See other All is Vanity Articles
Title: Is it possible that entire populations are going INSANE?
Source:
[None]
URL Source: [None]
Published: Nov 15, 2006
Author: Mehitable Storm
Post Date: 2006-11-15 11:31:45 by mehitable
Keywords: None
Views: 1972
Comments: 61
I just posted this idea in a thread to Robin about what is happening in the Congo and wanted to throw the idea out to a broader group. People are behaving so bizarrely, frequently on a mass scale such as in the Congo, that I am wondering if many large groups of people - and I mean entire populations - are suffering from psychosis. The behaviors in the Congo seem to be well beyond the behavior of even wartime atrocities - they seem like the actions of insane people. What is making people so crazy? Is it a social phenomena of breakdown in traditional cultures and values, or is there some real organic effect of chemicals and/or drugs that are making people literally INSANE?
Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
#1. To: mehitable (#0)
Americans live in sanitized sanitariums. This is nothing new for mankind be it in the past or the present. Soldiers have been doing this to women since man organized for war. See examples in recent history like the Japanese 'Rape of Nanking' or the taking of Berlin by the Red Army.
"The desire to rule is the mother of heresies." -- St. John Chrysostom
Perhaps it is just humans doing what they customarily do from time to time: besotting theselves in bouts of organized homicide. Read the history of the Thirty Years War. Europe went quite mad too between 1914 and 1918 as I remember, and they didn't have the kinds of sophisticated pharma and other sorts of chemicals that we have today. But hey, if paranoia is what turns you on . . .
Give 'til it hurts. Gun Owners of America
I don't know, Destro - did you real the article Kamala posted? These people sound INSANE to me. Maybe I am just insulated, but I don't even know what we could possibly recommend to people who engage in such savagery. What solution could possibly work?
"I woke up in the CRAZY HOUSE."
Just blowing shit up and killing people is disagreeable but it's not at the same level of absolute insanity that is depicted in teh article that Kamala posted. The two are not comparable at all. And just posing a question does not make me paranoid. It means...I posted a goddam question.
"I woke up in the CRAZY HOUSE."
Yes - it reads as all too human a behavior. Read the book 'The Rape of Nankin'.
"The desire to rule is the mother of heresies." -- St. John Chrysostom
It was just 3 years ago that there were stories of govt-friendly militias in the Congo chasing down and cannibalizing the Mbuti pygmies. Supposedly there is a belief that the little ones are magical if they eat them! Geez, Africans have their own version of the leprechaun, but, instead of making them give up a pot o' gold they have to kill them! Of course no one should be surprised because some Africans apparently rape infants (and any other virgins-but they're hard to find except for babies I guess) to cure AIDS.
"Well nothing I do dont seem to work, It only seems to make matters worse. oh please"__The Stones
Sorry, old man. Yes, indeed, you posted a question. A question to which I do not know the answer. I probably wouldn't have been tempted to pull out the paranoia card if you had included some evidence linking this violence to chemicals or provided us with some context at least by maybe linking to Kamala's article. I'll admit to having a chronic case of paranoia myself these days. Didn't mean to offend.
Give 'til it hurts. Gun Owners of America
mehitable is a young woman. ;)
That's okay, randge. Didn't mean to bark at you. :)
"I woke up in the CRAZY HOUSE."
Thanks Christine. It's funny the way that you develop a persona for a poster in your mind. Mehitable's posts are always kind of crusty, and I came to think of this poster as an old codger.
Give 'til it hurts. Gun Owners of America
When the UN and whoever are handing out ammo and guns to "Lord of the Flies" 14 -17 year olds, plan for the very worst. When the Soviets entered Berlin they used broken bottles after raping the women, as they did to much of eastern Germany.
It's a bear market. In bear markets, the radius of in-group population clusters shrinks. The out-groups get butchered and eaten. N.B. Blacks routinely score higher for psychosis than others on the MMPI.
LMAO - now you can think of me as an old codgette!
"I woke up in the CRAZY HOUSE."
Yes, both because you're crusty, and because you spend so much time cogitating on the signal issues of our times.
Give 'til it hurts. Gun Owners of America
The Belgians, of all people, I know, those guys with sweet beer and truffles and chocolate. The book below is hard to read. Imagine, killing 10 MILLION people in a non industrialized fashion. Read this book. See how the civilizing Europeans would chop off the hands of those who refused to slave for them to enrich the King - of Belgium, of course! In the 1880s, as the European powers were carving up Africa, King Leopold II of Belgium seized for himself the vast and mostly unexplored territory surrounding the Congo River. Carrying out a genocidal plundering of the Congo, he looted its rubber, brutalized its people, and ultimately slashed its population by ten million--all the while shrewdly cultivating his reputation as a great humanitarian. Heroic efforts to expose these crimes eventually led to the first great human rights movement of the twentieth century, in which everyone from Mark Twain to the Archbishop of Canterbury participated. King Leopold's Ghost is the haunting account of a megalomaniac of monstrous proportions, a man as cunning, charming, and cruel as any of the great Shakespearean villains. It is also the deeply moving portrait of those who fought Leopold: a brave handful of missionaries, travelers, and young idealists who went to Africa for work or adventure and unexpectedly found themselves witnesses to a holocaust. Adam Hochschild brings this largely untold story alive with the wit and skill of a Barbara Tuchman. Like her, he knows that history often provides a far richer cast of characters than any novelist could invent. Chief among them is Edmund Morel, a young British shipping agent who went on to lead the international crusade against Leopold. Another hero of this tale, the Irish patriot Roger Casement, ended his life on a London gallows. Two courageous black Americans, George Washington Williams and William Sheppard, risked much to bring evidence of the Congo atrocities to the outside world. Sailing into the middle of the story was a young Congo River steamboat officer named Joseph Conrad. And looming above them all, the duplicitous billionaire King Leopold II. With great power and compassion, King Leopold's Ghost will brand the tragedy of the Congo-- too long forgotten--onto the conscience of the West.
Wow, I will have to check that out - thanks for the recommendation!
"I woke up in the CRAZY HOUSE."
how the Great War reduced Europe’s mightiest empires to rubble, killed twenty million people, and cracked the foundations of the world we live in today. You're welcome. Good to see you're open to the history of HomoSapiens, as nasty as it is. And one nit, the Great War was absolutely insane. It was a lot more than just soldiers and blowing things up. Read A World Undone by GJMeyer, a recent history. You will lose all faith in any authority, as the Kings, Ministers and Generals, trapped in their prevailing mindsets, stumbled and sleepwalked into war, launched attacks and counterattacks without virtually a whit of compassion for the millions they sent to their deaths. Europe went mad. Completely. If the European monarchies had not gelded themselves in the blood orgy, it's quite probable that the domination of the world by the European powers would have lasted centuries more.
Nahhhh...those New England ladies are all like that. :-) That happens to be the way I like women, so I married one from New Hampshire.
Oh is she?? :)))))))))) LOL!
Every morning I wake up to the hellish reports of war, rape, crime, genocide, US government state fascism, and kids killing each other, that I worry for the future of my young sons. Certain populations in past history, and all populations at some historical point in time, have committed insane acts, long before pollution and pharmaceuticals were a factor. Whether or not they, some spiritual entity, or mass mind control by the media are a factor in the exponential increase of these behaviors is unknown. However, I do believe mankind as a whole has, due to whatever catalyst, gone totally insane. Kaiser Wilhelm bears an awful lot of the blame (as do his German subjects.) I fear Bush shares a lot of Wilhelm's psychological problems, and there is also, I think, all too much similarity between Wilhelmine Germans and current Americans.
Katrina was America's Chernobyl.
Thanks, this book/info is most helpful.
I had an older brother whose favorite comic strip was Archie and Mehitable. I read it a few times. A few years ago I read the bio of the man who wrote it.
The Truth of 911 Shall Set You Free From The Lie
This ten million number has been bothering me, as that sounds like a rather large number of people to have been living in the Congo in the 1880s. This must be the claim of Adam Mochschild in his book? I sense a blame agenda here.
I've been trying to find some info on Congo history, and from what I've read the pygmies were there first, then others came and settled, by the time Leopold arrived in 1ate 1800s, the Arabs were already trading the natives as slaves, and the pygmies were already being eaten by the other natives. Indeed Leopold was very brutal and ruthless in his quest for rubber, and there are too many varying estimates of the dead. They died from diseases brought in by the white man, and from forced labor, starvation and outright murder. The estimates range from 10,000 dead all the way up to 10 million dead, that number claimed by Hochschild, who appears to be widely quoted. I don't think anyone will ever know the true number of dead from that era. The present day population is around 50 million, and the country is quite large, and very troubled.
The Congo has apparently been scheduled for depopulation. Leopold II sounds like he was one brutal pig, whatever the actual #s.
"The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer." Well, there was enough blame. The Austrian insistence, and shades of ClintonAlbright at Rambouillet, an ultimatum issued by the Habsburgs to Serbia that was designed to elicit Serbian refusal, much like NATO wanted Serbia to give up its sovereignity, a virtual parallel to the Austrian demand. Germany's fault lay in her giving a blank cheque of support to the Habsburgs. The Czar of Russia, coming to the aid of the Serbs. Not to mention the populations of all Europe, including Britain and France, who caught up in the jingoistic war fervor, clamored for war.
Your prerogative. Hochschild's research is impeccable. As far as the blame agenda, well, he's an historian, you can believe him or not. That's why in the future, when the numbers of Iraqi dead are disputed, the same rationale can be used to discount the Lancet study. Only 30K civilians dead in Irak. That's what Dubya says. Varying estimates of the dead depend on who is pushing what agenda. The Belgians have every reason to minimise the numbers they killed. OK, so only 10K died at Belgian hands in the Congo in the 1890's.
To be fair to Diana, there's quite a range between 10k and 10 million. One would be interested in how the author derived his figure. Also, just because someone is an "historian" doesn't mean they are necessarily accurate or without an agenda. I don't know this fellow or his work so I can't say specifically, but inaccuracies or deliberate falsehoods certainly occur in historical research.
"I woke up in the CRAZY HOUSE."
Alright, we'll just blame it on the Jews.
LMAO - well, that's not my point of view. I'm just sayin', is all.
"I woke up in the CRAZY HOUSE."
It's a human desire to turn away from the brutality of the human race. I think citing someone's "agenda" is an easy way out. If you read the book and then come up with valid reasons for disputing his account, fine. But, it's part and parcel of the marked tendency to ignore some of the causes and reasons why Africa is the basket case it is. The unyielding brutality of the Colonial powers as they built their wealth on the blood of the natives. Not to say the natives weren't brutal to each other. But, viewing historical facts through rose colored glasses and hiding behind words like "agenda" and questioning research without reading the book, simply because the facts are highly uncomfortable is, well, human nature. If it wasn't Belgians, perhaps the truth is easier to take. As I said, Belgians, those truffle guys?
I think that's waffle guys. Aren't the French the truffle guys?
"The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer." You are correct. Mea Culpa.
Depends on the kind of truffles. The Belgians are big into chocolate so they probably make a lot of chocolate truffles.
"I woke up in the CRAZY HOUSE."
I wonder where they get the cocoa from? The Congo?
"The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer." Hergé (pseudonym för Georges Remi), som levde 1907–1983. Georges Remi föddes i Bryssel 1907
lol! I thought he was French, this French coworker I once worked with introduced us all to TinTin. Then I found some at the library for one of my children and he enjoyed the series too. I rather enjoy Hercule Poirot myself, but granted, that is a stretch ;P
"The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer." (French: Astérix) is a fictional character, created in 1959 as the hero of a series of French comic books (with the same title) by René Goscinny (stories) and Albert Uderzo (illustrations). Uderzo has continued the series since the death of Goscinny in 1977. Asterix was created by the French.
good to know, thanks, I may look for it at the library.
"The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer." Both those series are great, funny and joy, pure joy!
oh, you didn't know either?
Austria, a junior partner who felt its existence threatened, behaved very much the way Israel does today. My point was that most of the danger in the world today springs from Bush and the U.S. It is therefore within our power to remove most of the danger. If some part of the danger comes from U.S. allies like Israel, and from other powers, I don't think that vitiates my point.
Katrina was America's Chernobyl.
Although Maigret was eminently French, his creator, Simenon, was Belgian.
Katrina was America's Chernobyl.
heh heh - yeah they probably did. Hey sounds like the Belgians were pretty rancid in their dealings. Is that why they put the "capital" of Europe there?
"I woke up in the CRAZY HOUSE."
One of my favorite Belgian truffles is Jean Claude Van Damme, the Muscles from Brussels. Although he might quality as a waffle too....
"I woke up in the CRAZY HOUSE."
lol! Too bad he can't act.
"The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer." Lot of folks think I'm a guy - must be the mustache ;)
"I woke up in the CRAZY HOUSE."
He doesn't have to. I could act for both of us....
"I woke up in the CRAZY HOUSE."
There's one movie he made where some old Chinese guy is teaching him how to fight (yeah one of those) and he does a lot of splits and interesting manouevres. The human body is a wonderful thing.
"I woke up in the CRAZY HOUSE."
If he's an historian on the order of Daniel Goldhagen, I would not be so sure of his numbers, but perhaps his research is impeccable, it's difficult to tell in these times when there are so many agendas. It does appear as if Leopold was a very brutal man without pity, as there seems no doubt that people of the Congo died in his quest for greed. I did not say I believe the correct number is 10,000 dead, again I said I tried to find out from different sources what happened and the estimates were from 10,000 dead, all the way up to ten million dead, the number Hochschild gives us. I'm sure we will never know the true number of dead in Iraq.
Again I read varying numbers of dead and I gave the range. Your Hochschild is highly quoted, and he gives the largest number at ten million, perhaps he's right, I don't pretend to know, though obviously he was not good for Congo, as he invaded and destroyed.
It's also human nature to blame others for people's bad behavior, people do that all the time. I seriously doubt what happened in that area of Africa over 100 years ago is the reason they are having a brutal civil war in Congo now. They have had wars in Africa since the beginning of time, just like every other part of the world. It's not like they were the innocents of the earth who were corrupted all because of Leopold, it might be more comfortable to you to view it that way, but each person is responsible for his/her own deeds, and this has never been a perfect world, nor was it meant to be.
Me too, I read all of the Agatha Christie books as a teenager.
I specifically said that in a previous post. Never claimed Leopold "corrupted" them, it's just the sheer ferocity of the civilizing Europeans that was mindboggling. After all, it's not we've heard much about this conquest, apart from Conrad's book.
What's wrong with the Lancet study of 655K? Upto a few months ago, add a couple of thousand at least a month since then. There's a study using methodology considered by the US, the Europeans and the UN conducted by some very competent experts. I know Dubya questions the methodology, but I doubt he could articulate his objections.
In the absence of a census (the first was made in 1924), it is even more difficult to quantify the population loss of the period. British diplomat Roger Casement's famous 1904 report set it at 3 million for just twelve of the twenty years Leopold's regime lasted; Forbath, at least 5 million; Adam Hochschild, 10 million; the Encyclopædia Britannica gives a total population decline of 8 million to 30 million. Wikipedia seems to think the total dead were between 3 and 10 million.
Katrina was America's Chernobyl.
No, but when the Colonial powers departed they left borders that mirrored their colonies, not natural geographic barriers or other natural boundaries or tribal congruity. A recipe for future bloodbaths. Wasn't only in Africa - when the British left India, the Pathan (Pushtun) population area was split in half, one half going to Afghanistan and one to Pakistan. The original splitting of the Pushtun population had been accomplished in 1933 with the setting of the infamous Durand line, the current border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Where US troops currently are! In Africa, to use an example most notable to us in recent history, is the Rwandan Hutu slaughtering of the Tutsi - directly due to colonial borders running roughshod over traditional tribal divisions and looking to only one criteria - what was most beneficial to the colonial power.
A few years ago I read something that mentioned the slaughter in Rwanda and the theory was that that particular area of Africa was over-populated at the time, and when that happens anywhere, either disease or war breaks out and the population is quickly reduced to a more sustainable level. Someone did a lot of research on that theory, and ever since I read that it made me wonder if we are in store for a horrific world war. I must have read that around 1998.
Well, don't think the theory holds water for the Great Wars of the 20th Century. Was Europe overpopulated in 1914 and 1939? The Great Flu Epidemic broke out in 1918 as the war was coming to a close. Personally, I don't see the Earth as overpopulated or about to fall to some long prophesied Malthusian disaster.
Was Europe overpopulated in 1914 and 1939? It might as there was a huge population explosion during the 1800s as a result of the industrial revolution and a new focus on sanitation.
#2. To: mehitable (#0)
#3. To: Destro (#1)
#4. To: randge (#2)
Europe went quite mad too between 1914 and 1918 as I remember, and they didn't have the kinds of sophisticated pharma and other sorts of chemicals that we have today.
#5. To: mehitable (#3)
did you real the article Kamala posted? These people sound INSANE to me
#6. To: mehitable (#0)
(Edited)
#7. To: mehitable (#4)
And just posing a question does not make me paranoid. It means...I posted a goddam question.
#8. To: randge (#7)
#9. To: randge (#7)
I'll admit to having a chronic case of paranoia myself these days. Didn't mean to offend.
#10. To: christine (#8)
#11. To: mehitable (#0)
#12. To: mehitable (#0)
Disobedience must be punished with more boulders.
#13. To: randge (#10)
Mehitable's posts are always kind of crusty, and I came to think of this poster as an old codger.
#14. To: mehitable (#13)
#15. To: Destro, mehitable (#1)
Forgotten History of the Congo.
#16. To: swarthyguy (#15)
#17. To: mehitable, aristeides (#16)
#18. To: randge, mehitable (#10)
Mehitable's posts are always kind of crusty, and I came to think of this poster as an old codger.
Remember...G-d saved more animals than people on the ark. www.siameserescue.org
#19. To: christine (#8)
To: randge mehitable is a young woman. ;)
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition
#20. To: mehitable, angle, christine (#0)
(Edited)
Who invented psychology? Who has learned to use it for nefarious purposes and who, or what State, controls those who do? Just thinking out loud...
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition
#21. To: swarthyguy (#17)
Europe went mad. Completely. If the European monarchies had not gelded themselves in the blood orgy, it's quite probable that the domination of the world by the European powers would have lasted centuries more.
#22. To: swarthyguy (#15)
#23. To: randge, Christine, Mehitable (#14)
#24. To: swarthyguy, robin, mehitable (#15)
In the 1880s, as the European powers were carving up Africa, King Leopold II of Belgium seized for himself the vast and mostly unexplored territory surrounding the Congo River. Carrying out a genocidal plundering of the Congo, he looted its rubber, brutalized its people, and ultimately slashed its population by ten million--all the while shrewdly cultivating his reputation as a great humanitarian.
#25. To: swarthyguy, Destro, mehitable, robin (#15)
#26. To: Diana (#25)
---Henry Kissinger, New York Times, October 28, 1973
#27. To: aristeides, Destro (#21)
#28. To: Diana (#25)
#29. To: swarthyguy, Diana (#28)
#30. To: mehitable (#29)
#31. To: swarthyguy (#30)
#32. To: mehitable (#31)
#33. To: swarthyguy, mehitable (#32)
As I said, Belgians, those truffle guys?
---Henry Kissinger, New York Times, October 28, 1973
#34. To: robin (#33)
#35. To: robin (#33)
#36. To: mehitable (#35)
---Henry Kissinger, New York Times, October 28, 1973
#37. To: mehitable, robin, Diana (#35)
One of my favorite Belgians, creator of the Tin Tin comic book series.
#38. To: swarthyguy (#37)
---Henry Kissinger, New York Times, October 28, 1973
#39. To: robin (#38)
#40. To: swarthyguy (#39)
Asterix was created by the French.
---Henry Kissinger, New York Times, October 28, 1973
#41. To: robin (#40)
#42. To: IndieTX, mehitable (#19)
Oh is she?? :)))))))))) LOL!
#43. To: swarthyguy (#27)
#44. To: robin (#38)
#45. To: robin (#36)
#46. To: swarthyguy, robin (#37)
#47. To: mehitable (#46)
---Henry Kissinger, New York Times, October 28, 1973
#48. To: christine, IndieTx (#42)
#49. To: robin (#47)
lol! Too bad he can't act.
#50. To: robin (#47)
#51. To: swarthyguy, mehitable, robin (#28)
OK, so only 10K died at Belgian hands in the Congo in the 1890's.
#52. To: swarthyguy, mehitable (#30)
(Edited)
Alright, we'll just blame it on the Jews.
#53. To: swarthyguy (#32)
But, viewing historical facts through rose colored glasses and hiding behind words like "agenda" and questioning research without reading the book, simply because the facts are highly uncomfortable is, well, human nature.
#54. To: robin, swarthyguy, mehitable (#38)
I rather enjoy Hercule Poirot myself, but granted, that is a stretch ;P
#55. To: Diana (#53)
It's not like they were the innocents of the earth who were corrupted all because of Leopold, it might be more comfortable to you to view it that way
The unyielding brutality of the Colonial powers as they built their wealth on the blood of the natives.
>Not to say the natives weren't brutal to each other
#56. To: Diana (#51)
I'm sure we will never know the true number of dead in Iraq.
#57. To: Diana (#51)
Estimates of the total death toll vary considerably. Nevertheless, it is impossible to speak of a genocide because a genuine will to exterminate a certain group must exist. The reduction of the population of the Congo was noted by all who have compared the country at the beginning of the colonial rule and the beginning of the 20th century. Estimates of observers of the time, as well as modern scholars (most authoritatively Jan Vansina, professor emeritus of history and anthropology at the University of Wisconsin), show that the population halved during this period. According to Roger Casement's report, this depopulation was caused mainly by four causes: indiscriminate "war", starvation, reduction of births and diseases. Sleeping sickness ravaged the country and was used by the regime to justify demographic decrease. Opponents of King Léopold's rule stated, however, that the administration itself was to be considered responsible for the spreading of this dreadful epidemic. One of the greatest specialists on sleeping sickness, P.G. Janssens, Professor at the Ghent University, wrote:
It seems reasonable to admit the existence on the territories of the Congo Free State, of French Congo and Angola of a certain number of permanent sources that have been put again in activity by the brutal changement of ancestral conditions and ways of life that has accompanied the accelered occupation of the territories.
#58. To: Diana (#53)
I seriously doubt what happened in that area of Africa over 100 years ago is the reason they are having a brutal civil war in Congo now
#59. To: swarthyguy, mehitable (#58)
#60. To: Diana (#59)
#61. To: swarthyguy (#60)
Well, don't think the theory holds water for the Great Wars of the 20th Century.
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest