Retired Psychology Professor Bob Altemeyer spent his entire career studying political leaders and their followers, as summarized in his books, “The Authoritarians” and “Authoritarian Nightmare” with John W. Dean (Conservatives Without Conscience).

He concluded tyrants like Trump would just be comical figures on a soapbox unless a huge wave of supporters lifts them to high office. He labelled people who voted for leaders like Trump as “right wing authoritarians”. About this, he warned:

“The biggest problem we have right now is authoritarianism yet our societies continue to produce millions of authoritarian personalities. Turning a blind eye to this could someday point guns at our heads and the fingers on the triggers will belong to right-wing authoritarians. The social dominators want us to be disgusted with politics, they want us to feel helpless, they want us out of their way. They want democracy to fail, they want our freedoms stricken, they want equality destroyed, as a value, they want to control everything and everyone, they want it all and they have an army of authoritarian followers marching with the militancy of “that old-time religion” on a crusade that will make it happen if we let them.”

As a retired Clinical Psychologist, I would propose making authoritarianism into the psychiatrically diagnosable category of Authoritarian Personality Disorder using Altemeyer’s criteria:

A. A pervasive use of belief systems divorced from reality.

B. A submissive, fearful, need of authoritarian leaders for protection from life’s threats, leading to submission to right wing authoritarian systems and adherence to social dominators.

C. A childhood environment fostering low empathy, lack of critical thinking and/or learned helplessness.

D. A division of the world into friend and foe, often based on political/religious training.

Diagnostic Features

The essential feature of authoritarian personality disorder is a set of cognitive processes allowing disconnection from reality and dissociation from responsibility for harmful actions. Such processes include:

1. Denial of reality in the face of irrefutable proof.

2. Compartmentalized mind.

3. Double standards.

4. Hypocrisy.

5. Deficits in self-awareness.

6. Profound ethnocentrism.

7. Dogmatism.

8. Belief in a dangerous world.

9. Political/Religious fundamentalism.

10. A division of the world into friend and foe, often based on political/religious training.

Authoritarian followers frequently lack empathy and tend to be callous, cynical and contemptuous of the feelings, rights and sufferings of others.

Prevalence Right-wing authoritarians make up roughly 25% of the population.

Development and Course Obedience to authority is reinforced during childhood typically by punishment and/or threat thereof, making questioning of political and religious authority figures dangerous. Authoritarian parenting styles include discipline through reward and punishment, threats and bribes, making obedience to external power the only safe option as children vs learning how to take self-responsibility for behaviours.

Results of law-and-order childhoods create resentment from having no say over rules, reinforced with extreme external control, resulting in passive learned helplessness and/or angry rebellion, creating an opening and attraction to authoritarian leaders. A combination of authoritarian thinking combined with a need for social dominance are the primary personality features of authoritarian leaders.

Risk and Prognostic Factors Irrational beliefs remain unaltered in the face of facts or logic or appeal for decency. Vulnerability in self-esteem makes individuals with authoritarian personality disorder very sensitive to criticism or defeat and may result in violent acting out. Authoritarian thinking reflects a dogmatism making it unlikely anything could ever change their irrational belief systems with scientific evidence. Risk is ongoing as generations of authoritarian parents continue to create authoritarian followers.

Other personality disorders and personality traits may be confused with authoritarianism. For example, like antisocial personality disorder, authoritarian followers frequently lack empathy and tend to be callous, cynical and contemptuous of the feelings, rights and sufferings of others. Authoritarian followers may have a desire for social dominance but nowhere near as powerful as social dominators as they have a lower number of amoral, deceitful manipulators than their leaders.

Highly successful individuals may also display personality traits considered authoritarian. Politically, followers prefer hard right conservatives and religious extremists who will appeal to their needs for adherence to authority, following their upbringing as children.

Treatment of Authoritarianism Right-wing authoritarians are not born but made. Learning environments of adults with this disorder typically come from stone wall, strictly controlling parenting styles, enforced with rewards for following the rules and serious repercussions including physical abuse and/or threats thereof for disobedience.

Authoritarian followers learned as children to obey authority via external control vs self-control, self-responsibility and acquiring critical thinking skills to help them make their own self-corrective decisions vs following orders.

Adults raised in right-wing authoritarian environments have been taught to ‘follow the leader’ as they did not acquire their own decision-making skills as children. Without critical thinking skills, adults from authoritarian childhoods continue to believe only what they have been taught and may appear unable to function as free-thinking individuals no matter how far their beliefs are dissected from reality.

When faced with the consequences of their actions, they may be indifferent to or provide superficial rationalizations for having hurt, mistreated or stolen from someone e.g. “life is unfair”, “losers deserve to lose”. These individuals may blame the victims for being foolish, helpless or deserving their fate, e.g. “he had it coming anyway”. They generally fail to compensate or make amends. They may minimize the harmful consequences of their actions or may simply indicate complete indifference for their behaviour.

Apart from any personal suffering they may endure, a far greater danger to society at large is the vulnerability they have to the attraction of authoritarian leaders. Additionally, authoritarian parents are unlikely to radically accept an alternative reality such as teaching their children not to trust authority automatically. Corrective change can be best accomplished via public education systems.

Treatment efforts would be most effective in investing in the four following preventative measures vs challenging potentially unalterable adult thinking.

For example, current available school-based programs offer mindfulness training for self-control, social-emotional skills for promoting interpersonal empathy, critical thinking skills to teach children how to think vs what to think, to be able to question authority and, with parenting skills to raise responsible children.

Risk to Society Risk to society is ongoing as generations of right-wing parents continue to enforce authoritarian belief systems. Narcissistic and Antisocial Personality Disorders when combined with an authoritarian’s pervasive need for power (social dominance) have an extended history of massive human suffering.

In a culture of apparent law and order, great masses of people can and have tolerated the extermination of their fellow citizens due to leaders. Authoritarianism is and has been throughout history, an avoidable cause of pain. When combined with a need for social dominance, the result is the worst kind of human imaginable, capable of destroying the world.

Daniel Ellsberg was an American patriot, who as a scientist chose to join the Marines in 1953. He chose to serve his country as a soldier even though he would have to take time away from his burgeoning academic and research career. He served until 1957, having extended his service by two years so as to not abandon the troops he commanded and had trained with.

In describing his choice to serve in the military, Ellsberg’s reasoning reflected the very values expressed by many who serve:

“…even as a lieutenant in the Marine Corps I’d thought of myself as serving in a presidential guard, ready to fight whoever the president should decide. I think some sense of responsibility directly to the president, of working for him, is characteristic of most, or very many, members of the executive branch.”

Clearly, like all those who serve, Ellsberg believed that he was serving his country by executing the orders he received from his superior officers, who in turn were conveying the Commander-in-Chief’s decisions. He believed that the president acted in the best interests of the country’s security needs.

The Release of the Pentagon Papers

The Pentagon Papers, a top-secret, 47-volume history of U.S. political and military involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1968, revealed government deception about the war. They showed that successive administrations (Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson) had misled the public and Congress about the war’s scope and reasons for escalation.

Once Ellsberg, through his access to these most secret of government and presidential papers, discovered that the ideals he believed he fought for were instead akin to criminal actions perpetrated at the highest levels of government, his reaction was what would be expected from a scientist and soldier who experienced a huge sense of betrayal following the realization that he had participated in illegal, criminal war actions:

“But that satisfaction [of serving the president] died for me that month, after what I had learned of five presidents’ behavior in this particular generation-long war. I no longer identified with presidents, no longer saw serving as the most desirable, or best, or most effective to influence policy or to serve the public welfare.”

After leaking the papers, Ellsberg realized:

“…the early volumes of the Pentagon Papers confirmed for me what I had begun to suspect with my reading of the subsequent volumes: The president was part of the problem.”

A New Dimension of Self-Understanding

For Ellsberg, the US government’s secret documents converted his willingness to sacrifice his life serving his country in the military, to serving the truth at the same risk to his life and well-being:

“…what really happened was that my life had split in two. We are eating our young, I thought again, sitting on the floor in the men’s room in
the second part of my life. On both sides of the barricades we are using them, using them up “wasting” them.”

“…I knew myself from Vietnam. I had risked my life or, worse, my body, my legs, a thousand times driving the roads there or walking in combat. If I could do that when I believed in the war, and even after I didn’t, it followed self-evidently that I was willing to go to prison to help end it.”

“However, with this disillusionment also came a new freedom… I found now it easy to contemplate forms of opposition to present policy that were likely to bar me from future employment in the executive branch. Fear of that particular penalty, not jail, was the ultimate deterrent that kept most of my colleagues, past and present, from considering political actions that were beyond a certain point. I was no longer held in line by that fear.”

His Reason for Leaking The Pentagon Papers

“A thought came into my head in the form of a rule: No one is ever going to tell me again that I have to lie, that I have a duty to lie, that it’s all right just because someone’s telling me to. No one is going to say that and have me believe him, or think that I have to obey him. I’m not going to listen to that anymore. It no longer has any authority for me.”

“Lying to the public, about anything, but above all about issues of life and death, war and peace, was a serious matter; it wasn’t something you could shift responsibility for. I wasn’t going to do it anymore.”

“It came to me that the same thing applied to violence. No one else was going to tell me ever again that I (or anyone else) “had” to kill someone, that I had no choice, that I had a right or a duty to do it that someone else had decided for me…”

“…Responsibility for killing or being ready to kill was not something you could delegate to someone else, even a president. I had clearly shown that I was not deterred by the prospect of prosecution or prison.”

The Most Dangerous Man in America

The consequences of making this decision were dire, as indicated by what Ellsberg found out in time. Henry Kissinger had said in the Oval Office in front of the president, and others, “Daniel Ellsberg is the most dangerous man in America. He must be stopped at all costs”.

Years later, Ellsberg found out that the same two people who masterminded the Watergate break-ins (Howard Hunt and Gordon Liddy, known as the “plumbers”), were also tasked to gather information on him to be leaked to the press to discredit him.

Yet, all of these events cemented Ellsberg’s new ‘dimension of self-
understanding’ as it later also reflected an insight he gained from the arrogance of power that espoused the “we know best for you mentality”, regardless of the intentions with which it manifests.

Ellsberg, D. (2002). Secrets: A memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers. Penguin Books 2003.

Note: This article is an edited version of a paper presented at THE INTERNATIONAL MILITARY TESTING ASSOCIATION (IMTA):
65TH CONFERENCE: SEPTEMBER 22ND — 26TH, 2025 — ANTWERP, BELGIUM. PAPER TITLE: MILITARY PSYCHOLOGY’S ROLE IN CREATING A ‘NEW DIMENSION OF SELF-UNDERSTANDING’ by Lt. Col. (Rt.) Dr. Jacques @ J. Gouws, D. Phil., C. Psych., MMM
Human & System Interface Consulting Inc.
Jacques J Gouws Psychology Professional Corporation
137 Westmount Road, Guelph, Ontario, N1H 5J3 Canada
drgouws@nas.netLt. Col. (Rt.) Dr. Jacques J. Gouws, D. Phil., C. Psych.

Woke is now a politically pejorative term used by right-wingers to disparage leftist progressive movements. Right-wing politicians have weaponized it against those seeking social justice.

The origin of woke comes from US African-Americans back in the 1930’s, a synonym for awake, such as in waking up to political injustice. It’s about raising political awareness, a positive term. Who wouldn’t want to raise their wokeness about how politics might be affecting them?

Opposed to having to describe to their followers what they mean by “wokeness”, politicians are using it as a garbage can for anything or anyone they don’t like.

Politicians are Afraid of Social Media’s Woke Realities

In conversation with US Senator Mitt Romney, then Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said people used to read the same newspapers and watch the same television news to find out what’s going on in the world. But the problem today, he reflected, is there’s now alternative (woke) websites showing the negative “consequences” (e.g. dead children) of US actions in foreign countries.

Why Wokeness for Social Justice is Not Seen as a Good Thing

Politicians are averse from taking action on deeply challenging issues like racial discrimination, sexism, gender rights, let alone white privilege or reparations for slavery. Can you imagine having to address Native Americans about the stolen land we’re standing on?

People are Waking Up

Perhaps what Blinken meant to say is that he is alarmed people are waking up to what’s really going on in the world. You don’t have to be an economist to realize that the very real Monopoly game we’re playing has to end with a few players owning everything.

With billionaires like Elon Musk whose current worth is over four hundred thousand million dollars (say that a few times), wouldn’t it be tempting to buy what you want politically for your business interests?

When it comes to woke social issues that may interfere with the profits of political donors, you can bet whose needs are going to be met. Watch how those shouting about the evils of wokeness ignore the social injustice issues they’re shouting over.

Merchants of Death

Greed is pretty straight forward. Like winning in Monoply, you can make a lot of money in business. However, the military industrial complex is a business that needs war to survive. A business that specializes in death.

War itself is a gigantic business going hand in hand with politicians helping to shape foreign affairs towards another war in the interests of their endlessly wealthy donors.

Preventable Suffering

I’m tired of seeing images of torture. Day after day after day. How can anyone be happy when at this very moment horrible things are going on in the world? Totally preventable human-made and human-allowed torture, right in front of our eyes.

If any of us did just one of the sadistic things displayed daily on social media, it would be all over our mainstream news and described as one of the absolutely worst things imaginable for anyone to do to another human.

The Price of Wokeness

I can’t unsee what I’ve seen. The price of wokeness is having to live with awareness of knowing who the perpetrators of massive human suffering are, and feeling helpless to do anything to stop them.

How do I turn my eyes from avoidable suffering? If I were unwoke, I wouldn’t know that people are shooting and burning children alive. On purpose. Celebrating.

And how do I live knowing I’m supporting torture with my tax dollars while watching the sickening results on social media?

By the end of his life, political comedian George Carlin said he had given up on the human race. He seemed like a smart guy. Was he onto something?

Before my awakening, I was able to stand back and let it all be. Now ignorance would be bliss.

Damn wokeness!

Imagine you’ve been sent from another planet on a mission to understand human behavior. You are searching for unbiased truth about humans. It is the year 2024 and you land in Palestine.

You are surrounded by incredible human suffering; dead babies and blown-up apartment buildings. You need to send an explanatory message back to your planet.

Your objective conclusion is that while their fellow residents suffer horrendous suffering, their main stream media, controlled by those they elect, are encouraging humans to ignore something which is obviously happening.

You turn to alternative social media. You conclude those telling the truth are the ones providing verifiable evidence for what they say. Your challenge is how to explain anything outside of this frame of reference.

Alternative media displays pictures of huge crowds protesting this horror from around the world. Ironically, governments who know well about the dead babies and the blown-up apartment buildings and ongoing suffering could stop it if they wanted to but instead are encouraging it.

Conclusions:

1. Earth has a tiny group of humans who ignore what the majority want, allowing genocide right in front of their eyes.
2. Humans appear to have allowed themselves to be controlled by the those without a sense of right from wrong — something they call “conscience”.
3. For some reason humans allow this inequality to continue when there are so many of them and so few of their controllers.
4. By controlling their main stream media and never letting them vote on foreign affairs, the massacre in Palestine has no end in sight.

In the region that came to be known as New France, Father Pierre Biard, assigned to evangelize the “savages”, found to his surprise that the Algonkian-speaking Mi’kmaq in Nova Scotia considered themselves better than the French.

They said, “You are always fighting and quarrelling amongst yourselves; we live peacefully. You are envious and are all the time slandering each other; you are thieves and deceivers; you are covetous, and are neither generous not kind; as for us, if we have a morsel of bread, we share it with our neighbour”.

The Mi’kmaq also asserted that they were richer than the French. For, although the French had more possessions, the Mi’kmaq had greater assets: ease, comfort and time.

Years later, Brother Gabriel Sagard wrote similar things about the Wendat nation. At first highly critical of their sinful life (he found the Wendat women seductive) he eventually came to the conclusion that their social arrangements were in many ways superior to those at home in France.

“They have no lawsuits…,” he wrote, “…and take little pains to acquire the goods of this life, for which we Christians torment ourselves so much, and for our excessive and insatiable greed in acquiring them we are justly and with reason reproved by their quiet life and tranquil dispositions”.

He observed that the Wendat were particularly offended by the French lack of generosity to one another. “They reciprocate hospitality and give such assistance to one another that the necessities of all are provided for without there being any indigent beggar in their towns and villages; and they considered it a very bad thing when they heard it said that there were in France a great many of these needy beggars, and thought that this was for lack of charity in us, and blamed us for it severely.”

Skillful Debaters

As to the French conversational habits, Sagard was surprised and impressed by the indigenous powers of reasoned argument — skills honed by frequent public discussions of communal affairs.

The French, in contrast, seemed to be constantly scrambling over each other and cutting each other off in conversation, employing weak arguments, and, according to the indigenous, showing themselves to be not particularly bright.

The Europeans, they observed, would grab the stage, deny others the means to present their arguments, acting in much the same way they grabbed material means of subsistence and refused to share it.

Sagard’s account of his stay among the Wendat became a best seller in France and Europe, becoming widely read and of what was to become of immense political influence. While most of us today would consider ourselves free, the Wendat would refer to us as slaves to authority.

Self-Governance

In their society, there were no police, no jails, no courtrooms. In fact, anyone in a titled position such as their chief, could be laughed at rather than feared and would not be obeyed unless a band member felt like it. Thus, there were no laws and no punishments inflicted on the guilty.

In a serious case such as murder, it was not the guilty party who was held accountable, but their family or lineage who must pay compensation. This made it everyone’s responsibility to keep the offender under control. The French found this both fascinating and effective.

A Brilliant Indigenous Statesman

Everyone who met him described Kandiaronk, a key strategist of the Wendat Confederacy, as a brilliant orator and skillful politician. In 1683, Louise-Armand Lahontan, a French soldier posted to Canada, became friends with Kandiaronk, later publishing memoirs of his American adventures.

In his book Curious Dialogues with a Savage of Good Sense Who Has Travelled, the wise sage voices his opinions on observations made of Montreal, New York and Paris. He as well as other North American Natives who had been to France, teased with the faults and disorders they observed especially on account of money.

Equality

One key difference between French and their own societies was that there was no obvious way to convert wealth into power over others. Power over possessions could be directly translated into power over other human beings. They called the French slaves whose life was not worth having, degrading themselves in subjecting to a king who possesses all the power and is bound to no law but his own will.

Where Is Your God?

In regard to religion, Kandiaronk asserted it’s only natural for Christians to have faith in the holy scriptures since from infancy they’ve heard so much about them. He argued why there were so many different sects, each convinced they were entirely right and the others hell-bound. Why doesn’t God come down to earth in full view of everyone, he reasoned, going from nation to nation performing mighty miracles, thus giving everyone the same laws?

Kandiaronk took the position that European-style punitive law, the Jesuit conviction of eternal damnation, is not based on any inherent corruption of human nature but rather by a social organization encouraging selfish and acquisitive behaviour. What kind of human, he added, would have to be forced to do good and only refrain from evil because of fear of punishment?

The Root of All Evil

Kandiaronk proposed that Europe would be better off if its whole social system were dismantled. His primary reason was based on the distinction between ‘mine’ and ‘thine’. He said the reason American Indigenous are better off is because they made a decision not to accept or make use of money. That’s why there were no lawsuits against one another as money was the source of all evils.

While aware that money is a source of luxury, he also called it the father of greed, intrigue, trickery, lies, betrayal, insincerity and war. In light of this, were the Wendat wrong in refusing to touch silver and gold?

The Enlightenment

The books from America illustrating a different way of life were immensely successful as entertainment as well as politically influential in European society. Kandiaronk’s opinions were translated into German, English, Dutch and Italian and continued in print for over a century.

In their exhaustive research, Graeber and Wengrow’s book the Dawn of Everything makes the claim that the European Enlightenment was started by native American philosophers criticizing European customs and society.

During the Age of Enlightenment, cultural exchanges went both ways. European and later American thinkers drew from indigenous cultural practices and beliefs to develop ideas about natural freedom, influencing everything from European cultural relativization to the creation of the US constitution.

The Indigenous Challenge

Examination of the indigenous way of life offers us an alternative to our way of living. If available, why can’t we choose more egalitarian social structures? Kandiaronk’s primary assertion is that we can be less cruel and equal to each other in a way that challenges as well as baffles capitalist-based societies. Can you imagine a world without money as your primary motivation for employment?

The irony for the Europeans was that instead educating savages about a better life, the people that they met were rich in ease, comfort and time. The indigenous ways of life can be seen as an offer of hope within our current society where the game of Monopoly is approaching its limits.

To reduce potential shame from reading the following, be assured everyone has or has had sexual fantasies at some point in their lives.

When it comes to fantasies, before exploring what you might think is “unique”, let’s go over some typical fantasies found in surveys and popular magazines.

Common Sexual Fantasies

Research suggests sexual fantasies are normal and seldom unique. In fact, surveys consistently point to common themes.

At the top of the list is multi-partner sex: threesomes, foursomes or moresomes. I know a guy who attended an orgy with a woman satisfying seven men — all at the same time (you can do the math).

Some people keep these fantasies secret, some share with their partners and some try them out. For example, about 25% have engaged in multi-partner sex and report they enjoyed it.

Several things to keep in mind. First, a fantasy is just that — imagination — something your mind makes up. Second, prior to actually trying a fantasy out, open communication is essential including safety rules, boundaries, expectations, etc. especially if it includes outside ‘help’.

Bondage, discipline, submission and dominance are the second most popular fantasy. BDSM includes a wide variety of behaviors from spanking to whips and chains. Again, trust, rules and boundaries are essential guidelines. While a woman might get off on imagining forced sex, it is unlikely she would want this in real life.

Public, adventurous or risky sex comes next on the list. A woman I knew liked sex with a risk factor; sneaking off for encounters during lunch breaks, sex in a car, in the garage with the guy’s wife in the house. Judgment and discretion are the precaution here for those who get off on the risk of getting caught.

Exhibitionism and voyeurism are surprisingly popular. The Journal of Sex Research found a 46% ‘like’ rate for imagining watching people get it on.

A particularly popular subtype of voyeurism is cuckholding where a person gets off on watching their partner having sex with someone else. This may or may not include desired humiliation for the viewer and their partner.

Erotic flexibility includes a top ten fantasy for women of having sex with another women. While men are less inclined to this type of erotism for themselves (unless it includes watching the women), it may be that multi-partner sex fantasies offer this opportunity for both sexes.

Unique Sexual Fantasies

Anal sex, strap-ons, sex tapes and sex toys etc. just scratch the surface of an almost infinite variety of common sexual fantasies. As for the word “unique”, let’s see how far sexual fantasies can take you.

Using the porn site xHamster for sex fantasy examples, the face page displays a margin with theme suggestions including a list of 73 of the most popular categories in alphabetical order from African to Transgender.

The page also displays a variety of still shots of videos including 56 termed “trending”. At the bottom of the stills are numbers 1 to 28,043 of additional pages.

Clicking on any of the stills opens another page based on the theme selected. On that page a number of co-themes are listed at the top for further exploration. While this may seem endless, it is only the beginning of what the porn site offers.

At the bottom of the list of popular sites on the main page is the title, “All categories”. Here you will find just about every sexual fantasy imaginable.

If your sex fantasy is not featured on one of the 30,000 additional sites offered on the main page, this is where the number of sexual fantasies really explodes.

Sex Fantasies from A to Z

The Porn Video Categories list fantasy types in alphabetical order. For example, choosing anything from an A listing opens yet another page offering more choices in that category.

You could make a game out of trying to guess how many fantasies you can name under any given letter. For instance, how many of the 4000 sexual fantasies listed under the letter M can you name?

It might be mentioned there is one additional fantasy not listed on porn sites: romantic love. Perhaps not as arousing as the themes mentioned above, fantasizing about making love with an attractive partner vs hot sex may be the most common fantasy of them all.

But if you do scroll through a porn site from A to Z keep in mind new ones are being added daily. The word infinite comes to mind. Still think your fantasy is unique?

No matter the circumstances, no matter the leader, come hell or high water, according to most polls and most election results, you are likely to vote for the same party year after year. Just ask yourself, can you imagine voting for that other party?

The 30% Rule

Mitt Romney, a candidate for the US GOP presidential nomination, got himself in hot water for saying during a speech captured on video that there was no need to care about 50% of the voting population. His admission, however, was accurate.

It is extremely rare for either side to get more than 40% in an election. That’s why election strategies have been focused on how to win over those few percentage points of persuadable voters above the 30% base by offering this tax cut or crime proposal or subsidies and supports for “the little guy” which evaporate after the election. As an example, how is an offer of income redistribution going to happen when the wealthy are the ones who put political parties in power?

Though voters grow consistently impatient with the scripted messages that dominate political discourse, demand for straight, honest answers get trapped in the same old, same old. They tend to speak with words that everyone knows are studiously crafted, scaped of meaning, and sometimes less than entirely true. But who has the time or energy to investigate the realities of today’s political landscape? All we must go on is the mass media, owned and operated by those who can afford to own a media platform.

Zero Influence Over Government Decisions

A local group of which I was a member attended online meetings we had arranged with our regional political representative. As a long-term popular politician, he appeared approachable, openly inviting enquiries within his constituency. Though he listened politely to our points of view, he stuck with his party’s position on every one of them. We eventually gave up finding discussions futile as each encounter had the same outcome. His smiling face was only a distraction from his deaf ears.

What You Can’t Vote For

The world is not ruled by politicians but by corporations. In capitalist nations, money always rules. Elections are a performance designed to trick us into thinking we have meaningful control over major decisions made by government. Though we might get to influence local elections to fix a road or change a bus route, we will never get to vote on our government’s escalating brinkmanship against nuclear-armed nations; the pursuit of profit over our biosphere; allowing plutocrats and war profiteers to make decisions for our governments, or; to vote for more police militarization, surveillance, censorship, propaganda and control.

We put an X on a piece of paper every few years and the next day it’s business as usual. Any effort to effect meaningful change is ground into dust.

1. You cannot stop thinking.

For the next 60 seconds, try focusing on breathing without thinking. Watch how quickly your mind interrupts your attention.

2. Your mind doesn’t need you.

Even if you can distract yourself for a few seconds, your thoughts will continue with or without you.

3. It lives in the past and future.

Your mind finds the present moment boring because there is nothing for it to do.

4. It is attracted to the negative.

It is focused more on what could go wrong than what could go right.

5. It always needs more.

It is always focused on what you want and where you’d rather be.

6. It takes thoughts and ideas as solid reality.

It can talk you into thinking all your beliefs are 100% valid.

7. You are a slave to your mind.

It is goal-focused and will continue to push you toward your goals even if it kills you. It can be cruel and self-punishing in the process.

PS… All of the above can be experienced by watching your mind during meditation practice.

Gianni Russo lost his virginity at age 15 to Marilyn Monroe. Orphaned as a child, Russo had been taken under the wing of Mafia boss Frank Costello who had gotten him a job at a New York hair salon shampooing women’s hair. The part-time employment got him out of High School so he could work as a messenger for Costello.

One of the clients at the salon was Marilyn Monroe who took a liking to the handsome teenager. She requested that he come to her hotel room for private service and invited him into her bathtub instead. Two days later he returned to work, in his words, “…exhausted, giddy, sore, and confused.” Although he had just had sex with America’s hottest movie star and sex symbol, he felt he couldn’t tell anyone in case he got in trouble with Costello and that no would believe him if he bragged about it.

Keeping the secret turned out to be a wise move as whenever Marilyn was in New York, they would get together for sex and friendship. With Russo, she could be a regular person. Disguised in a dark wig and sunglasses, she could go anywhere she wanted without being mobbed by fans. Marilyn and Russo would remain friends until she died.

The JFK Connection

In his page-turner autobiography, Hollywood Godfather, Russo, who played the role of Carlo Rizzi in the movie The Godfather, recounts his first time seeing a young future president Senator John F. Kennedy poolside at the Las Vegas Sands hotel doing lines of cocaine off actress Juliet Prowse’s less than fully clothed body. At the time, Kennedy was just a mob hanger-on with an appetite for cocaine and women. The more decadence he wanted, the more he got courtesy of the Mafia. The wise guys would soon have their own man in the White House — or so they thought.

It looked like JFK’s 1960 battle for the White House was going to be close. Sam Giancana, Mafia boss of the Chicago Outfit would deliver his city with a promise the new administration would lay off the mob. Giancana kept his word by voter intimidation, ballot box stuffing with votes from dead people and multiple votes from the same voters. In addition, there was a nationwide effort by the mob’s major players to swing the election to Kennedy. Frank Sinatra, Kennedy’s source of endless women and cocaine guaranteed he’d let the mob run their operation without interference from his administration.

The mob was ecstatic when Kennedy became the victor; an American president in their pocket. But Kennedy had only been using the mob for the women and drugs and to further his political ambitions. Not only did the mob not get their payback, JFK appointed his brother Bobby as the attorney general who vowed to destroy the Mafia.

Every mob family in the country wanted revenge. They planned to entice the Kenndy brothers to return to a discreet resort, a partying spot for the Hollywood crowd with cabins reserved for celebrities. The Kennedy brothers would often go there and be treated to drugs and hookers courtesy of Sinatra.

The Marilyn Connection

One of history’s sexist videos is of Marilyn Monroe in a skintight see-through dress (too tight for underwear) singing Happy Birthday Mr. President (watch it now on AlterEgo) at a gala held at Madison Square Garden for JFK for his 45th birthday. They had sex that night to celebrate in a bathtub due to JFK’s back problems. Marilyn was no stranger to the Kennedy brothers having had sex with both of them.

The mob planned to film them at the resort having sex with Marilyn so they could be blackmailed to conform to their demands. The plan failed for two reasons. First, John didn’t show up, perhaps smart enough to distance himself from Sinatra. The second was with Marilyn.

Russo hadn’t seen her in some time and described her as not the Marilyn he remembered. He said she looked bloated and spaced out, high on pills or booze and being traded between Giancana and Sinatra like the last woman on earth. When Marilyn found out about the plan, she apparently went ballistic. She was through with being used by the Kennedys and she’d had enough. She lit into Bobby in front of Russo and anyone else within earshot.

JFK had promised Marilyn that once elected, he would divorce his wife Jackie, and marry her. Now she wasn’t falling for anything involving the Kennedys. And, not only that, she was also going to the press to tell them what the Kennedys were really like.

According to Russo, her biggest mistake was threatening to go to the media because three days later she was dead.

Why and How Marilyn Was Murdered

The media at the time reported Marilyn had died from either suicide or an accidental drug overdose. Many considered it to be a mob operation. Russo believes otherwise. The mob had always treated her well and had no real reason to kill her. They thought she would like their idea of finally sticking it to the Kennedys. Bobby, on the other hand, could not even think of having the Kennedy name dragged through the mud. He believed Marilyn was a loose cannon.

Russo found out that Marilyn was given an injection of air through her pubic area, hiding the needle mark, directly into a vein by a doctor, on orders from Bobby Kennedy. The injection of air caused an embolism and she died. An autopsy did reveal a variety of drugs in her body, so the media version was assumed to be true. Gianni believes otherwise as told to him by reliable sources. He also believes, that had she not mentioned going to the media, she would have survived. The Kennedy brothers would get their just deserts in due time.

Western reality — we exist, everything exists, the world is solid, you are you and I am I. Eastern reality — we do not exist, nothing exists, you and I are nothing.

What a challenge to hold these two opposite perspectives of reality simultaneously.

However, not only are they both true but they are both self-evidently provable.

The two realities can co-exist because we do exist, the world is solid, you are you and I am I but — here’s the catch — only in this moment.

Because everything is interconnected, we are nothing without our surroundings.

When we bump into a wall, we have proof that we live in a solid world, but it’s only for now. Food goes bad quickly, metal rusts away — both subject to the reality of impermanence.

This is why the concept of impermanence is a top-ten subject in Eastern studies. Because everything is impermanent, everything is changing all the time which means we are too.

Holding onto a sense of a solid unchanging reality for security is like pretending we are not aging.

Reality is like putting your hand into moving water. You can feel the water, and, at the moment, it is real — but it’s moving. Although it may look the same, it is never the same water you are feeling.