Category Archives: Politics

Acting up— or just a Desperate Cry for Attention

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Clients often ask me if the children (or adults) in their lives are just looking for attention when they “act up” or become emotionally distraught. This is often true, but the goal isn’t attention as much as what I call “visibility.”

People have a reasonable need to feel that their lives are important and that they are visible to others. Visibility is the end result of achievement or success, and it cannot be faked in order to make visibility an end in itself. An author achieves visibility when she convinces readers that she has something valuable to say. A sports hero achieves visibility when he demonstrates talent on the playing field. A businessperson achieves visibility because he makes a profit by creating and selling a product or service of value to many.

So you can’t seek attention or visibility without first focusing on the means that make it possible. And that, not the visibility, has to be the end in itself. In the absence of actually earning it, the failure to get visibility can often lead to anxiety, which in extreme cases can lead to desperation. When people develop emotional disorders or maladies as a bid for attention, it doesn’t mean they’re deliberately faking it. While this may sometimes be true, what may actually be happening is that the person has become anxious and desperate because he or she has failed to understand that visibility can only come from a continuous policy of achievement over time.

There are also achievements in character or personality as well. You don’t obtain visibility in personal relationships primarily through career achievement. Somebody becomes good friends with you or marries you more for your personal traits and qualities (hopefully) than anything else. If you haven’t nurtured these qualities over time in a rational, principled and thoughtful way, you won’t obtain the desired visibility from somebody who reflects the ideals you already practice daily. You might end up with friends or a spouse in name only, but you will still not be satisfied, because you never satisfied yourself.

Some mental health professionals encourage people to get caught up in their childhood. “You didn’t get what you needed as a child,” they intone. “You must now work through that as an adult.” “Work through” is never concretely defined, and hundreds of psychotherapy sessions will give you no better understanding of that (though it might put a nice pool in the therapist’s back yard). This is because “working through” generally does not correct the most basic error: Failing to tend to the self and to develop it in a way that brings pleasure and genuine satisfaction.

To make matters worse, ethicists and moralists throughout history have emphasized what they consider to be the “virtue” of selflessness. So we end up with millions of conscientious, thoughtful people – the ones with the greatest potential for earned visibility – trying to become the opposite of what they require. They’re taught that the ideal is to tend to others, and never to themselves. And then they wonder why they suffer from depression, anxiety and other manifestations of low self-esteem.

If we want to feel good every day, it’s necessary to pursue the only course that can make that possible: self-interest, self-nurturing and recognition of the same in others. And better yet, when we find others we value or care about, it makes us better people to encourage the same in them. It’s mentally healthy for us and those we care about to seek our own happiness first. Selflessness cannot be the ideal if it is practiced with no regard for our own well-being.

Nobody can experience genuine happiness without a strong sense of self. It’s time to embrace the tools and the ideals that can make that possible.

Michael J. Hurd, Life’s a Beach

Trans Insanity

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“There are a lot of children running around believing that they need puberty blockers when in reality what they need are stable parents.

Any parent that would allow their child to permanently alter his/her body and psyche is a child abuser.

Bar none.”

Candace Owens, @RealCandaceO, writing on Twitter.

I am a therapist, and have worked with people, including children and teens, for 30-plus years. I agree 100 percent with Candace Owens. I know of many therapists who agree, but who are afraid to say so, because of the toxic, nasty, intimidating cultural atmosphere we now inhabit.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

Now All Three Branches of Government are a Joke

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Fox News: “Chief Justice Roberts issues scating statement, announces probe after draft abortion opinion [overturning Roe v. Wade] leaked”

We don’t need a lecture from this compromised scumbag about “betrayal.” HE has betrayed the Constitution he swore to uphold many times — most notably in his repeated refusals even to consider hard evidence of fraud in the 2020 presidential election, whereby the ridiculous yet dangerous Biden was installed as a U.S. president.

We already know we have been betrayed, Justice Roberts — by your kind, more than anyone. That’s the reason the U.S. is going down. Your own situation is probably just a good example of what goes around, comes around (some call it karma).

DemComs now want to use Supreme Court breach as an excuse to revive court-packing. OF COURSE THEY DO. Now the Supreme Court is a compromised joke, just like Congress and the presidency. No worries. This will make the break with them that much easier.

America needs a divorce, more than ever.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

Washington and Moscow have Combined to Make Ukraine into Armageddon

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Yesterday morning I posted an explanation of why Russian liberalism was generating a wider war that could end in Armageddon. https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2022/05/01/putins-liberalism-means-a-wider-war-is-in-the-cards/

I find no relief in The Saker acknowledging the same unfolding of events. https://thesaker.is/sitrep-operation-z-17/

The Saker and Andrei Martyanov are two competent analysts of Russian military capability. Until recently they have acknowledged no problem with Putin’s limited military operation in Ukraine. But The Saker now realizes that the slow Russian operation has made opportunities for Western mischief that will widen the conflict. No doubt Martyanov also sees the adverse consequences of delay, but he is yet to attribute any importance to them.

The Saker reports Western plans to bring into western Ukraine where Russia has no boots on the ground Polish and Romanian soldiers with NATO air cover for “military exercises.” The Saker also reports that there seems to be a military operation in preparation against Russian Transnistria.

Quoting other analysts, The Saker reports that on the Polish, Belarus, and Moldova borders with Ukraine a total contingent of 50,000 to 100,000 troops can be inferred. “NATO’s ultimate strategy on this issue is currently unclear, but several options could be considered. Firstly, this can be done for a banal intimidation of Russia and an attempt to put pressure on the course of the special operation in Ukraine, and secondly, in the West they perfectly understand that Ukraine as a country no longer exists and see its future on the principle of occupation sectors. And the third option is the most terrible, but the least likely: NATO decided to go all the way and, if lend-lease and hybrid warfare do not stop the Russians, then regular units of Western countries will step in. This, of course, is a 100% threat of the use of nuclear weapons. It looks utopian, but in 2022 everything is possible.”

The Saker quotes the Russian Colonel Cassad:

“The main topic that worries many today is the adoption by the US Congress of the lend-lease program for Ukraine. Delivery of large batches of modern weapons is expected soon. The war will reach a new level, because now we will also have to fight with the American military industry. Deliveries of American heavy weapons are expected, including F-16 aircraft. Today we wrote that Ukraine is already preparing pilots for these machines. Here you need to understand once and for all, we are at war with NATO, where Ukraine is just cheap service personnel and cannon fodder.”

The Pentagon’s John Kirby backs up Colonel Cassad’s report with his announcement: “Today I can announce that the United States has begun training the Ukrainian armed forces to use key weapons at US military bases in Germany.”

The lend-lease bill was introduced in the US Senate on January 19, 2022, a month prior to the Russian intervention in Ukraine. This supports the abundant evidence that Washington did intend to cause Russian intervention in Donbass by mobilizing a large Ukrainian army ready to attack Donbass.

The Saker also quotes this report:

“Kiev secretly sent Kharkiv cadets to the United States to learn to fly the F-16, which will soon enter service with the Armed Forces of Ukraine under lend-lease. Kiev decided in advance to retrain its pilots for the NATO fleet. As it became known to Readovka, the cadets of the Kharkiv Higher Military School were sent to one of the European NATO countries and to the United States in early February for emergency retraining in the management of American F-16s. The cadets were taken directly from the 4th year classes. All of them were transported in complete secrecy. Thus, it is more likely that NATO, together with Kiev, knew about the imminent deployment of a special operation of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and tried to work ahead of the curve. The law passed the day before by the US Congress authorizing the lend-lease of heavy weapons to Ukraine apparently involves the supply, among other things, of American F-16 fighters. There is also information that the lend-lease announced by the United States was launched solely to legalize the transfer of F-16 fighters to Ukraine.”

None of this information fits in the narrative that Washington has created as the controlled explanation of the Russian intervention fed by the presstitutes to the peoples in the West. The Western peoples in their “free societies” with their “free press” remain as ignorant of events as Big Brother’s people in George Orwell’s book, 1984.

My views on the dangerousness of the situation are, of course, ignored by the US foreign policy community, most of whom are busy at work with war propaganda. Only twice have my articles been posted on Johnson’s Russian List. In foreign policy, as in Covid and all else, dissenting views are no longer permitted.

It is now clear that the Kremlin’s limited military operation was a serious mistake. There was no reason for the Russians to believe that Washington would not use the larger part of Ukraine not under attack to force the Russians into a wider war on the West’s terms, a wider war that could have been avoided if the Kremlin had not been so anxious to minimize the use of force. As the situation spirals out of control, we might now be living in our last days.

Is the Red Wave Coming to the Rescue ?

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Here’s the problem: Biden’s collapsing popularity in every demographic group does not mean good news for Republicans. It only means the people who voted for Biden will now say, “Let’s get the real deal — AOC, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, etc.” Biden has delivered on every one of their agenda items (including, it appears, writing off all student loan debt). But he’s old, doddering, and not cool. The people who were depraved or stupid enough to vote for Biden in the first place will NOT turn to Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis or any meaningful alternative to our literally Communist status quo.

And then there’s the problem of fraud. But even if you accept the 2020 election results as bereft of fraud, those of us who are still rational and freedom-loving must accept the hard truth: Millions of us are NOT rational and are not freedom-loving. They will move from Biden to AOC, or some equivalent. If you know any leftists, or have known any — you know they ARE that depraved and stupid.

And then there’s the problem of Republicans — like Mitch McConnell, Kevin McCarthy. Even if Republicans take over all of Congress, these swamp monsters are still the swamp monsters they were 10, 20 and 30 years ago, when they were also in power (and nothing changed). They are WORSE than worthless. They create the illusion we are still a free republic when they proceed to annihilate our rights just as decisively — though less openly — than the people we’re desperately trying to throw out.

I don’t know “the” answer. I cannot fantasize that one person is coming, like Superman, to rescue us. At some point, we have to rescue ourselves — and stop pretending we don’t see what’s going on because we’re worried about upsetting or angering other people (many of whom feel secretly the same). I DO know that pinning your hopes on an election is a mistake. The events of 2020 and 2021, into this year (up through and including the Ministry of Disinformation now coming for us) prove — tragically — that we are beyond elections in America.

The people in charge of our culture and our government are not “Democrats” like we have always known them. They are brutal totalitarians. They will not let go of power, in my view. Time will tell if I’m right or wrong. I don’t see how there’s a peaceful solution to this. Go ahead and hope. But keep your reality caps on, even while you hope.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

The Virtue of Business

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Instead of disdain and condemnation, businesses and businesspeople deserve our gratitude.

At best, business is dismissed as amoral, being outside of moral concerns. At worst, it is accused of being fundamentally immoral. Many people disdain business as merely materialistic and businesspeople as grubby profit-seekers who lack – and violate – moral virtues.

But those people are wrong. Business, the activity of producing and trading goods and services for profit, requires moral virtues: identifying and acting according to moral principles to achieve values, such as products that meet customer demand and wealth for shareholders.

Businesspeople are not lowly materialists but moral creators. They don’t churn out harmful or useless products that no one cares to buy. (If they did, they would not stay in business for long). On the contrary, they create and trade products that benefit customers and create wealth for their shareholders. (Deirdre McCloskey’s book, Bourgeois Virtues, also makes the case for business, and capitalism, as virtuous).

We disdain business, yet we benefit from it, often without appreciation. When we need food or other goods, we take for granted there are supermarkets where we can find a vast array of reasonably priced produce, dairy products, meats, cooking utensils, cleaning supplies, toiletries, etc. When we don’t want to or don’t have the time to cook, we expect to find restaurants that serve savory meals. We expect to find a mechanic to repair our car, an airline to fly us for a vacation, a hair salon to get a haircut, and a drug store to give us a vaccination.

These goods and services and thousands of others (and the businesses that offer them) do not just appear somehow through mindless physical processes. They are created by businesspeople, applying moral virtues.

A staggering amount of organization and coordination through long supply chains is required of businesses to make products and services available to consumers. As an example, consider the supply chain for produce.

Farmers make choices as to which crops to grow and how much, based on the anticipated demand and other factors (such as soil conditions and climate). Before they can start growing crops, however, farmers must acquire land and equipment such as tractors from equipment manufacturers, and possibly financing from banks. Further, the farmers need seeds and fertilizer, provided by yet other businesses. Once the farmers grow their crops, they require brokers to move them down the supply chain to processors, distributors, and wholesalers. These then deliver the products—often globally—to retailers such as supermarkets where we can buy them. (Without supply chains such as this, we would be reduced to growing our own produce or perhaps to trading with neighbors).

The relatively simple supply chain of produce illustrates the central virtue of business: productiveness.  Productiveness is the process of creating material values. It is a virtue because our survival – human life – depends on those values: not only on produce and other foods but on a myriad of other products and services from clothes, houses, medicines, cars, to restaurant meals and insurance policies and cancer treatments.

Besides the physical process of creating material values, productiveness requires thinking that makes physical production possible. Every product and service must be first designed and developed (such as medicines, cars, and insurance policies) and its production and sale (such as financing, facilities, employees, distributors) planned, by adhering to facts. Such thinking and acting according to facts, using reason, is another central moral virtue in business: rationality.

Business cannot operate immorally and ignore moral virtues – not if it wants to sustain itself and maximize profits in the long term. Besides productiveness and rationality, business requires other moral virtues, such as honesty (not faking facts to gain values), justice (judging others objectively and treating them accordingly, trading value for value), and integrity (acting consistently on principle).

Business that maximizes profits in the long term is virtuous. In every field and profession (such as medicine, law, science) there are some bad apples that are exceptions and don’t define their fields. This is true also of business. But we shouldn’t judge those fields and professions by their bad apples, those that violate moral virtues and victimize others. Rather, we should judge them based on the human benefits they create (cures for illness, justice, new knowledge, material values).

Instead of disdain and condemnation, businesses and businesspeople deserve our gratitude. We should recognize that their products and services allow us to survive and make our lives better, thanks to the moral virtues – productiveness, rationality, and others – they exemplify, and act accordingly: trade with them.

This is an edited version of an earlier post “Virtue of Business: Productiveness” on 9 October 2014.