U.S. Government Gang Stalking Sprung From An I-It Culture. This website describes this MOBBING/PSY-OPS Program. Is I-Thou the Value We Need To Change?

Mobbing

By Bonnie Calcagno

            It has been called a form of psychological terror.  Mobbing is a word first used by Dr. Heinz Leymann, a German industrial psychologist, to describe the phenomena whereby a group of people target one individual to try to make him or her leave the workplace.  Mobbing can also be used in a community or neighborhood as described in the book, High Conflict People In Legal Disputes, by William A. Eddy, where “cognitive distortions cause internal distress’ in a ringleader, an “external target is blamed for the distress, a mob or “advocates are sought to help blame” the target, “emotional facts are created against” a target, “emotional persuasion wins advocates”, then “advocates persuade new advocates,” and “peripheral persuasion” is used by the mobbers to “persuade dispute resolvers to blame” the target.  Whether in the workplace or the community, the group is always guided by a ringleader, authorities on the subject say.  The ringleader gets supporters and friends and even bystanders to use passive and active aggressive tactics against a target to force him or her out.

            The phenomena of mobbing in the workplace was introduced to American audiences by Noa Zanolli Davenport Ph.D., Ruth Distler Schwartz, and Gail Pursell Elliott with their book, Mobbing – U.S.A. Emotional Abuse in the American Workplace.

Each of the books three authors had once been the target of mobbing.  Based on the research of Dr. Leymann, the book mobbing was designed to be a self-help tool and a resource for those who have been targeted.  What the authors want those to endure this type of trauma to know is – “You are not alone if this happens to you.  There are ways to protect yourself.”

            What happens in mobbing is that over a period of weeks co-workers, colleagues, superiors, subordinates orchestrate a reign of psychological terror in order to get a target out while portraying the target as being at fault.  The purpose of the active and passive aggressive tactics of the mobbers is “to dominate, subjugate, and eliminate” the target from the workplace.  The means to achieve those ends are a continuous series of “harassing, abusive and often terrorizing behaviors” used in many and different variations.

            The authors of the book Mobbing tell us, there is usually a precipitating incident, a conflict.  It could be an irrelevant event, but it’s the excuse that sets things in motion.  “Because the conflict over procedures or tasks, personalities or values, and unethical behaviors, remains unresolved, it escalates,” the authors said.  Management often misjudges the situation isolating the target even further.  The target is the one who is labeled mentally ill or difficult, the authors of mobbing contend.  The mobbers, the authors tell us, are often driven by jealousy and envy stemming from insecurity or fear.  Their personalities are characterized as “excessively controlling, cowardly, neurotic, and power hungry.”  Mobbing exists, the authors said, “in all types of organizations and industries.  It can occur in large or small companies, in government, in nonprofits, in the healthcare industry, in education.  Anywhere.”  Once the dynamics begin, there is little or nothing the target can do to stop it, the authors said.

            Gail Pursell Elliott, one of the authors of Mobbing, is a co-moderator to Guy Croyle, the founding moderator of the Nineveh Project, an online support group for those who have been targets of mobbing, bullying, and scapegoating.  Guy, as he is known to the online support group has experience with bullying that dates back to 1996 when he first began reading the research.  The Nineveh Project was undertaken, Guy explained, “with the realization that the typical workplace is not a place where targeted individuals can find help and affirmation.  Likewise close family members and friends are also normally unable to be objective or advise the typical emotionally traumatized target.”  Member volunteers from the online support group, The Nineveh Project, and another online support group, Bully Online provided personal accounts from their experiences.  The emails detailed the trauma the targets of mobbing endure – continuous criticism, workplace intrigues filled with fabrications and distortions, attempts to undermine the target’s status, being singled out by the mob and having actions taken against them for trumped up reasons, being isolated, overruled, demeaned, belittled, shouted at, threatened, overloaded with work, or having much of their work taken away from them, having sick leave denied, given responsibilities for which they were unqualified to engineer their failure, having challenging goals set which are changed as they are approached, having deadlines set and then changed without informing them so that they appear unprepared, being misrepresented, seeing all they do and say twisted and distorted, put through disciplinary procedures for trivial offenses with little investigation of facts, being dismissed or coerced to leave or leaving the workplace on their own after their spirits have been broken and their health has been damaged.

            “I tried to write about my bullying experience,” one person wrote, “but it was extremely emotional like I was going through the experience again and it makes me feel ill.  It is like being mugged or raped.  Trying to rehash it brings back the memory of all the injustices, all the abuse.”  Another wrote, “how can you explain the verbal, emotional, and psychological abuse, day after day, week after week, year after year, being professionally attacked and personally shamed, humiliated, blamed for everything.”  One man said that he can’t forget that the night his daughter went out to walk a neighbor’s dog and was killed, he might have gone with her had he not been suffering from depression caused by the mobbing.  “I wonder if those bullies realized what they’ve done,” he wrote.  A professor in a college who was the target of mobbing wrote about the comment of a colleague which he thought was telling – “If one person is the target,” the colleague had said, “it takes the pressure off everyone else.”  Bystanders sometimes join in the mobbing for fear if they don’t, the ringleader might target them next.

            “At a spiritual level,” Guy Croyle, the moderator of the online support group called The Nineveh Project said, “we must wonder if we as a society have not somehow lost our moral compass (or worse yet, never had one to begin with).  If envy is a factor, as Bristish researcher, the late Tim Field and others believe, then this points to a disturbing situation in which people who do behave ethically (i.e., who can hold their own sense of envy in check, for example) are totally shocked to find themselves on the wrong end of others who do not share these same sensitivities.  It’s quite easy to understand why targets can typically go into bouts of self-doubt and self-blame.  The world cannot possibly be this way, they think; it must be something I have done wrong.  And that creates a downward emotional spiral that only feeds the problem and keeps the drama rolling right along.”

Some of Sigmund Freud’s ideas on groups from the book, Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego

1. Being a member of a group produces a unique mental phenomena – the group mind.
2. The people who make up a group have a collective mind that is different from the mind they have as individuals who feel, think, and act as individual persons.
3. “There are certain ideas and feelings which do not come into being, or do not transform themselves into acts except in the case of individuals forming a group.”
4. A group acts differently than individuals.
5. The unconscious motives of the group, like the unconscious motives of an individual outnumber the conscious.  The hereditary foundation of behavior exerts a profound influence.
6. The characteristics that are the inheritance of the human race constitute the motives of group behavior of which we are not aware.
7. Individuals each possess unique predispositions due to unique genetic endowments.  That uniqueness is lost in a group where our common predispositions are most apparent.
8. Hence groups manifest a “common character.”
9. The group gives the individual a feeling of power which permits him to express instincts he might have been able to restrain had he not become part of a group.
10. “He will be the less disposed to check himself, from the consideration that, a group being anonymous and in consequence irresponsible, the sentiment of responsibility which always controls individuals disappears entirely.”

(Freud quoting LeBon)

11. The new character that a group shows that the individual doesn’t is the absence of repression of unconscious instinctual impulses.
12. So individuals display characteristics as part of a group that they don’t display as individuals.
13. The group acts without conscience, without responsibility.
14. “In a group every sentiment and act is contagious”.
15. In groups people do things that is uncharacteristic of them, that is not part of their personal repertoire of habits.
16. In a group the conscious personality vanishes, individuals lose consciousness of their acts.
17. There is a tendency to immediately transform suggested ideas into acts.
18. “Isolated, he may be a cultivated individual; in a crowd, he is a barbarian – that is, a creature acting by instinct.”
19. “by the mere fact that he forms part of an organized group, a man descends several rungs in the ladder of civilization”
20. “He possesses the spontaneity, the violence, the ferocity, and also the enthusiasm and heroism of primitive beings.”
21. A group is almost completely unconscious in its behavior.
22. “The feelings of a group are always very simple and very exaggerated.”
23. “It goes directly to extremes; if a suspicion is expressed, it is instantly changed into an incontrovertible certainty; a trace of antipathy is turned into furious hatred.”
24. The only thing a group respects is force.
25. “groups have never thirsted after truth”
26. “They demand illusions, and cannot do without them.”
27. Behavior of groups is based on fantasy, not truth.
28. Groups are dominated by feeling, not thought.
29. “A group impresses the individual as being an unlimited power and an insurmountable peril.”
30. “The loss of the leader in some sense or other, the birth of misgivings about him, brings on the outbreak of panic, though the danger remains the same; the mutual ties between members of group disappear, as a rule, at the same time as the leader.”

Freud also explains how groups can help an individual to transcend himself.

The Mindset of An Authoritarian

1. I am superior to you/exceptional.
2. I have truth.  You don’t.
3. I have the right to make decisions.  You don’t.  I have the right to make decisions ,not only for myself, but for you.
4. What I say is the law.
5. I have the right to exert power over you.
6. My needs take precedence over your needs.
7. You don’t have the right to question me.
8. You don’t have the right to know what I am doing.
9. You don’t have the right to examine my thinking, my assumptions.
10. My Will takes precedence over Reason.
11. My life is more valuable than yours.
12. I have the right to rule.
13. I am good.  You are bad.
14. My enemies should be vilified, neutralized, destroyed.
15. The end justifies the means.
16. I will say anything, do anything to install my authority over you.
17. The standards I apply to you, don’t apply to me.
18. Words are crafted to manipulate, to confuse, for propaganda.
19. Authoritarianism is characterized by secrecy, unconsciousness.

Antidote to Authoritarianism

1. engender a spirit of Egalitarianism

2. insist on listening to all perspectives/openness

3. engender autonomy, self-directedness

4. empower people to run their own lives, make their own choices

5. question, question, question

6. transparency

7. examine thinking, assumptions

8. use reason, expose fallacies in reasoning

9. value the life of every living thing

10. democratic governance with protection of rights of the minority

12. value nonviolence

13. see if means are consistent with our values

14. encourage congruence, honesty

15. encourage dialogue

16. constantly work toward consciousness, verbalizing what is unconscious

To Change America’s Authoritarian Mindset We Need A Different Kind of School

https://youtu.be/Ba4n9yo5Orw

If we want to change America, we have to change the Authoritarian Mindset of Americans.  And that begins with Reform of our Educational System.  This video is a preface to a link I encourage you to read entitled “Anti-Authoritarian Personalities and Standard Schools by Bruce Levine.  http://www.fifthestate.org/archive/388-winter-2013/anti-authoritarian-personalities-standard-schools/

My Preface To The Following Link About An Anti-Authoritarian Education

I'm one of those people who always thought about school as a jail.  Now you might think I was a poor student as a result, but just the opposite is true.  I was a straight "A" student for much of my life.  I spent hours studying to learn the nonsense offered as curriculum.  I graduated 25th in my high school class of over 700 and 3rd in my college class.  But I felt after college that most of what I had learned was absolutely worthless.

Since studying personality type (Carl Jung, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator etc.) I realize the people who do best in our schools are the people who have a personality type like the teachers - sensing feeling types in elementary school and sensing thinking types.  The people who, especially, think of school as a jail are the intuitives, especially, introverted intuitives with an artistic or scientific bent or those children whose gift lies in working with their hands or with their bodies/sports and not with intellectual/abstract learning.

My education would have been more meaningful if there had been magnet schools and I could choose to go to a more "artistic" school which would have steeped me in the arts, helped me to hone my writing/investigative skills, introduced me to the area of psychology, especially, depth psychology which held the deepest interest for me later in life.

I never found the role models for my introverted intuitive personality which is about 1% of the population.  I strongly believe that those mass killers we read about in the news also are a rare personality type, maybe introverted intuitive thinking perceiving types who just didn't fit in our one size fits all schools, who never found the facilitating environments they needed or the role models they needed to hone their gifts and become contributing members of society.

My interest in psychology has showed me how when we don't find environments that allow us to express what we by nature are, parts of ourselves are lost to consciousness and those parts are often projected in a very disturbing way causing all manner of problems in society.

Children we stuff into molds that don't fit can become self-destructive or destructive to others.

For these reasons and more I strongly believe in an anti-authoritarian educational model which gives choice, which is dedicated to the unfolding of children's natures, personality types, uniqueness helping to create autonomous, self-directed, independent people with a strong sense of self, helping to develop their gifts and receive confirmation for who they are, so they can contribute what is best in them to society.  

http://www.fifthestate.org/archive/388-winter-2013/anti-authoritarian-personalities-standard-schools/

http://www.stopgangstalkingpolice.com

The Tenets of Anti-authoritarianism

http://youtu.be/2ozuGBTiYFo

1. We all have a right as children to a facilitating environment that helps us to unfold our unique natures.

1. We all have a right to be the unique, different people we are.

1. We all have the right to freely communicate our being, our feelings, our thoughts, our concerns, our dreams.

1. We all have the right to observe the direction our heart takes us in and to choose it with all our strength.

1. We all have the right to determine our own purpose in life.

1. We all have the right to determine our own behavior no matter the emotional pressure exerted by others and to say – this is what I believe in.  This is the point beyond which I will not go.

1. We all have the right to be authentic, congruent human beings and to make the choices in our own lives.

1. We all have the right to form ties with others of our own choosing.

1. We all have the right to find environments that let us express our being, that let us express ourselves, formulate the unformulated and live conscious lives uncorrupted by suppression, repression or domination.

1. We all have the right to be creative and to develop our creativity.

1. We all the right to form hypotheses about reality and to test them out in our own lives.

1. We all have the right to determine what has meaning for us in life and to live lives that are meaningful to us.

1. We all have the right to be guided by our inner sense rather than outward authority.

1. We all have the right to say – I don’t know.  I need time to think about that.  I need more experience to test my own thoughts, my own feelings about that before deciding what to do.  We all have the right to embrace the ambiguity that is life.

Authoritarianism Is At The Root Of The Government Gang Stalking Problem and MOBBING.

Toward An Understanding of the Fascist Character and Fascist Trends In American Society/Authoritarian Right Wing Beliefs

What is Authoritarianism?

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/authoritarian

We need to understand Fascist traits if we are ever going to stop the rise of Fascism in America.

The Authoritarian Personality – From the Book By Theodor Adorno -  The “F” Scale/Fascist

Consists of 9 Traits “believed to cluster together as a result of childhood experiences” – the “result of harsh and punitive parenting” – through identification the children adopt the traits of the authoritarian parent.

1.         conventionalism

2.         authoritarian submission

3.         authoritarian aggression

4.         anti-intellectualism

5.         anti-intraception

6.         superstition and stereotypy

7.         power and toughness

8.         destructiveness and cynicism

9.         exaggerated concerns over sex

The Authoritarian Personality, says Erich Fromm, needs another person to fuse with because he can’t tolerate his own aloneness or handle his fear.  He/she doesn’t want to make his/her own decisions and accept the consequences of them.  They want to be told what to do by something/someone they see as greater than themselves.  Authoritarians can be masochist or sadistic, striving to exert control over others.  Typically, both traits are seen in authoritarians as they suck up to those above them and lord it over those they see as inferior.

Erich Fromm tells us the opposite of the Authoritarian Personality is the Mature Person characterized by:

1. Working to develop his/her own personality

1.         Independence

2.         Integrity

3.         Relying on his/her reason to understand things -  becoming his/her own authority

4.         Able to love other people by seeing them as separate from him/herself based on his striving to know them, his respect for them, his caring attitude about them.

Authoritarians are robots who try to make others robots, too.  Of these robots, Fromm says, “ they will destroy their world and themselves because they cannot stand any longer the boredom of a meaningless life.”

Freedom is what the Authoritarians fear most – both for themselves and for others.

The antidote for the Authoritarian/Fascist Trends in American Society, the crux of a Sane Society says Erich Fromm, is a society in which the emphasis is on helping the person to unfold his/her creative powers with an education that brings out what is within.

We must expose Authoritarianism wherever we find it. 

http://www.amazon.com/The-Psychology-Peace-An-Introduction/dp/0313397236

From: The Psychology of Peace by Rachel M. MacNair

"Traits of the Authoritarian Personality

1. Rigid, unthinking adherence to conventional ideas of right and wrong...

2. Respect for and submission to authority...

3. Take anger out on someone safe...

4. Cannot trust people...

5. Must have a powerful leader and be part of a powerful group...

6. Oversimplified thinking...

7. Guard against dangerous ideas - Ideas are already set; new ones are threatening.

8. 'I'm pure, others are evil...'"

The question is does an authoritarian method of parenting result in psychologically healthy children? There is a difference between truly productive behavior and driven behavior. What is a psychologically healthy person? A psychologically healthy person has good communication between their conscious and unconscious/hence they will not be prone to malignant forms of projection, to using low level defense mechanisms etc. There is something intersubjective psychoanalysts call the unvalidated unconscious. Parts of the self which are never validated are unconscious - are not verbalized. Thus the person has a false self/doesn't really know their self/their true feelings/true thoughts - which are unconscious/have never been validated. The unvalidated part selves can be projected on others etc. This is the situation authoritarian parenting sets up - the creation of an inauthentic self- outer directed rather than inner directed, passive looking to authority figures for direction rather than inner directed, impulsive. They do not challenge authority and hence make abusive political systems all the more likely.