These posts explore the themes developed in my monograph, Narcisso-Fascism, which is itself a real-world test of the central concepts of the Biocognitive Model of Mind for psychiatry.
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I’ve been told I’m not to use the expressions “the Epstein class,” or “Operation Epstein fury” because the very powerful US-Zionist lobby, the Anti-Defamation League, has ruled that those term are “antisemitic.” Their reasoning isn’t clear but meantime, I’m still allowed to call the present war of aggression launched by Israel and the US “Operation Epic F*ck-Up.” Because it is. Even bearing in mind that the US has started and lost a dozen wars since 1945, this stands head and shoulders below the rest.
Kevin Walmsley is an American engineer who lives in Kunming, China. A couple of times a week, he posts brief reports on Substack and YouTube as Inside China / Business. Each time, he takes some claim made by US or Western commentators about China’s industry or economics etc. and shows with a few graphs that they’re talking rubbish. This week, he’s looked at the economics of attempting to defend against missile and drone attacks, and the effects of the fighting in the Gulf on international air travel. Bearing in mind that an Iranian Shahed drone costs from $25-50,000, depending on its configuration, and they can make 100 a month, and that each Patriot or Iron Dome ground-to-air defence missile costs from $0.5-4million but they can only make ten a month, and at least half of them miss their target, then the economics of the war Trump and Netanyahu started are not looking good. No way. Moreover, Western airlines have taken a massive hit because they have to divert away from Iranian airspace but they’re not allowed to fly over Russia, and jet fuel has doubled in price in a week and will get much, much higher as it can’t be shipped, but nobody wants to fly anyway, so he expects major airlines to start going broke before long. Add to that the effect of Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz, which it has long threatened to do if attacked, which upset Herr Drumpf:
If Iran does anything that stops the flow of Oil within the Strait of Hormuz, they will be hit by the United States of America TWENTY TIMES HARDER than they have been hit thus far. Additionally, we will take out easily destroyable targets that will make it virtually impossible for Iran to ever be built back, as a Nation, again — Death, Fire, and Fury will reign upon them
That is, he is threatening genocide. However, Iran was attacked so they have closed the Strait and no oil can get out, nor chemicals, nor fertilisers, nor plastics; and none of the food that the Gulf countries import (80% of their consumption) or machines can get in; and Europe is seriously dependent on Gulf oil since Biden and Co. blew up the Russian Nord Stream II gas pipeline; and Ukraine won’t allow Russian gas or oil over its territory, all of which adds up to Europe teetering on the brink of collapse. Add to that the news that Gulf oil and gas producers have had to cease production, which means their refineries and gas plants have to be emptied and put on maintenance and it takes a minimum of a month to get them going again; and the world doesn’t have a month’s supply of oil and gas in reserve, then you really have to ask: “Who are the clowns who started this monstrous cock up? What were they thinking? What was their goal? How did they think they’d achieve it?”
One thing is clear: for 40 years, Netanyahu has dreamed of destroying Iran. He says so (it’s actually 47 years, since the Revolution in 1979; see Gantz, fmr defence minister here, starting at 0.55). US presidents Clinton, Bush, Obama and Biden resisted; Trump gave in. I don’t think we need to bother explaining that, he’s a dementing fool who is easily manipulated by promises of making lots of money and is terrified of the Epstein files leaking. What we would like to know is: What happened to the chiefs of staff and the National Budget Office and the CIA economics section who are supposed to understand things like the fact that 20million barrels of oil passes through Hormuz each day, 20% of world seaborne oil trade, and Europe and Japan and Korea are totally dependent on it? Didn’t they understand that airlines actually need fuel to keep flying, that they’re not huge gliders? That ships don’t move without bunkers? Where are the adults in the US who are supposed to rein in the pirates and gungho adventurers?
We can’t rely on Trump’s cabinet because he chose them on the basis of their fanatical loyalty to him. Hegseth, the so-called secretary of war is no use, he’s a fanatical christian nationalist (read: fascist) who just loves the idea of killing people. He approved the attack on the Iranian frigate that was returning from the regatta in India; he knew it was unarmed and was carrying a heap of dignitaries who’d gone for the ride; and he knew the submarine that sank it would not stop to rescue survivors, as it is required to do and as its captain knew it was required to do. So we can write him off. We can write off another important person, the attorney general, Pam Bondi, because she is seriously paranoid. Her performance before the Congressional committee a week or two ago was bizarre. Every time she was asked a question, she launched a vicious personal attack on the member who was interrogating her. She saw everything as a direct personal attack on her and her saint, D Trump. That’s paranoid, but not psychotic like Trump’s “White House director of faith matters,” one Paula White, who is completely off her head. Rubio, the secretary of state, better known as Narco Rubio because of his family connections, spilled the beans when he said they launched the attack because they knew Israel was going to attack Iran and if they did, then the Iranians would target American “assets” (radar, bases, etc) in the Gulf so they thought they’d better get in first, which is a crime (here, at 4.00). The rest of them are a bunch of liars, crooks and carpetbaggers, none worse than Trump’s nauseating son-in-law who is making a fortune out of all this, so we can’t expect any sense from them.
I don’t get this at all. Most of these people have university degrees so they’re not lacking intelligence. They have worked in and around major corporations and public service for decades, so they have some sort of experience. They were born into the closed world of wealth, power and privilege; they know exactly what goes on. They know everybody who’s anybody, and they know precisely who’s doing what with whom, where and for how much. They know that if you attack somebody, that person is going to get you back because that’s exactly what they do themselves. Before any attack, the military and CIA run these elaborate and very expensive “war games” where they start with what they want to achieve and then have to work out what the other side will do in response. Surely they can work out that if they attack Iran, it will retaliate with missiles, and that the Israeli missile defence system (Iron Dome, etc) gets its tracking info from the very high-powered and expensive US radar bases in the Gulf countries, so the first action the Iranians would have to take would be to destroy the American forward radar bases. Which is exactly what happened. I knew they would do that and the reason I knew they would do that’s because that is exactly what I would do (there is a fairly long account of it here by Richard Medhurst, a UK based reporter who was born in Syria to a Syrian mother and UK father, who speaks fluent Arabic and gets along in Hebrew; his bleached hair is recent).
I can’t answer why the Americans allowed themselves to be drawn into another “forever war,” especially as their president promised there would be no more; hubris, I expect, plus his fear of going to prison. As for the Israelis, the world needs to know that their plan for the past 80 years has been the total destruction of the entire Islamic Middle East. Not just Gaza, not just Lebanon, but the lot: Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Sudan, Somalia, now Iran, and their next target is Turkey, with Egypt and the rest of the Gulf to follow. This is all set out in their eschatology. There will be a mighty war in the Middle East; the Jews will triumph and build their Third Temple, their messiah will arrive, Jews will rule the world then be taken up to heaven while the rest of humanity goes to burn in hell because that’s where they came from.
Watch this video from beginning to end, especially the two rabbis at 2.55 and 11.35. The producers are reputable (I’ve checked). The videos are now quite old, perhaps 25 years or so. At the time, the belief system they propound was considered fairly extreme but these people and their millions of followers are now mainstream right wing, in Israel and in the diaspora, which more or less means the US. They are supported by the fanatical christian nationalists (they don’t get a capital C because it’s a heresy) who echo that view with the small exception that all Jews will also be sent to the deep fryer for eternity. The second speaker, Rabbi Menachem Schneerson (1902-1994) was leader of the Lubavitch Hasidic sect and hugely influential. He described the difference between Jewish and gentile souls in this way:
The difference of the inner quality, however, is so great that the bodies should be considered as completely different species … An even greater difference exists in regard to the soul. Two contrary types of soul exist, a non-Jewish soul comes from three satanic spheres, while the Jewish soul stems from holiness … A non-Jew’s entire reality is only vanity. It is written, ‘And the strangers shall stand and feed your flocks’ [Isaiah 61:5]. The entire creation (of non-Jews) exists only for the sake of the Jews.
This is the driving principle behind the attack on Iran. It is amplified by Netanyahu’s urgent desire to satisfy the ultra-fanatics who voted for him to bring on the war that will lead to what they believe will be Zionism’s triumph.
We live in exceedingly dangerous times. A very large part of the world is being run by a coalition of religious and political extremists working hand in hand with the deeply corrupt business and political Epstein class, although it’s hard to tell them apart, not one of whom has the sense to look ahead and try to work out the consequences of their actions. Everybody knows that since the MH-17 disaster over Ukraine in 2014, in the event of a war, planes are not allowed to fly anywhere near it. If they can’t go the direct route, it costs them a heap more. Everybody knows that if the Strait of Hormuz closes for any reason, Europe and half the world are caught in the squirrel grip. Why can these people not think ahead? And if they can’t think 24 hours ahead, can we trust them to think decades ahead on something like global warming? No, we can’t. If so-called christian nationalists think that literally setting the world on fire is a good thing, can we trust them to make proper decisions about firing Tomahawk missiles (at $5million each) at a girls’ school? No, we can’t, they’re not Christians at all, they’re an apocalyptic heresy. If we said to Hegseth and all his mates “Blessed are the peacemakers” (Matt.5.9), they would fall over, shrieking with laughter.
We’re in trouble, ladies and gentlemen. The world is being run by fanatics and fockwits who get their rocks off by dominating everybody else for their own advantage. They believe they can do no wrong, that everybody who disagrees with them is satanic and must be destroyed, and that violence is purifying. Remember that these people are not mad, any more than the Nazis or the British imperialists were mad. I could say this is turbo-charged narcisso-fascism but it’s worse than that. It’s truly messianic (see here for a good account of this mind-set; check the photo parody of the Last Supper, that’s Ms White in white channeling God).
Kevin Walmsley always finishes his videos and posts with two words: Be good. Let’s hope it’s not too late.
I was interviewed for a podcast in Switzerland; the interviewer is a physics graduate interested in psychology:
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My critical works are best approached in this order:
The case against mainstream psychiatry:
McLaren N (2024). Theories in Psychiatry: building a post-positivist psychiatry. Ann Arbor, MI: Future Psychiatry Press. Amazon (this also covers a range of modern philosophers, showing that their work cannot be extended to account for mental disorder).
Development and justification of the biocognitive model:
McLaren N (2021): Natural Dualism and Mental Disorder: The biocognitive model for psychiatry. London, Routledge. At Amazon.
Clinical application of the biocognitive model:
McLaren N (2018). Anxiety: The Inside Story. Ann Arbor, MI: Future Psychiatry Press. At Amazon.
Testing the biocognitive model in an unrelated field:
McLaren N (2023): Narcisso-Fascism: The psychopathology of right wing extremism. Ann Arbor, MI: Future Psychiatry Press. At Amazon.
The whole of this work is copyright but may be copied or retransmitted provided the author is acknowledged.
Bollywood, then? in full agreement, with one major reservation. Israel is not the tail wagging the dog of war, it is just another proxy of the Empire like Ukraine- "en pire" in French means for the worst, a telling give away-and dare I extrapolate, the policy of all Empires, from Empire to the pyre. America's perverse vision was there since inception, with the landing of the grim pilgrims...manifest destiny, new frontier, open door, all the clichés of imperialism/colonialism. And now after 500 years, and about half a billion human beings slaughtered & sacrificed on the altar of Mammon/Moloch, a neat one million per year on average, a full fledged last exterminist encore, à la Hitler, the Samson option...if I go, we all go. We shall see. Trumpf should be reminded of Crassus'fate when he challenged the Persians and their Parthian allies. He may well have put down the Spartakists, but one battle too far, ended with his head on a platter. Kevin is a refreshing observer of the reality in The Middle Kingdom in contrast with the Atlantist propaganda and lies, the lie of the Hegemon's land and of its vassals. May I bring to your attention the very cogent reflections of Brian Berletic, an ex-marine based in Thailand, on "the continuity of agenda" of the Wall street gang. While not endowed with the same academic credentials as the many other talking heads, his clarity of vision is enlightening. I surmise there is a correlation between the two?