Tuesday, February 16, 2016

Michael Brenner — Treating The Terror Psychosis

America is afflicted with a debilitating ailment that has warped the collective national mind. Its symptoms are the experience of persistent delusions and a distorted sense of objective reality. The disorder impairs functioning since the subjective perception of the world does not match actual conditions. That marks the classic psychotic syndrome. 
Psychosis can stem from trauma and acute stress. In our case, the traumatic event was 9/11. Characteristically, an experientially caused psychosis, as opposed to one with organic roots, is short-term. The terror psychosis is well into its second decade with no signs that it is ameliorating. That indicates the active presence of psychosocial factors that perpetuate the acute anxiety and apprehension associated with the original traumatic event. Those factors do not take the form of aftershocks. There have been no serious attacks against the United States over the past 13 years – much less any that registered a facsimile of the damage produced by the precipitating shock. Those that have occurred have had domestic sources, and have been minor by several orders of magnitude.…
Sic Semper Tyrannis
Michael Brenner | Professor Emeritus of International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh, Fellow of the Center for Transatlantic Relations at SAIS/Johns Hopkins, and former Director of the International Relations & Global Studies Program at the University of Texas

5 comments:

Matt Franko said...

Right like the wife of the San Bernadino guy wasnt from Pakistan...

The guy who hacked up the people at the Jewish Deli in Ohio this week was from North Africa....

Tom Hickey said...

Given the odds one should be much more terrified of my car or house, or the police or some gun nut, than Islamic terrorists.

The fear level is off the charts, and it's being cranked up for political advantage. It really is a national psychosis.

Matt Franko said...

Like worrying about the "1%" you mean?

Tom Hickey said...

Like worrying about the "1%" you mean?

It seems to me that the class war going on now is driven by middle class fear of falling into the precariat, and precariat fear of falling into poverty.

The envy seems to involve the 1% for the 0.1? These people aren't fearful, just think that that they are not rich enough.

Ignacio said...

The police, white supremacists, gangs, drug cartels etc. kill more people yearly than all those CIA-promoted 'terrorists' in their whole history and yet the population is more worried about terrorists...

Keep up the good work, nihilist death cult of USA. Between USa and Mexico great symbiosis for the death cult in the continent. I guess you can always go to the more civilized Canada.