From Cult Leaders to CEOs: How Power Turns People Into Monsters

 What would you do if you woke up to find yourself surrounded by a group of devoted followers who believed you were holy, divine... God himself?  Men, women & children ready to die or kill for you, wait on you hand and foot & subjugate themselves totally, all because they thought you were somehow superior?  

We know what would happen because we have cults:  Jonestown, Rajneeshpuram, Heaven's Gate, NXIVM, Scientology, Children of God, The Manson Family, the Branch Davidians, Warren Jeffs' FLDS, Anne Hamilton's "Family"... the list goes on.  Even in less culty "religions" like the Assembly of God, pastors and preachers like Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart ended up abusing their power.  But it's a chicken or egg situation:  did those people become cult leaders due to their pre-existing narcissism & psychopathy, or did they start out normal(ish) and only become evil due to the (CIA-supplied drugs) and power going to their heads?  Put another way, could anyone become evil if granted a certain amount of power and control?

Again, we know the answer is yes due to the Stanford prison experiment, which transformed normal people into abusive monsters by simply granting them power over other humans.  So why do we continue to intentionally place humans in positions of unchecked power and immunity from prosecution?  We preach about equality and justice while defending capitalism, which is based on the "one slavemaster/99% of the population in chains" hierarchy.  Religious leaders are given insane amounts of power due to our religious freedom laws, which also allow cults to get away with things secular individuals never could.  We give our politicians the power to make laws that affect public health and safety with no input from scientists, medical professionals or the people they serve.  Why? 

Trump: Made in America

President Evil

Pretending Trump is some random aberration is absurd.  In actuality, he's a manifestation of everything America promotes and rewards:  ruthlessness, ambition, capitalism, greed, cruelty, proud ignorance & narcissism.  Ditto Elon Musk and every other billionaire born into privilege who likes to cite the virtues of "hard work" & sacrifice.  The truth is, you don't get to that level of wealth & power via "hard work" but by unremitting psychopathic behavior + being born into privilege.  Paying people starvation wages & keeping the "excess", overworking employees in unsafe conditions, firing long-time workers days before retirement for undisclosed reasons, not paying a dime in federal taxes that everyone else has to pay, using your money to influence law and politics & rewarding bad behavior is psychopathic by definition.  It lacks empathy & compassion for other people & is often coupled with a "nice guy" charming persona that a blind man could see through.  Yet for some reason, many Americans cannot.  Instead, they worship at its altar as if sucking its asshole will make them rich/powerful by osmosis.

These same hypocrites often cite the "sanctity of human life/marriage" when trying to restrict the reproductive freedom and marriage rights of others. The CEO caught on Jumbotron with his 6th mistress while spewing platitudes about "family values", the politician raping children a on private island, the billionaire whose factory workers financed his trip to the moon while they pissed in bottles and died on the factor floor... these animals are not in a position to discuss the "sanctity" of ANYTHING.  They are the anti-Christ, literally.  The opposite of Jesus Christ, whose religion Americans like to claim this nation was "founded on".   

Bullshit.

Amazon driver's piss bottle near an L.A. highway. 

The only solution to this insane extremism is a more equal distribution of wealth and power.  Put more things up for a vote of the people instead of letting politicians decide with the stroke of a pen & influence from lobbyists.  Form more unions and co-ops, focus on mutual aid instead of charity.  Either make everyone pay their fair share of taxes, or no one does.  Stop granting tax exemption to religious organizations that get directly involved in politics, which is most of them.  Either drug test everyone at every job (including lawmakers) or nobody is tested.  Everyone gets the same shot at a fair trial, not just those who can afford bail & private counsel.  And so on. 

This is not communism, it's just basic fairness and justice.  It's common sense if you want a happy, well-adjusted society.  Not even that--a functioning society that isn't constantly ripping itself apart at the seams due to feelings of powerlessness, hopelessness and misguided rage.  The fact is, those in power don't give a shit about the mood or well-being of the country or in fact the survival of the planet--they're only in it for themselves.  For the here and now.  For the stockholders.  For the nookie.

Nobody likes to admit that they would become a soulless, dopamine-chasing sadist if they had a little wealth/power because it's not pleasant to think about.  We like to think more highly of ourselves and others, to "see the good" in the human race.  Unfortunately that's just not borne out in the scientific literature.  But sometimes science is redundant.  Just look at the reality in which you live!