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Originally Posted by guy44
I'm dubious about psychohistory, psychobabble, and generationally applied psychological analysis. I think that Bush's speeches are phrased by a team of experts, influenced by his personal, um, "thoughts," revised by associates, etc. There can't really be any legitimate psychological analysis of what he says.
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I believe that our presidential candidate selection process and elections,
have been a decision process that results in the majority acting against it's
own best interests. I believe that the same thing has happened to investors in
stock market bubble run ups and blow offs:
The NYSE DOW 30, an index of stocks of 30 companies that are representative
of a variety of business activities, ran up from a value of 80 in 1914, to a
Sept. 3, 1929 top of 386 points. By "black friday", October 29, 1929, the Dow
had declined to 212 points, a drop of 174 points in less than 2 months. The
actual Dow index low of 41.22 did not take place until July 8, 1932, a number
and a date most people have never heard of, since by then, 34 months after
the "crash", there was little interest by the public in the market. That lack of
interest was a requirement for an actual market bottom to be put in.
It then took 22 more years....until 1954 for the Dow to close above it's 1929
high.
We witnessed this phenomena of sentiment again, in 2000 to 2003. The
Nasdaq 2000 index; representing the stock prices of 2000 mostly technologically related companies roared up from an October, 1999 low of
about 2800 to a top of 5048 points on March 10, 2000, and then crashed
to an Oct. 10, 2003 intraday low of 1108. Since then, the highest level the Nasdaq has attained is 2191, on Jan 5, 2005.
Did the investors who committed new funds into the stock market in 1929
and in 2000 act in their own best interests? Many rode their paper gains up
and then down during both periods, more afraid of taking a profit and
missing out on the rest of the run up than having any inclination of the risks
that holding too long could result in actual losses of their intial investments.
In between 1929 and 2000 the Japanese Nikkei 225 stock index ran up from
10,000 points in 1985 to 38,916 points in Dec., 1989. The Nikkei continued to drop
until it reached it's lowest point since it's 1989 high, at 7603 points on
April 28, 2003.
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<a href="http://www.litrix.com/madraven/madne001.htm">Extraordinary Popular Delusions And The Madness Of Crowds</a>
Written by Charles MacKay in 1841
In reading the history of nations, we find that, like individuals, they have their whims and their peculiarities; their seasons of excitement and recklessness, when they care not what they do. We find that whole communities suddenly fix their minds upon one object, and go mad in its pursuit; that millions of people become simultaneously impressed with one delusion, and run after it, till their attention is caught by some new folly more captivating than the first. We see one nation suddenly seized, from its highest to its lowest members, with a fierce desire of military glory; another as suddenly becoming crazed upon a religious scruple, and neither of them recovering its senses until it has shed rivers of blood and sowed a harvest of groans and tears, to be reaped by its posterity............
..................Money, again, has often been a cause of the delusion of multitudes. Sober nations have all at once become desperate gamblers, and risked almost their existence upon the turn of a piece of paper. To trace the history of the most prominent of these delusions is the object of the present pages. Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.
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<a href="http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/h/hitler-adolf/oss-papers/text/oss-sb-fry.html">http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/h/hitler-adolf/oss-papers/text/oss-sb-fry.html</a>
The U.S. Government watched Adolf Hitler intently and the OSS, precursor
to today's CIA, gathered a dossier on Hitler that included this:
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.Now look at a photograph of Adolf Hitler and try to understand how this man managed to reach his present position. A round head and a round face, a strong chin under a thin-lipped, ruthless.-looking mouth and a Charlie Chaplin moustache. Hair parted on the right with a Napoleonic look straggling down over the left eye- no one could say that he looks typically German. If Hitler is to be called "typically something" I would say he looks like a respectable French bourgeois- but then that would be high treason.... His oratory is not German either. He talkslike [sic] Mussolini- raising his voice to a shout and then dropping to a hoarse whisper- bangs his fist on the rostrum, shakes it at the sky, waves his arms and tosses back his unruly lock of hair with the gesture of a musician. And the people love it- they were tired of the monotonous drone of the average German orator-.....
pg. 105- Hitler's Wonderland- Michael Fry- 1934
..The first time I heard Hitler speak in public, I spent ten minutes repeating to myself: "What a comedian- what a comedian!" ; as the Pope said to Napoleon many years ago. Twenty minutes later I felt like cheering. The passionate conviction, the fierce fire of invulnerable patriotism, and, above all, the wholehearted sincerity, put Hitlerfar [sic] beyond the familiar little tricks of the mob-orator. Everyone of his words comes outcharged [sic] with a powerful current of energy; at times it seems as if they are torn from the very heart of the man, causing him indescribable anguish. When he speaks of the Fatherland, when he describes the sorry state of demoralization which has set in, his eyes flash with anger, his voice rises to a shriek of fury- he is inspired. That is what the masses believe- that Hitler is a prophet directly controlled by the Powers above- and I can quite understand it. There is a magnetic fluid emanating from Hitler which seems supernatural.
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The OSS ordered a psychological profile of Hitler, for the purpose of
predicting his future behavior. It included the following:
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<a href="http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/documents/osssection6.htm">Hitler's Probable Behavior in the Future</a>
8. Hitler might commit suicide.
This is the most plausible outcome. Not only has he frequently threatened to commit suicide, but from what we know of his psychology it is the most likely possibility. It is probably true that he has an inordinate fear of death, but being an hysteric he could undoubtedly screw himself up into the super-man character and perform the deed. In all porbability, however, it would not be a simple suicide. He has too much of the dramatic for that and since immortailty is one of his dominant motives we can imagine that he would stage the most dramatic and effective death scene he could possibly think of. He knows how to bind the people to him and if he cannot have the bond in life he will certainly do his utmost to achieve it in death. He might even engage some other fanatic to do the final killing at his orders.
Hitler has already envisaged a death of this kind, for he has said to Rauschning:
"Yes, in the hour of supreme peril I must sacrifice myself for the people."
This would be extremely undesirable from our point of view because if it is cleverly done it would establish the Hitler legend so firmly in the minds of the German people that it might take generations to eradicate it.
Whatever else happens, we my be reasonably sure that as Germany suffers successive defeats Hitler will become more and more neurotic. Each defeat will shake his confidence still further and limit his opportunities for proving his own greatness to himself. In consequence he will feel himself more and more vulnerable to attack from his associates and his rages will increase in frequency. He will probably try to compensate for his vulnerability on this side by continually stressing his brutality and ruthlessness.
His public appearances will become less and less for, as we have seen, he is unable to face a critical audience. He will probably seek solace in his Eagle's Nest on the Kehlstein near Berchtsegaden. There among the ice-capped peaks he will wait for his "inner voice" to guide him. Meanwhile, his nightmares will probably increase in frequency and intensity and drive him closer to a nervous collapse. It is not wholly improbably that in the end he might lock himself into this symbolic womb and defy the world to get him.
In any case, his mental condition will continue to deteriorate. He will fight as long as he can with any weapon or technique that can be conjured up to meet the emergency. The course he will follow will almost certainly be the one which seems to him to be the surest road to immortality and at the same time drag the world down in flames.
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I find it interesting that skeptics of this analysis of George W. Bush reacted with similar negative protests to the few (so far) posted on this thread
Bush, himself reacts using the same negative cliche:
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/customer-reviews/0060736704/">Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President by Justin A. Frank</a>
"I don't spend a lot of time trying to figure me out. ... I'm just not into psychobabble."
-- George W. Bush
For all his simplicity and affability, George W. Bush has remained, to paraphrase Sir Winston Churchill, "a mystery wrapped in an enigma." In Bush on the Couch, Dr. Justin A. Frank, a well-respected Washington, D.C.–based psychoanalyst and professor of psychiatry, unwraps that mystery, assembling a comprehensive psychological profile of President Bush. Using the principles of applied psychoanalysis -- the discipline of psychoanalyzing public and historical figures pioneered by Freud -- Frank fearlessly builds his case ... and reaches conclusions that are at once highly persuasive and deeply disturbing.
Through a close analysis of Bush's public statements and behavior, as well as the historical record provided by journalists, biographers, and those who have known the president well, Frank traces the development of Bush's character from childhood to the present day. Examining closely the role of the president's parents -- especially Barbara Bush, an acknowledged disciplinarian whose own insecurities may have prevented her from adequately nurturing her son -- Frank finds in Bush's childhood the roots of a dramatic psychic split that remains a dominant influence on his adult worldview. Frank argues that this split has inevitably hampered Bush's ability to manage his emotions, charging his psyche with restless anxiety, and conditioning him to view the world in the black-and-white terms that have so evidently shaped his administration.
<b>
Most of the 69 customer reviews of this book are favorable, here are two
sample captions of unfavorable reviews.</b>
Pure Whacko, Leftist, Psycho-babble, Garbage!, November 26, 2004
Reviewer: D. A. Baker "bamacharm" (Prattville, AL United States)
WOW since the DR never met GW is he also a psycic?, November 18, 2004
Reviewer: Milton Fleitas "bargainbooks" (moorpark, ca United States)
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If the following story is true about the family's reaction to the childhood death of Bush's young sister, I find it just as curious as his father celebrating first his 75th and then his
80th birthday via parachute jumps.
GWH Bush's 80th birthday jump, attached to another man, was odd.
If the weather conditions made it too hazardous for GHW to jump alone,
why couldn't he just postpone the jump?
Quote:
<a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/200790p-173283c.html">http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/200790p-173283c.html</a>
"He's very affable," Frank, a professor of psychiatry at George Washington University Medical Center, tells us. "I like his sense of humor."
But although Frank has never met Dubya, the doc also finds:
# Bush shows an inability to grieve - dating back to age 7, when his sister died. "The family's reaction - no funeral and no mourning - set in motion his life-long pattern of turning away from pain [and hiding] behind antic behavior," says Frank, who contends Bush may suffer from Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.
# His mother, Barbara Bush - tabbed by some family friends as "the one who instills fear" - had trouble connecting emotionally with her son, Frank argues.
# George H.W. Bush's "emotional and physical absence during his son's youth triggered feelings of both adoration and revenge in George W."
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<a href="http://www.ksu.edu/counseling/csweb/topics/relationships/dysfunc.html">DYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILIES: RECOGNIZING AND OVERCOMING THEIR EFFECTS</a>