The Post-Partisan Emporium

  monetizing munchausen by proxy how the mental health industry was eaten by adverse selection EL GATO MALO this is an interesting insight that i’d like to amplify LINK around basic issues of mental well being, being told “you are ill, it’s not your fault” is worse than a wubbie or a crutch, it’s actual harm. it tells you there is something wrong with you and increasingly vilifies and stigmatizes the absolutely totally normal. it makes you into a mark. worse, it makes you into a “repeat customer” and you want to be seriously circumspect on that one. let’s look. past a certain point, “psychologists” (and even worse, psychiatrists who want to treat this with some truly unpleasant and dangerous drugs) are the scientology hucksters standing on the sidewalk looking for broken people to invite inside by asking questions like “do you ever feel sad or lonely for no reason?” i used to watch this in san francisco as team l ron hubbard had a mother ship downtown near my one time office. “woul...

  Walking Away From The Marketplace John Michael Greer The recent sequence of posts here on lenocracy (from Latin  leno , a pimp)—that is, the form of political economy in which productive economic activity gets squeezed dry by various kinds of legally mandated pimping—has fielded a response I find interesting. Next to nobody has tried to argue that lenocracy is an unfair description of the current state of affairs in the United States and its close allies. Everyone seems quite aware of the fact that most of the people who make big money in our grand post-industrial kleptocracies are doing it by exploiting those who actually produce goods and services, in exactly the same way that a pimp exploits sex workers. No, the question that’s come up over and over again is as simple as it is challenging:  what can we do about it?  I offered one answer  a month ago , discussing the way that modern lenocracies work by dangling various baits in front of you. If you take the ...

  Next Up, Realism! By  Karen Kwiatkowski Realism seems to have fallen out of favor in the West, but it just might be ready for a brilliant return to the stage. I’m expecting an abrupt end of the Zelensky regime in Kiev, followed by cessation of hostilities. A settlement on what is left of, and for, Ukraine, will be conducted between the two neighbors.  The people of Ukraine, and much of the world, already hold NATO and the US — incoherent cheerleaders of war, and under-impressive suppliers of weapons – responsible for starting and extending an unwinnable war, delaying and derailing peace, and permanently ruining their landscape and economy.   Because no one east or west of Washington, DC can figure out exactly who controls or speaks for the US government, Blinken, Biden and Boy Wonder Jake will not be involved or invited to the table.  Blinken will frown very, very, very seriously, Jake will try a  CIA workaround  (or maybe a reach-around, I won’...