bush-and-cheney


Rodriguez withdraws from his RICO suit against Bush and Cheney

Posted by casseia on Thu, 09/07/2006 - 1:36pm

• family lawsuits
• William Rodriguez

Here is the text of a letter that was forwarded to me via my local 9/11 group. Withdrawing is certainly Mr. Rodriguez's personal business and his perogative, but without a new plaintiff, the suit is kaput.
---------
Phil Berg here.
www.911forthetruth. com
Urgent - By now, most of you are aware that William "Willie" Rodriguez
recently has asked for his name and therefore, our RICO law suit
against Bush, Cheney and 54 other defendants to be withdrawn.
There is a 5 year statute of limitations on RICO [9/11/06], although I
believe we can argue that since there is no statute of limitations on
murder, there should be no limitation on our RICO case re 911.
I need a plaintiff to file a new law suit on Monday, 9/11/06.
I am speaking with several people.
Do you know someone - the ideal person for RICO is a person or family
member that lost a loved one, that was also lost their business.
Second, I am looking for one that was injured and lost their job.
If you know of someone, please call me immediately:
free office # (800) 993-PHIL [7445]
Thank you.
Phil
Philip J. Berg, Esquire
706 Ridge Pike
Lafayette Hill, PA 19444-1711

 http://911blogger.com/news/2006-09-13/william-rodriguez-no-longer-part-rico-suit


William Rodriguez no Longer Part of RICO suit

Posted by Reprehensor on Wed, 09/13/2006 - 12:24pm

• William Rodriguez

William Rodriguez wants everyone to know that he is longer associated with Phil Berg's RICO lawsuit.
Phil Berg's website here:
http://www.911forthetruth.com/
The site is still seeking donations, but Mr. Rodriguez does not have access to the funds, nor does he know how they are used. Just passing this message along from Rodriguez.

Phil Berg is an excellent example of someone who uses his professional credentials and influence to sell the "Truther" con.  To normal people it's inconceivable a lawyer in good standing would do any public controversial action unless they really did believe in what they were doing.  Unfortunately, in the "truther" community, crooked lawyers with God complexes are a dime a dozen.  Unfortunately, having a God Complex doesn't actally make one a God:

Supreme Court Ousts Attorney Who Sued to Oust Obama

• By
• Jess Bravin

It may be some time before Pennsylvania lawyer Philip J. Berg files another lawsuit asking the Supreme Court to expel President Barack Obama from office. Earlier this month, Mr. Berg, whose law license was suspended last year for misconduct, lost his right to practice before the Supreme Court.
In 2008, Mr. Berg filed one of the first “birther” lawsuits, asking a federal judge in Philadelphia to bar Mr. Obama from office because of groundless speculation by some on the political fringe that the Democratic nominee had falsified records of his 1961 birth in Honolulu.

The court dismissed the case, finding that Mr. Berg had no standing to bring the claim, and was upheld by the Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in Philadelphia. Mr. Berg repeatedly sought Supreme Court intervention on his behalf, petitioning Justices David Souter and Anthony Kennedy, each of whom denied his claim, and then Antonin Scalia, who referred the case to the full court, which rejected the appeal without comment.

That's pathetic enough, but it gets worse when Berg ignores a paying client who is not part of his conspiracy clique, and digs a deep hole with his colleges:

But while Mr. Berg doggedly pursued Mr. Obama, he was not so assiduous in caring for his own clients, according to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which in September suspended him from the practice of law for two years.

The U.S. Supreme Court followed by asking Mr. Berg to show cause why it should not disbar him from its practice; he responded by resigning from the Supreme Court bar, which the justices noted in an order earlier this month.


His website, obamacrimes.com, last was updated in September 2012 with a post seeking “$2 Million Dollars for a Reward to Expose OBAMA for the Fraud he is.”
“Please contribute as much as possible – $25.00, $50.00, $100.00, $500.00, $1,000.00 or $5,000.00 or more,” the post adds.

According to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s disciplinary board, Mr. Berg was derelict in representing the wife of a Hell’s Angel, who had hired him to sue the Lancaster, Pa. police over an allegedly warrantless search and seizure of her home while investigating her husband’s stabbing of a rival motorcycle gang member.

The board found that Mr. Berg failed to answer a motion to dismiss filed by the police defendants, prompting a federal judge to throw out the suit. Mr. Berg dissembled when his client would inquire about progress in the case, the board found, until 2009, when she discovered through an Internet search that the suit had been dismissed years earlier.

The board reported that Mr. Berg was uncooperative with the disciplinary process, raising “frivolous issues” and pursuing “baseless motions that wasted the time and energy” of court officials. While he ultimately admitted violating several rules of professional conduct, Mr. Berg “did not apologize to [the client] but sought to justify his conduct by continually denigrating the merits of the case.”

Moreover, Mr. Berg “did not demonstrate genuine remorse for his misconduct,” the board said, noting that he previously had been disciplined for other rule violations, including “commingling personal funds” with those of his clients and neglecting earlier cases.

 This comes as less than no surprise.


Like many narcissists Berg manages to get the board to consider his dying mother excuse and volunteer work, never mind most people with dying relatives who volunteer are able to keep themselves out of trouble.

Berg has manages to dodge disbarment, but for how long?  As is noted in the comments, Hells Angels aren't known for their calm, reflective demeanor :

The suspension is the least of his worries.
He botched the case of a person tied to a Hells Angel?
Hells Angels aren’t known for settling disputes by filing a malpractice claim with his insurer.

 Wikipedia has more to say:

Berg was sued for legal malpractice by former clients on whose behalf Berg had neglected to file a response to a complaint in an ERISA lawsuit, resulting in a default judgment being entered against the former clients. Berg responded by bringing into the malpractice suit the plaintiffs in the ERISA action on a claim of fraud upon the court. The ERISA plaintiffs moved for summary judgment—which was granted after Berg failed to respond to the motion—and then moved for sanctions against Berg. Berg again failed to file a response.
On June 2, 2005, U.S. District Judge J. Curtis Joyner granted the motion for sanctions, finding that the fraud claim "was inadequately pled, not grounded in fact, time-barred, and utterly irrelevant to the pending malpractice action against him." Observing that an attorney's signature on a complaint constitutes, among other things, a certification that the signer has conducted a reasonable inquiry into the grounds for the claim asserted, the court further found that "even the most limited investigation would have revealed that [Berg] had no standing to raise such a claim." The court also found that Berg's claim was motivated by a "desire to harass" and "delay litigation." The court fined Berg $10,000 and ordered him to attend six hours of ethics training.^[4][5]

What's important here for any "expert" or "experienced activist" pushing Berg in 2005, is the RICO cases were concurrent with his malpractice case...and NO ONE in the "truth" movement noticed? Then or since?

On June 19, 2013, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania ordered Berg suspended for two years for neglecting the 2006 federal lawsuit, stating that he filed the lawsuit on the last day for filing and subsequently "did virtually nothing to prosecute his client's claim," resulting in the case being dismissed. Berg then failed to notify his client of the dismissal and "over the next two years . . . mostly ignored his client's requests for updates" while leading her "to believe that her case was still viable." As aggravating factors in supporting the suspension, it was noted that Berg failed to "express adequate remorse" or apologize to the client. Also noted was his extensive disciplinary history, including a private reprimand in 2005 for commingling funds, an informal admonition in 2006 for neglect of a matter that resulted in dismissal of a client's case and a private reprimand and one year probation imposed in 2008 for failing to pursue a workers' compensation matter.^[6]
In January 2014, Berg resigned from the bar of the Supreme Court of the United States after it had previously ordered him to explain why he should not be expelled. Berg stated his intention to reapply for membership once the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania restored his law license.^[7]

 Berg seemed to be trying to make a name for himself as a "birther", failing spectacularly , but at least getting the White House to put the matter to rest once and for all:

Of Course this will be called NWO "disinfo"

Berg apparently earned respect for filing this "case" against the Bush administration.  For the record this case is nothing like I remember people describing it.  Like the Bible, it's so voluminous the temptation to cherry pick must be irresistible even to people who were familiar with the details.  I'll copy the Wiki summary, highlighting in red the bits I don't recall being aware of and would have found dubious if I'd known:

 This lawsuit made hundreds of allegations including allegations that the Twin Towers were destroyed by means of "controlled demolitions;" that members of the FDNY were ordered, on instructions of the CIA, not to talk about it; that the FDNY conspired with Larry Silverstein to deliberately destroy 7WTC; that projectiles were fired at the Twin Towers from “pods” affixed to the underside of the planes that struck them; that FEMA is working with the US government to create “American Gulag” concentration camps which FEMA will run once the federal government’s plan to impose martial law is in place; that phone calls made by some of the victims, as reported by their family members, were not actually made but were "faked" by the government using "voice morphing" technology; that a missile, not American Airlines Flight 77, struck the Pentagon; that United Airlines Flight 93 was shot down by the U.S. military; that the defendants had foreknowledge of the attacks and actively conspired to bring them about; that the defendants engaged in kidnapping, arson, murder, treason, conspiracy, trafficking in narcotics, embezzlement, securities fraud, insider trading, identity and credit card theft, blackmail, trafficking in humans, and the abduction and sale of women and children for sex.^[9]

Oh boy.  A wee obsession with underaged sex objects?  Wasn't that part of Jim Fetzer's misguided video harassment campaign, where Greg Thomson aka Ozzybinoswald, and Andrew Kelly aka Spiney made a plethora of videos with information about people obtained illegally and mixed them with underage "dancing girls" ?  And labeled this softcore pedo friendly porn "wq2rx"?    

Phil Berg is a friend of Fetzer:

Tarpley, Fetzer Berg: Three idiots of the Apocalypse?

What a bunch of dumbfucks.

UPDATE: Nov 6, 2015:

Phil Berg has finally been disbarred:

Montgomery County attorney who held office in Lafayette Hill disbarred

By Dan Clark, The Times Herald

Posted: 06/16/15, 5:30 PM EDT | Updated: on 06/16/2015

COURTHOUSE >> A Montgomery County attorney has been disbarred by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, according to a notice sent out Tuesday.
Philip Berg, who held an office in Lafayette Hill, was disbarred on consent according to the notice. The notice states Berg submitted his resignation letter to the Supreme Court. The notice states his resignation letter is under seal.
The disbarment, according to the notice, will take place on July 16.
According to an order filed the by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, he failed to let a client know, for two years, her lawsuit had been dismissed by a federal judge. The woman took her complaint to the disciplinary board.
The order states he took care of his brother during the time of the lawsuit in question and it states he acknowledged that he failed in representing the woman.
Berg is known as a “birther” who sued to have President Barrack Obama removed from the ballots in 2008 because Berg claimed he was born in Kenya. The order mentioning the complaint against him states he ran for Governor in the 1990 primary race against Robert Casey.
 

One fraud down, who knows how many to go...

Vaknin: Barack Obama - Narcissist or Merely Narcissistic?

Article written by Tea Party/"Truther" friendly nut Sam Vaknin, infamous on Wikipedia.  In 2008 he interviewed David Ray Griffin, where Griffin admitted he believed there were no hijackers.  Of course he does this years after sounding reasonable and level headed.  Few people would have been sucked into the "truther" scam if this had been a talking point in 2004.

Vaknin's bias' don't just include "conspiracies", but also the thinly veiled racist anti Obama rhetoric of Larouche and Von Mises.  Archived here because Global Politician has disappeared.

................................................

 Barack Obama - Narcissist or Merely Narcissistic?

Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. - 8/13/2008

Barack Obama appears to be a narcissist. Granted, only a qualified mental health diagnostician can determine whether someone suffers from Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) and this, following lengthy tests and personal interviews. But, in the absence of access to Barack Obama, one has to rely on his overt performance and on testimonies by his closest, nearest and dearest.

Narcissistic leaders are nefarious and their effects pernicious. They are subtle, refined, socially-adept, manipulative, possessed of thespian skills, and convincing. Both types equally lack empathy and are ruthless and relentless or driven.

Perhaps it is time to require each candidate to high office in the USA to submit to a rigorous physical and mental checkup with the results made public.

I. Upbringing and Childhood

Obama's early life was decidedly chaotic and replete with traumatic and mentally bruising dislocations. Mixed-race marriages were even less common then. His parents went through a divorce when he was an infant (two years old). Obama saw his father only once again, before he died in a car accident. Then, his mother re-married and Obama had to relocate to Indonesia: a foreign land with a radically foreign culture, to be raised by a step-father. At the age of ten, he was whisked off to live with his maternal (white) grandparents. He saw his mother only intermittently in the following few years and then she vanished from his life in 1979. She died of cancer in 1995.

Pathological narcissism is a reaction to prolonged abuse and trauma in early childhood or early adolescence. The source of the abuse or trauma is immaterial: the perpetrators could be dysfunctional or absent parents, teachers, other adults, or peers.

II. Behavior Patterns

The narcissist:

* Feels grandiose and self-important (e.g., exaggerates accomplishments, talents, skills, contacts, and personality traits to the point of lying, demands to be recognised as superior without commensurate achievements);

* Is obsessed with fantasies of unlimited success, fame, fearsome power or omnipotence, unequalled brilliance (the cerebral narcissist), bodily beauty or sexual performance (the somatic narcissist), or ideal, everlasting, all-conquering love or passion;

* Firmly convinced that he or she is unique and, being special, can only be understood by, should only be treated by, or associate with, other special or unique, or high-status people (or institutions);

* Requires excessive admiration, adulation, attention and affirmation – or, failing that, wishes to be feared and to be notorious (Narcissistic Supply);

* Feels entitled. Demands automatic and full compliance with his or her unreasonable expectations for special and favourable priority treatment;

* Is "interpersonally exploitative", i.e., uses others to achieve his or her own ends;

* Devoid of empathy. Is unable or unwilling to identify with, acknowledge, or accept the feelings, needs, preferences, priorities, and choices of others;

* Constantly envious of others and seeks to hurt or destroy the objects of his or her frustration. Suffers from persecutory (paranoid) delusions as he or she believes that they feel the same about him or her and are likely to act similarly;

* Behaves arrogantly and haughtily. Feels superior, omnipotent, omniscient, invincible, immune, "above the law", and omnipresent (magical thinking). Rages when frustrated, contradicted, or confronted by people he or she considers inferior to him or her and unworthy.

Narcissism is a defense mechanism whose role is to deflect hurt and trauma from the victim's "True Self" into a "False Self" which is omnipotent, invulnerable, and omniscient. This False Self is then used by the narcissist to garner narcissistic supply from his human environment. Narcissistic supply is any form of attention, both positive and negative and it is instrumental in the regulation of the narcissist's labile sense of self-worth.

Perhaps the most immediately evident trait of patients with Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) is their vulnerability to criticism and disagreement. Subject to negative input, real or imagined, even to a mild rebuke, a constructive suggestion, or an offer to help, they feel injured, humiliated and empty and they react with disdain (devaluation), rage, and defiance.

From my book "Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited":

"To avoid such intolerable pain, some patients with Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) socially withdraw and feign false modesty and humility to mask their underlying grandiosity. Dysthymic and depressive disorders are common reactions to isolation and feelings of shame and inadequacy."

Due to their lack of empathy, disregard for others, exploitativeness, sense of entitlement, and constant need for attention (narcissistic supply), narcissists are rarely able to maintain functional and healthy interpersonal relationships.

Many narcissists are over-achievers and ambitious. Some of them are even talented and skilled. But they are incapable of team work because they cannot tolerate setbacks. They are easily frustrated and demoralized and are unable to cope with disagreement and criticism. Though some narcissists have meteoric and inspiring careers, in the long-run, all of them find it difficult to maintain long-term professional achievements and the respect and appreciation of their peers. The narcissist's fantastic grandiosity, frequently coupled with a hypomanic mood, is typically incommensurate with his or her real accomplishments (the "grandiosity gap").

An important distinction is between cerebral and somatic narcissists. The cerebrals derive their Narcissistic Supply from their intelligence or academic achievements and the somatics derive their Narcissistic Supply from their physique, exercise, physical or sexual prowess and romantic or physical "conquests".

Another crucial division within the ranks of patients with Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) is between the classic variety (those who meet five of the nine diagnostic criteria included in the DSM), and the compensatory kind (their narcissism compensates for deep-set feelings of inferiority and lack of self-worth).
Obama displays the following behaviors, which are among the hallmarks of pathological narcissism:

* Subtly misrepresents facts and expediently and opportunistically shifts positions, views, opinions, and "ideals" (e.g., about campaign finance, re-districting). These flip-flops do not cause him overt distress and are ego-syntonic (he feels justified in acting this way). Alternatively, reuses to commit to a standpoint and, in the process, evidences a lack of empathy.

Ignores data that conflict with his fantasy world, or with his inflated and grandiose self-image. This has to do with magical thinking. Obama already sees himself as president because he is firmly convinced that his dreams, thoughts, and wishes affect reality. Additionally, he denies the gap between his fantasies and his modest or limited real-life achievements (for instance, in 12 years of academic career, he hasn't published a single scholarly paper or book).

- Feels that he is above the law, incl. and especially his own laws.

- Talks about himself in the 3rd person singluar or uses the regal "we" and craves to be the exclsuive center of attention, even adulation

- Have a messianic-cosmic vision of himself and his life and his "mission".

- Sets ever more complex rules in a convoluted world of grandiose fantasies with its own language (jargon)

- Displays false modesty and unctuous "folksiness" but unable to sustain these behaviors (the persona, or mask) for long. It slips and the true Obama is revealed: haughty, aloof, distant, and disdainful of simple folk and their lives.

- Sublimates aggression and holds grudges.

- Behaves as an eternal adolescent (e.g., his choice of language, youthful image he projects, demands indulgence and feels entitled to special treatment, even though his objective accomplishments do not justify it).



III. Body Language

Many complain of the incredible deceptive powers of the narcissist. They find themselves involved with narcissists (emotionally, in business, or otherwise) before they have a chance to discover their true character. Shocked by the later revelation, they mourn their inability to separate from the narcissist and their gullibility.

Narcissists are an elusive breed, hard to spot, harder to pinpoint, impossible to capture. Even an experienced mental health diagnostician with unmitigated access to the record and to the person examined would find it fiendishly difficult to determine with any degree of certainty whether someone suffers from a full fledged Narcissistic Personality Disorder – or merely possesses narcissistic traits, a narcissistic style, a personality structure ("character"), or a narcissistic "overlay" superimposed on another mental health problem.

Moreover, it is important to distinguish between traits and behavior patterns that are independent of the patient's cultural-social context (i.e., which are inherent, or idiosyncratic) – and reactive patterns, or conformity to cultural and social morals and norms. Reactions to severe life crises or circumstances are also often characterized by transient pathological narcissism, for instance (Ronningstam and Gunderson, 1996). But such reactions do not a narcissist make.

When a person belongs to a society or culture that has often been described as narcissistic by scholars (such as Theodore Millon) and social thinkers (e.g., Christopher Lasch) – how much of his behavior can be attributed to his milieu and which of his traits are really his?

The Narcissistic Personality Disorder is rigorously defined in the DSM IV-TR with a set of strict criteria and differential diagnoses.

Narcissism is regarded by many scholars to be an adaptative strategy ("healthy narcissism"). It is considered pathological in the clinical sense only when it becomes a rigid personality structure replete with a series of primitive defence mechanisms (such as splitting, projection, projective identification, or intellectualization) – and when it leads to dysfunctions in one or more areas of the patient's life.

Pathological narcissism is the art of deception. The narcissist projects a False Self and manages all his social interactions through this concocted fictional construct.

When the narcissist reveals his true colors, it is usually far too late. His victims are unable to separate from him. They are frustrated by this acquired helplessness and angry at themselves for having they failed to see through the narcissist earlier on.

But the narcissist does emit subtle, almost subliminal, signals ("presenting symptoms") even in a first or casual encounter. Compare the following list to Barack Obama's body language during his paublic appearances.

These are:

"Haughty" body language – The narcissist adopts a physical posture which implies and exudes an air of superiority, seniority, hidden powers, mysteriousness, amused indifference, etc. Though the narcissist usually maintains sustained and piercing eye contact, he often refrains from physical proximity (he is "territorial").

The narcissist takes part in social interactions – even mere banter – condescendingly, from a position of supremacy and faux "magnanimity and largesse". But he rarely mingles socially and prefers to remain the "observer", or the "lone wolf".

Entitlement markers – The narcissist immediately asks for "special treatment" of some kind. Not to wait his turn, to have a longer or a shorter therapeutic session, to talk directly to authority figures (and not to their assistants or secretaries), to be granted special payment terms, to enjoy custom tailored arrangements - or to get served first.

The narcissist is the one who – vocally and demonstratively – demands the undivided attention of the head waiter in a restaurant, or monopolizes the hostess, or latches on to celebrities in a party. The narcissist reacts with rage and indignantly when denied his wishes and if treated equally with others whom he deems inferior.

Idealization or devaluation – The narcissist instantly idealizes or devalues his interlocutor. This depends on how the narcissist appraises the potential his converser has as a Narcissistic Supply Source. The narcissist flatters, adores, admires and applauds the "target" in an embarrassingly exaggerated and profuse manner – or sulks, abuses, and humiliates her.

Narcissists are polite only in the presence of a potential Supply Source. But they are unable to sustain even perfunctory civility and fast deteriorate to barbs and thinly-veiled hostility, to verbal or other violent displays of abuse, rage attacks, or cold detachment.

The "membership" posture – The narcissist always tries to "belong". Yet, at the very same time, he maintains his stance as an outsider. The narcissist seeks to be admired for his ability to integrate and ingratiate himself without investing the efforts commensurate with such an undertaking.

For instance: if the narcissist talks to a psychologist, the narcissist first states emphatically that he never studied psychology. He then proceeds to make seemingly effortless use of obscure professional terms, thus demonstrating that he mastered the discipline all the same, as an autodidact – which proves that he is exceptionally intelligent or introspective.

In general, the narcissist always prefers show-off to substance. One of the most effective methods of exposing a narcissist is by trying to delve deeper. The narcissist is shallow, a pond pretending to be an ocean. He likes to think of himself as a Renaissance man, a Jack of all trades. The narcissist never admits to ignorance in any field – yet, typically, he is ignorant of them all. It is surprisingly easy to penetrate the gloss and the veneer of the narcissist's self-proclaimed omniscience.

Bragging and false autobiography – The narcissist brags incessantly. His speech is peppered with "I", "my", "myself", and "mine". He describes himself as intelligent, or rich, or modest, or intuitive, or creative – but always excessively, implausibly, and extraordinarily so.

The narcissist's biography sounds unusually rich and complex. His achievements – incommensurate with his age, education, or renown. Yet, his actual condition is evidently and demonstrably incompatible with his claims. Very often, the narcissist lies or his fantasies are easily discernible. He always name-drops and appropriates other people's experiences and accomplishments.

Emotion-free language – The narcissist likes to talk about himself and only about himself. He is not interested in others or what they have to say, unless they constitute potential Sources of Supply and in order to obtain said supply. He acts bored, disdainful, even angry, if he feels that they are intruding on his precious time and, thus, abusing him.

In general, the narcissist is very impatient, easily bored, with strong attention deficits – unless and until he is the topic of discussion. One can publicly dissect all aspects of the intimate life of a narcissist without repercussions, providing the discourse is not "emotionally tinted".

If asked to relate directly to his emotions, the narcissist intellectualizes, rationalizes, speaks about himself in the third person and in a detached "scientific" tone or composes a narrative with a fictitious character in it, suspiciously autobiographical. Narcissists like to refer to themselves in mechanical terms, as efficient automata or machines.

Seriousness and sense of intrusion and coercion – The narcissist is dead serious about himself. He may possess a subtle, wry, and riotous sense of humor, scathing and cynical, but rarely is he self-deprecating. The narcissist regards himself as being on a constant mission, whose importance is cosmic and whose consequences are global. If a scientist – he is always in the throes of revolutionizing science. If a journalist – he is in the middle of the greatest story ever. If a novelist - he is on his way to a Booker or Nobel prize.

This self-misperception is not amenable to light-headedness or self-effacement. The narcissist is easily hurt and insulted (narcissistic injury). Even the most innocuous remarks or acts are interpreted by him as belittling, intruding, or coercive. His time is more valuable than others' – therefore, it cannot be wasted on unimportant matters such as mere banter or going out for a walk.

Any suggested help, advice, or concerned inquiry are immediately cast by the narcissist as intentional humiliation, implying that the narcissist is in need of help and counsel and, thus, imperfect and less than omnipotent. Any attempt to set an agenda is, to the narcissist, an intimidating act of enslavement. In this sense, the narcissist is both schizoid and paranoid and often entertains ideas of reference.

These – the lack of empathy, the aloofness, the disdain, the sense of entitlement, the constricted sense of humor, the unequal treatment and the paranoia – render the narcissist a social misfit. The narcissist is able to provoke in his milieu, in his casual acquaintances, even in his psychotherapist, the strongest, most avid and furious hatred and revulsion. To his shock, indignation and consternation, he invariably induces in others unbridled aggression.

He is perceived to be asocial at best and, often, antisocial. This, perhaps, is the strongest presenting symptom. One feels ill at ease in the presence of a narcissist for no apparent reason. No matter how charming, intelligent, thought provoking, outgoing, easy going and social the narcissist is – he fails to secure the sympathy of others, a sympathy he is never ready, willing, or able to reciprocate.
IV. Narcissistic and psychopathic Leaders

The narcissistic or psychopathic leader is the culmination and reification of his period, culture, and civilization. He is likely to rise to prominence in narcissistic societies.

The malignant narcissist invents and then projects a false, fictitious, self for the world to fear, or to admire. He maintains a tenuous grasp on reality to start with and this is further exacerbated by the trappings of power. The narcissist's grandiose self-delusions and fantasies of omnipotence and omniscience are supported by real life authority and the narcissist's predilection to surround himself with obsequious sycophants.

The narcissist's personality is so precariously balanced that he cannot tolerate even a hint of criticism and disagreement. Most narcissists are paranoid and suffer from ideas of reference (the delusion that they are being mocked or discussed when they are not). Thus, narcissists often regard themselves as "victims of persecution".

The narcissistic leader fosters and encourages a personality cult with all the hallmarks of an institutional religion: priesthood, rites, rituals, temples, worship, catechism, mythology. The leader is this religion's ascetic saint. He monastically denies himself earthly pleasures (or so he claims) in order to be able to dedicate himself fully to his calling.

The narcissistic leader is a monstrously inverted Jesus, sacrificing his life and denying himself so that his people - or humanity at large - should benefit. By surpassing and suppressing his humanity, the narcissistic leader became a distorted version of Nietzsche's "superman".

But being a-human or super-human also means being a-sexual and a-moral.

In this restricted sense, narcissistic leaders are post-modernist and moral relativists. They project to the masses an androgynous figure and enhance it by engendering the adoration of nudity and all things "natural" - or by strongly repressing these feelings. But what they refer to as "nature" is not natural at all.

The narcissistic leader invariably proffers an aesthetic of decadence and evil carefully orchestrated and artificial - though it is not perceived this way by him or by his followers. Narcissistic leadership is about reproduced copies, not about originals. It is about the manipulation of symbols - not about veritable atavism or true conservatism.

In short: narcissistic leadership is about theatre, not about life. To enjoy the spectacle (and be subsumed by it), the leader demands the suspension of judgment, depersonalization, and de-realization. Catharsis is tantamount, in this narcissistic dramaturgy, to self-annulment.

Narcissism is nihilistic not only operationally, or ideologically. Its very language and narratives are nihilistic. Narcissism is conspicuous nihilism - and the cult's leader serves as a role model, annihilating the Man, only to re-appear as a pre-ordained and irresistible force of nature.

Narcissistic leadership often poses as a rebellion against the "old ways" - against the hegemonic culture, the upper classes, the established religions, the superpowers, the corrupt order. Narcissistic movements are puerile, a reaction to narcissistic injuries inflicted upon a narcissistic (and rather psychopathic) toddler nation-state, or group, or upon the leader.

Minorities or "others" - often arbitrarily selected - constitute a perfect, easily identifiable, embodiment of all that is "wrong". They are accused of being old, they are eerily disembodied, they are cosmopolitan, they are part of the establishment, they are "decadent", they are hated on religious and socio-economic grounds, or because of their race, sexual orientation, origin ... They are different, they are narcissistic (feel and act as morally superior), they are everywhere, they are defenceless, they are credulous, they are adaptable (and thus can be co-opted to collaborate in their own destruction). They are the perfect hate figure. Narcissists thrive on hatred and pathological envy.

This is precisely the source of the fascination with Hitler, diagnosed by Erich Fromm - together with Stalin - as a malignant narcissist. He was an inverted human. His unconscious was his conscious. He acted out our most repressed drives, fantasies, and wishes. He provides us with a glimpse of the horrors that lie beneath the veneer, the barbarians at our personal gates, and what it was like before we invented civilization. Hitler forced us all through a time warp and many did not emerge. He was not the devil. He was one of us. He was what Arendt aptly called the banality of evil. Just an ordinary, mentally disturbed, failure, a member of a mentally disturbed and failing nation, who lived through disturbed and failing times. He was the perfect mirror, a channel, a voice, and the very depth of our souls.

The narcissistic leader prefers the sparkle and glamour of well-orchestrated illusions to the tedium and method of real accomplishments. His reign is all smoke and mirrors, devoid of substances, consisting of mere appearances and mass delusions. In the aftermath of his regime - the narcissistic leader having died, been deposed, or voted out of office - it all unravels. The tireless and constant prestidigitation ceases and the entire edifice crumbles. What looked like an economic miracle turns out to have been a fraud-laced bubble. Loosely-held empires disintegrate. Laboriously assembled business conglomerates go to pieces. "Earth shattering" and "revolutionary" scientific discoveries and theories are discredited. Social experiments end in mayhem.

It is important to understand that the use of violence must be ego-syntonic. It must accord with the self-image of the narcissist. It must abet and sustain his grandiose fantasies and feed his sense of entitlement. It must conform with the narcissistic narrative.

Thus, a narcissist who regards himself as the benefactor of the poor, a member of the common folk, the representative of the disenfranchised, the champion of the dispossessed against the corrupt elite - is highly unlikely to use violence at first.

The pacific mask crumbles when the narcissist has become convinced that the very people he purported to speak for, his constituency, his grassroots fans, the prime sources of his narcissistic supply - have turned against him. At first, in a desperate effort to maintain the fiction underlying his chaotic personality, the narcissist strives to explain away the sudden reversal of sentiment. "The people are being duped by (the media, big industry, the military, the elite, etc.)", "they don't really know what they are doing", "following a rude awakening, they will revert to form", etc.

When these flimsy attempts to patch a tattered personal mythology fail - the narcissist is injured. Narcissistic injury inevitably leads to narcissistic rage and to a terrifying display of unbridled aggression. The pent-up frustration and hurt translate into devaluation. That which was previously idealized - is now discarded with contempt and hatred.

This primitive defense mechanism is called "splitting". To the narcissist, things and people are either entirely bad (evil) or entirely good. He projects onto others his own shortcomings and negative emotions, thus becoming a totally good object. A narcissistic leader is likely to justify the butchering of his own people by claiming that they intended to kill him, undo the revolution, devastate the economy, or the country, etc.

The "small people", the "rank and file", the "loyal soldiers" of the narcissist - his flock, his nation, his employees - they pay the price. The disillusionment and disenchantment are agonizing. The process of reconstruction, of rising from the ashes, of overcoming the trauma of having been deceived, exploited and manipulated - is drawn-out. It is difficult to trust again, to have faith, to love, to be led, to collaborate. Feelings of shame and guilt engulf the erstwhile followers of the narcissist. This is his sole legacy: a massive post-traumatic stress disorder.



Sam Vaknin ( http://samvak.tripod.com ) is the author of Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited and After the Rain - How the West Lost the East. He served as a columnist for Global Politician, Central Europe Review, PopMatters, Bellaonline, and eBookWeb, a United Press International (UPI) Senior Business Correspondent, and the editor of mental health and Central East Europe categories in The Open Directory and Suite101.

Visit Sam's Web site at http://samvak.tripod.com You can download 22 of his free ebooks in our bookstore


NOTE: as per Wikipedia there is some doubt about the validity of Vaknin's PhD.

Stormfront, Obama and Murder

A couple days before Hitler's birthday the Guardian reported on the Southern Poverty Law Center study linking the highest profile Nazi website to hate killings.  This hardly came as a surprise:

More than 100 hate-crime murders linked to single website, report finds

• Southern Poverty Law Center singles out Stormfront.org
• Report says users disproportionately linked to major killings

• Amanda Holpuch in New York
• theguardian.com, Friday 18 April 2014 08.16 EDT

People charged with the murders of almost 100 people can be linked to a single far-right website, according to a new report from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).

The White Nationalist web forum Stormfront.org says it promotes values of “the embattled white minority,” and its users include Anders Behring Breivik, who killed 77 people in a 2011 massacre in Norway, and Wade Michael Page, who shot and killed six people at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin in 2012.
After a two-year investigation, the SPLC said (pdf) that since Stormfront became one of the first hate sites on the internet in 1995, its registered users have been disproportionately responsible for major killings. The report was released a month early after white supremacist Frazier Glenn Miller, also known as Frazier Glenn Cross, was accused of killing three people at a Jewish center in Kansas City on Sunday.
“We know that the people who are going to commit the kinds of crimes, like the kinds of crimes Miller committed last weekend, this is where they live,” said Heidi Beirich, report author and a director at the SPLC’s Intelligence Project. The report, released on Thursday, calls Stormfront the “largest hate site in the world” and “a magnet and breeding ground for the deadly and deranged.”
Of the site’s more than 286,000 users, only a small sliver are highly active, the report found, with fewer than 1,800 people logging in each day. While the SPLC only identified 10 murderers out of this large user base, researchers think the murderers’ connection to the site is important because it shows how the website offers a community for people who commit these crimes.

“It’s pretty clear that websites like Stormfront are breeding grounds for people who are just enraged at their situation, it’s there that people find the reasons their lives aren’t as they had hoped and Stormfront helps them find the enemy that is standing in their way – whether it be Jews, African Americans, immigrants and so on,” said Beirich. “Unfortunately it’s not very surprising that people who live in this kind of stew of violent racism eventually pick up a gun and do something about it at some point.”

Stormfront proudly declares that “every month is white history month” at the top of its site and forum discussions concern things such as the latest news stories, ideology, poetry and creative writing.

“The fact of the matter is that more people have been killed domestically by radical right extremists than Islamic extremists since 9/11 and where you find a lot of these people is on these sites,” said Beirich.

SPLC also identified 10 characteristics shared by killers who were active online including unemployment, posting on more than one hate website, and sustained activity on these sites.

Stormfront founder Don Black, a former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, criticized Miller for giving users of his site a bad reputation. “We have enough of a problem with how we are portrayed without some homicidal whack job coming along and reinforcing that,” Black told the Daily Beast. After he was banned from Stormfront, the SLPC said Miller posted more than 12,000 times on a similar forum, Vanguard News Network, whose slogan is “No Jews, Just Right.”

The SPLC’s report said hate killings skyrocketed after Barack Obama was inaugurated in 2009.
“We have seen and documented at the SPLC an enormous growth of groups on the radical right, particularly in the last five years,” said Mark Potok, the report’s editor and a senior fellow on the Intelligence Project. “That growth quite clearly seems to be driven by the appearance of Barack Obama on the political scene in the fall of 2008 and of course his subsequent election.”

Potok noted that these hate sites are protected by first amendment rights because they don’t contain concrete plots to commit crimes. He said that law enforcement official unquestionably pay attention to these sites, but criticized how much analysis is done on users by federal authorities.

“We feel pretty strongly that the Department of Homeland Security, which is the lead agency in this country for developing intelligence about these groups and individuals, has more or less taken its eye of the ball in the sense that since 2009 the department seems more focused on Jihadists terrorism,” Potok said.

 Bold mine.   The radical right was mobilizing from day one of Obama's election, because , you know, he's BLACK.   You'd think the collapse of civilization was immanent.  Two memes were fast tracked and spread heavily in the "truther" communities:    Joker Obama, a repurposed joker Bush, and Obama Hitler.

One of the first places to report Joker Obama is a website devoted to battling "liberal bias":

Obama Joker Poster Popping Up In Los Angeles

By Noel Sheppard | August 1, 2009 | 20:06

 Have you seen this poster?
Apparently, it's beginning to appear in odd places in Los Angeles, but nobody seems to know who's responsible for it.

Radio host Tammy Bruce posted some pictures of this odd creation at her blog Saturday morning (h/t Pamela Geller) leading me to investigate further.
At this point, all I could find on the subject was an April 25 article from Bedlam Magazine:

 A poster of Barack Obama in Heath Ledger-style Joker make-up with the legend 'Socialism' beneath it has been popping up recently on surfaces around L.A. It does not appear to be in the same category as the many benign take-offs on the Shepard Fairey 'Hope' poster, such as the one by Australian James Lillis (more of a straightforward spoof that merely substituted a Shepardized image of Heath Ledger as Joker on the Obama poster). 

 Here are Tammy's snaps:

 Makes you wonder who's behind this.

It's not difficult to figure out.  Though I expect Sheppard is angling for something more specific than the "hide the white women" crowd.[Wikipedia attributes this image to Firas Alkhateeb. Only later would "socialism" be added. Previous version are by Ross Brummet  and a couple college Republicans. ]

A couple days later the same blogger would opine about a double standard:

Not surprisingly, the Obama Joker Poster reported by NewsBusters Saturday is already drawing some outrage.
According to a television station where the posters have been spotted, "Los Angeles Urban Policy Roundtable President Earl Ofari Hutchinson is calling the depiction, politically mean spirited and dangerous."
Yet, when Vanity Fair's Politics & Power blog published a somewhat similar visual representation of George W. Bush last July, nobody seemed to complain. In fact, throughout the Bush years, demeaning drawings of the President and Vice President Dick Cheney were quite commonplace.

 And:

 Hmmm. I wonder where the Los Angeles Urban Policy Roundtable was when Vanity Fair published this last July:

And where was the outrage when the Village Voice published this on the cover of its October 26, 2004, issue:

Like many conservatives  Sheppard misses the point.  Unfortunately he doesn't provide links for context, but at a wild ass guess the Bush images were a commentary on Bushes policies, and the fact, let's face it:  as  president Bush was a joke.

The Obama Joker is more offensive not just because of the undertones of racism, but the outright lie he's a socialist.  There is a difference between criticizing someone for something they actually are vs. making up shite to support reactionary paranoia.   This is a false equivalency.  Mind, it's possible Sheppard isn't even aware of this, perhaps believing organized political racism no longer exists.  The SPLC's report pretty much demolishes that idea.

While these were popular with the KKK friendly crowd, they didn't invent them.   And Obama Hitler comes directly from the marketing department of the Larouche cult:

These are relevant to this blog because the more blatant racist "truthers" and libertarian crowd around them were pushing the Obama joker meme from word go.  In fact "Infowars" had a campaign to push the meme, and much like Paultards, was able to mobilize the fringe base to make it a reality:


 http://www.infowars.com/joker-obama-posters-to-go-viral/

‘JOKER’ Obama Posters to go viral

Infowars
August 5, 2009

DON’T ALLOW POLITICALLY CORRECT OBAMANOIDS TO STOP FREE SPEECH & POLITICAL DISSENT.
POST THESE EVERYWHERE YOU CAN IN YOUR AREA AND ONLINE

Note: Obama Joker posters should be posted in public commons where other fliers, public announcements, handbills, etc., are posted. Please do not post on federal or private property as this will be considered vandalism and will be counterproductive and diminish the message of the Obama Joker poster.

This was four days after the NewsBusters report.  The posters in Tammy's pics were probably part of a campaign in progress Alex Jones almost certainly was aware of. 

Invented, reporposed or coopted, the anti-Obama memes were a great moral boost to racist fringe culture.  A picture doesn't make anyone kill and I certainly don't think it should be banned.  But it's not too much to expect the agencies that should be tracking these things to use this as a flag to follow the trend. It comes as no surprise that Stormfront.org was a hotbed for discussion around the Obama Joker: Google search

What is a surprise is the link to the first News Busters article about the poster the same day it was published:

http://www.stormfront.org/forum/t626350/

Calling into question exactly how unaware NewBusters was of the origins if a faithful reader picked it up so soon.  Posted by  a self described Libertarian:

salvete amici

Forum Member

Join Date: Oct 2005

Location: Christian, Free-market Libertarian

The subject clearly has support, wandering into the delusional:

Spread as many as such posters as possible on the most busy places, if enough people see through the deception they fall.

Oookaaaaay.  LA is still standing.  Guess the poster brigade didn't put up enough.


Meanwhile the people sucked into conspiracy culture and particularly the "truth" movement would do well to shun memes of racist origin.  Better yet, shun the entire culture before being labeled a race traitor and targeted by violent nuts.

One last thought: could the embrace of Obama joker in  9/11 "truth" been the death knell of the fake "leftist" truther groups?   People pushing "truth" were always a pale faced bunch.  Only in the very early days was there even a smattering of dark-ish complected truthers.  This would be paralleled in the Tea party, and much like the Tea Party, is a sign someone, somewhere is LYING about the origins and goals of the "movement".  Except in the "truth" movement the lie was more believable because the anti war left was very critical of Bush's handling of 9/11.  What Black Tea Partiers were thinking I don't know: the anti black racism of the Tea Party was far, far more obvious on the street than the anti-Jew "truthers".

 In any case, the Obama Joker was actively pushed by "truthers" in mid 2009.  I remember seeing it and being neither offended nor impressed.  I don't remember seeing the socialism tag though.  Had I known it's origins, I would have been much less impressed.  I do remember a spin off of the meme, Hopenosis, which I thought was forced and idiotic. This was offensive because it mocked people's quite understandable desire for economic relief after the Bush years. Mocking a public figure is one thing; having a go at people while they're down is mean spirited. Perhaps if it had been coupled with thoughtful criticism it would have been different.  But I did feel the aversive effects of Hope-nosis.  Like Obama Joker it signaled the end of any attempts to woo the left into 9/11 "truth" and the complete abandonment of any leftist "truther" fronts.