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Posted on January 9, 2009
| Filed Under Repeats | 6 Comments
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Posted on January 9, 2009
| Filed Under Repeats | 6 Comments
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Decided to reprint this one in honor of Rod Blagojevich, who appears to possess many of the traits discussed by Vonnegut here. It goes to show that PP’s are a bipartisan problem.
Let us hope that Obama will break this pattern. I agree that one only needs to look at how Governor B. from Illinois handled what to others would have been an incredible situation…being impeached, your integrity being impugned and he smiled and went for a run. Then there’s Bernie Madoff and his ilk who, under the guise of trust, took people and non profits to the cleaners. The PP’s are there…let’s hope they get put where they belong…in jail. Always appreciated Vonnegut for his innovative stories…now I appreciate him for his keen insight into the madness that has become our society.
Cleckley’s book is a freak show of psychopathic personalities. I suspect it impressed Vonnegut as a writer’s guide more than anything else. As he says, “Read it!” It’s fully downloadable. You’ll recognize many of the characters and behaviors he folded into his novels.
Well, we used to call them meglomaniacs, but PP is more PC (politically-correct) today, as we have begun to speak alphabet soup.
I think that a lot of this began with aberrations in their parent’s behavior and (reproductive) physiology from the drug-culture of the 60′s and 70′s and from the rampant abuse of human-nutrition by the farming and food processing cartels, then and onward.
Also, food and nutrition was scraped from the school-curriculum and thrown on the trashpile, and from then on, no one was allowed to be taught how to cook. Instead, that they would become easy prey for the fast-food hawks / hawkers of multinational companies and for the easy-prep, low nutrition, box, can and TV tray “food” for home kitchens.
I know that every person who eats fast-food doesn’t become a PP, but I think that it’s extrememly poor food for those who have that disposition.
More than all of this, the last nail was to NOT bother to identify these kids when we saw their improper behavior in the school-yard or the self-absorbed behavior at quieter times.
School, parents, in fact the whole-Village didn’t want to rock-the-boat. Look what we ended up with, because they didn’t see that it wasn’t normal drives for excellence, rather, it was a person careening and driving a vehicle without brakes (or sometimes steering capacity).
I agree with Vonnegut in all but the last sentence, for he is not allowing for the well-grounded, excellent student. In fact, they are the only ones who can weed-out the PP’s, if they are brave enough to “out” them and not Promote them to Power (the most important PP of all).
No Power. Less harm. Factor it in to all realms of your life, for you will find PP’s all over. Stay clear, and keep them out of your own life, as much as possible.
Make sure that you get help for any child who exhibits symptoms of imbalance and lack of accountability. Maybe, at a young age, something can still be done.
Few if anyone gave Blagojevich that mirror, and I certainly wonder about his wife’s capacity to do that, too.
Now, more than ever, the Majority of people have to act with a lot more courage than they ever have had to before. We are all soldiers-in-a-silent war. And, it is a battleground, for sure.
We have to be willing to be whistle-blowers, squeaky-wheels, organizers to rally — do all the relevant tasks needed to ferret-out and remove these people from power. We have to be willing to speak up when ‘the Emperor has no clothes’, as our own Blindness is finally removed.
Thanks for posting this excerpt. I’ve been reading K.V. since the 60tys.
Always enjoyed his ironic twist on life. For those of you who haven’t read his short stories “Welcome to the Monkey House” I highly recommend it.
As for the PPs I think he hit it on the nail. They just don’t give a fuck what happens next. In fact they never even consider it when making decisions.
I’m definitely interested in checking out Cleckley’s book. The food theory, while interesting, is a little premature. This is a “Baby Boomer and Before” mess. The people in the news who are doing this, by and large, are between 50-70, meaning they were born long before processed foods. Those of us born in the 60′s-80′s lack the power to do what these PP’s are doing. These are Baby Boomer PP’s, mostly.