Category Archives: Ponerology

Quotes – U.S. President Barack Obama

“Empathy is at the heart of my moral code and it is how I understand the Golden Rule — not simply as a call to sympathy or charity, but as something more demanding, a call to stand in somebody else’s shoes and see through their eyes.”
– Barack Obama in his book “The Audacity of Hope”

“Whatever mistakes we have made, the plain fact is this: The United States of America has helped underwrite global security for more than six decades with the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms.
We have borne this burden not because we seek to impose our will. We have done so out of enlightened self-interest – because we seek a better future for our children and grandchildren, and we believe that their lives will be better if others’ children and grandchildren can live in freedom and prosperity.”
– Barack Obama in his Nobel speech, 2009

“I believe that all nations, strong and weak alike, must adhere to standards that govern the use of force… we have a moral and strategic interest in binding ourselves to certain rules of conduct… I believe that the United States must be a standard bearer in the conduct of war.”
– Barack Obama in his Nobel speech, 2009

“U.S. military commanders consistently fail to make the most fundamental distinction between combatants and civilians that is at the heart of the laws of war.
They issue a wide variety of illegal orders that include “weapons free” (formerly “free fire”) rules of engagement; orders to “kill all military age males”; air strikes on buildings where combatants have taken cover among large numbers of civilians; and brutal collective punishment of civilian populations.”
– Barack Obama in his Nobel speech, 2009
[Obama has rapidly accelerated the use of drones in which more than 70% of those killed are civiiians]

“What we need from the President of the United States is not another hypocritical speech… This means ending U.S. wars and occupations, radically reassessing the genuine defense needs of his country, bringing his government into compliance with its international treaty commitments and enforcing its own laws.”

Barack Obama in his Nobel speech, 2009

Quotes – from and about U.S. President Harry Truman

“The world will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base. That was because we wished in this first attack to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of civilians.
– President Harry Truman, August 9, 1945
[HIroshima was a Japanese city with a population of 400,000. The atomic bomb killed more than 150,000 civilians.]

“Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey’s opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.”
– U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey [1945] – which interviewed 700 Japanese officials after WWII

“It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons. My own feeling is that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages.”
– Admiral William Leahy, top military aide to President Truman, in his war memoirs

“It wasn’t necessary to hit them [Japanese] with that awful thing … To use the atomic bomb, to kill and terrorize civilians, without even attempting negotiations, was a double crime.”
– General Dwight D. Eisenhower

“The truth is we are guilty. Our conscience as a nation must trouble us. We must confess our sin. We have used a horrible weapon to asphyxiate and cremate more than 100,000 men, women and children in a sort of super-lethal gas chamber – and all this in a war already won or which spokesman for our Air Forces tell us we could have readily won without the atomic bomb.”
– David Lawrence, founder and editor of U.S. News And World Report

Quotes – U.S. President Lyndon Johnson

“I want people around me who would kiss my ass on a hot summer’s day and say it smells like roses.”
– President Lyndon Johnson to Senator Hubert Humphrey

“Fuck your Parliament and your Constitution. We pay a lot of good American dollars to the Greeks, Mr. Ambassador. If your Prime Minister gives me talk about Democracy, Parliament and Constitutions, he, his Parliament, and his Constitution may not last very long.”
– President Lyndon Johnson to the Greek Ambassador, 1970s

“The exercise of power in this century has meant for all of us in the United States not arrogance but agony. We have used our power not willingly and recklessly ever, but always reluctantly and with restraint.”
– President Lyndon Johnson

“Our one desire – our one determination – is that the people of Southeast Asia be left in peace to work out their own destinies in their own way.”
– President Lyndon Johnson

“Just get me elected, and then you can have your war [Vietnam].”
– President Lyndon Johnson to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, December 24, 1963

“I didn’t just screw Ho Chi Minh. I cut his pecker off.”
– Lyndon B. Johnson, commenting to reporters on the first American airstrikes against North Vietnam, August 5, 1964

“We own half the trucks in the world. We own almost half of the radios in the world. We own a third of all the electricity… Now I would like to see them [Vietnamese] enjoy the blessings that we enjoy. But don’t you help them exchange places with us, because I don’t want to be where they are.”
– President Lyndon Johnson before a junior Chamber of Commerce audience, 1966

“As a human being he [Lyndon Johnson] was a miserable person – a bully, sadist, lout, and egotist. He had no sense of loyalty, and he enjoyed tormenting those who had done the most for him. He seemed to take a special delight in humiliating those who had cast in their lot with him. It may well be that this was the result of a form of self-loathing in which he concluded that there had to be something wrong with anyone who would associate with him.”
– George Reedy, Lyndon Johnson’s former press secretary

“Lyndon Johnson was a monster… He was one of the few politicians with whom I found it uncomfortable to be in the same room. Johnson exuded a brutal lust for power which I found most disagreeable. When he said, “I never trust a man unless I have his pecker in my pocket”, he really meant it. He boasted about acting on the principle, “Give me a man’s balls, and his heart and mind will follow”.”
– Denis Healey, the Secretary of Defense in Britain in his memoirs

Quotes – U.S. President Richard Nixon

“Make the Chilean economy scream.”
– President Richard Nixon

“Those who vote for abortion will vote for it because they think that what’s gonna be aborted generally are the little black bastards.”
– President Richard Nixon

“When the President does it, that means that it is not illegal.”
– President Richard Nixon

“The press is the enemy.”
– President Richard Nixon

“People react to fear, not love; they don’t teach that in Sunday School, but it’s true.”
– President Richard Nixon

“I am not a crook.”
– President Richard Nixon

Quotes – U.S. President Ronald Reagan

“We have never interfered in the internal government of a country and have no intention of doing so, never have had any thought of that kind.”
– President Ronald Reagan
[during the Reagan presidency the U.S. intervened in Nicaragua, Grenada, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Libya, Lebanon, Bolivia, Iran]

“President Rios Montt is a man of great personal integrity and commitment who wants to improve the quality of life for all Guatemalans, and is getting a “bum rap” on human rights.”
– President Ronald Reagan – about Guatemalan dictator and mass-murderer Efrain Rios Montt

“As long as there is breath in my body, I will speak and work, strive and struggle, for the cause of the Nicaraguan freedom fighters [contras]…
[The contras are] the moral equivalent of our founding fathers.”
– President Ronald Reagan – about the U.S.-funded Contra mercenary army that terrorized Nicaraguans for more than a decade

“If it takes a bloodbath … let’s get it over with.”
– California Governor Ronald Reagan – about dealing with Vietnam war protesters

“From a pay phone at the Nutburger stand on Sunset Boulevard, Ronald Reagan places midnight calls to his brother Neil, an F.B.I. spy investigating the Hollywood Independent Citizen’s Committee of Arts, Sciences and Professions for Communist leanings. As one of the Bureau’s confidential informants, code number T-10, Reagan delivers the names of suspicious colleagues and identifies cliques in the Screen Actors Guild loyal to the Communist Party line. At J.Edgar Hoover’s request, he reels off the names of disloyal actors and actresses at a secret session of the House Un-American Activities Committee.”
– Michael K. Smith

“Ronald Reagan was most definitely a global empire builder, a servant of the corporatocracy. He would cater to the men who shuttled back and forth from corporate CEO offices to bank boards and into the halls of government. He would serve the men who appeared to serve him but who in fact ran the government. He would advocate what those men wanted: an America that controlled the world and all its resources, a world that answered to the commands of that America, a U.S. military that would enforce the rules as they were written by America, and an international trade and banking system that supported America as CEO of the global empire.”
– John Perkins

Quotes on Pathocracy

” Pathocracy is a system of government wherein a small pathological minority takes control over a society of normal people.”
– Andrew M. Lobaczewski in Political Ponerology

“Psychopaths do well in politics. They are ideally suited to the ruthless, competitive, self-promoting and manipulative power games that dominate party politics.”
– Stuart Hertzog

“Has the government of the United States of America become a criminal enterprise? Is the nation ruled by psychopaths? How can the impoverishment of the people, the promotion of the military-industrial complex and endless wars and their genocidal killing, the degradation of the environment, the neglect of the collapsing infrastructure, and the support of corrupt and authoritarian governments abroad be explained? Worse, why are corporations allowed to profiteer during wars while the people are called upon to sacrifice? Why hasn’t the government ever tried to prohibit such profiteering?”
– John Kozy

“The State of the Union address is one of the largest collections of psychopaths ever organized under one roof. Every one of them is regularly engaged in the backstabbing political arena of bribes, usurpation of powers, slimy deals, Constitution shredding laws, pork-barrel appropriations for cronies, and contributors and the sanctioners of murder and mayhem around the world.
Then comes the president. With a well-practiced, straight face, he tells lie after lie as if he actually believed what he was saying were true; his cadence interrupted only by the applause from the gallery of psychopaths when he tells a really big one. They all know that none of the president’s promises will come true – that it’s all political subterfuge – but they give repeated standing ovations for his convoluted proclamations.”
– Hari Heath

“Sociopaths love power. They love winning. If you take loving kindness out of the human brain, there’s not much left except the will to win.”
– Martha Stout

“[When we view] the true nature of psychopathic influence – that it is conscienceless, emotionless, selfish, cold and calculating, and devoid of any moral or ethical standards – then everything suddenly begins to makes sense. Our society is ever more soulless because the people who lead it and who set the example are soulless – they literally have no conscience.”
– Andrzej Lobaczewski in Political Ponerology

“Many politicians share the traits of psychopaths who are not sensitive to altruistic appeals, such as sympathy for their victims or remorse or guilt over their crimes. They possess the personality traits of lying, narcissism, selfishness, and vanity. These are the people to whom we have entrusted our fate. Is it any wonder that America is failing at home and world-wide?”
– John Kozy

“Psychopaths are naturally attracted to positions of power, and they will overwhelm anyone with a conscience, who plays by the rules and has good intentions. So you will have people with very dark interior lives, who are controlling channels of communication, controlling finance, controlling industry. And, they will promote their psychopathic “family” values. Psychopathic “values” now permeate all facets of our culture.”
– Stefan Verstappen

“Most psychopathic serial killers and many professional politicians must mimic what they believe are appropriate responses to situations they face such as sadness, empathy, sympathy, and other human responses to outside stimuli. … These traits exist in men and women who are drawn to high-profile and powerful positions in society including political officeholders.”
– Jim Kouri

“Psychopaths seek positions of power and influence, and politics offers publicity, prestige, and other perks. It also provides positions of ultimate authority over military, industry, and entire populations. In a world where psychopaths are understandably viewed as morally repulsive, often finding themselves at home in the criminal world, politics offers an opportunity to create a new world, to be free from the moral and legal rules of society.”
– Harrison Koehli

“Power is an addiction its abusers can neither comprehend nor arrest. They are programmed towards ruthless, hegemonic domination of the ‘other’… The ‘free market’ really means freedom for the few to steal everything from the many. The game is rigged so that the people lose either way.”
– Niall Bradley

“Anyone who wants to rule men first tries to humiliate them, to trick them out of their rights and their capacity for resistance, until they are as powerless before him as animals. He uses them like animals and, even if he does not tell them so, in himself he always knows quite clearly that they mean just as little to him; when he speaks to his intimates he will call them sheep or cattle. His ultimate aim is to incorporate them into himself and to suck the substance out of them. What remains of them afterwards does not matter to him. The worse he has treated them, the more he despises them. When they are no more use at all, he disposes of them as he does excrement, simply seeing to it that they do not poison the air of his house.”
– Elias Canetti

“Psychopaths have played a disproportionate role in the development of civilization, because they are hard-wired to lie, kill, injure, and generally inflict great suffering on other humans without feeling any remorse.”
– Kevin Barnett

“American leaders are perhaps not so much immoral as they are amoral. It’s not that they take pleasure in causing so much death and suffering. It’s that they just don’t care. The same that could be said about a sociopath. As long as the death and suffering advance the agenda of the empire, as long as the right people and the right corporations gain wealth and power and privilege and prestige, as long as the death and suffering aren’t happening to them or people close to them, then they just don’t care about it happening to other people, including the American soldiers whom they throw into wars and who come home – the ones who make it back alive – with Agent Orange or Gulf War Syndrome eating away at their bodies. American leaders would not be in the positions they hold if they were bothered by such things.”
– William Blum

“Since the late 1940s, the United States has been deliberately engaged in an imperial project, and anyone who would hold the office of the presidency has to be willing to serve that end. All presidents have to promote the national security state, both domestically and in American foreign policy, if they wish to attain and hold on to power.”
– Morris Berman

“If the Nuremberg laws were applied today, then every Post-War American president would have to be hanged.”
– Noam Chomsky

“Our leaders are cruel because only those willing to be inordinately cruel and remorseless can hold positions of leadership in the foreign policy establishment. People capable of expressing a full human measure of compassion and empathy toward faraway powerless strangers do not become president of the United States, or vice president, or secretary of state, or national security adviser.”
– William Blum

“American policymakers, setting themselves up as guardians of the world system, are more inclined than ever to simply disregard international laws and conventions if they get in the way of unrivaled military supremacy. Every instance of U.S. armed intervention during the 1980s and 1990s represents a flagrant violation of regional treaties and laws, not to mention the UN Charter itself, which explicitly prohibits military attacks against sovereign nations – for example, Grenada, Nicaragua, Haiti, Panama, Serbia, and Iraq. In any event, the U.S. has consistently shown its contempt for international bodies, agreements, and procedures that might conflict with its hegemonic aspirations.”
– Carl Boggs

“So many Americans find it almost impossible to believe that their government officials would wantonly sacrifice the lives of its citizens [9/11-WTC massacre] to further their personal agendas. More importantly, consider the fact that your government knows how you think only too well.”
– Laura Knight-Jadczyk

“A nuclear war could alleviate some of the factors leading to today’s ecological disturbances that are due to current high-population concentrations and heavy industrial production.”
– Official of the U.S. Office of Civil Defense, quoted in The Fate of the Earth by Jonathan Schell, 1982

“From 1945 to 2003, the United States attempted to overthrow more than 40 foreign governments, and to crush more than 30 populist-nationalist movements fighting against intolerable regimes. In the process, the US bombed some 25 countries, caused the end of life for several million people, and condemned many millions more to a life of agony and despair.”
– William Blum

“In politics the professional psychopath’s ruthlessness and cunning gives them a distinct advantage over any nonpsychopath rival. They make charismatic leaders, manipulating and brainwashing the naive, vulnerable, uneducated, or mentally weak. Mastery of lying allows them to make whatever outrageous campaign promises straight faced with, of course, no intention of keeping any of them. A life spent faking being human give them the ability to assume the roles of virtuous public servant, the perfect father, husband, advisor, mentor, and everyman. In addition when things get rough they have no inhibitions in playing dirty and readily resort to murder, assassination, persecution, war and genocide.”
– Stefan H. Verstappen

“Why do we continue to allow leaders who are motivated by self-interest, or by their own psychological issues from the past, to fan bitterness and political crisis into armed confrontation and war?”
– Martha Stout

Quotes on Sociopathy – Pschopathy

“A psychopath is defined as having no concern for the feelings of others & a complete disregard for any sense of social obligation. They seem egocentric and lacking insight and any sense of responsibility or consequence. Their emotions are thought to be superficial and shallow, if they exist at all. They are considered callous, manipulative and incapable of forming lasting relationships, let alone of any kind of love. It is thought that any emotions which the true psychopath exhibits are the fruits of watching and mimicking other people’s emotions. They show poor impulse control and a low tolerance for frustration and aggression. They have no empathy, remorse, anxiety or guilt in relation to their behavior. In short, they truly are devoid of conscience.
Psychopaths also have a markedly distorted sense of the potential consequences of their actions, not only for others, but also for themselves. They do not, for example, deeply recognize the risk of being caught, disbelieved or injured as a result of their behaviour.”
– Robert D. Hare

“Psychopaths, like anyone else, are born with different basic likes, dislikes and desires, which is why some of them are doctors and presidents and others are petty thieves or rapists…
What differentiates a sociopath who lives off the labors of others from one who occasionally robs convenience stores, or from one who is a contemporary robber baron, or what makes the difference between an ordinary bully and a sociopathic murderer, is nothing more than social status, drive, intellect, blood lust, or simple opportunity.”
– Martha Stout

“In every competition in life, the cheaters are going to have an advantage. The people who act immorally, who have no regard for truth, are gong to have an advantage over those who play by the rules. The result is that those who achieve positions of power will be the most ruthless, the most sociopathic, the ones with no conscience.”
– Stefan Verstappen

“The truth is the only thing worth working towards. What separates us from the psychopath is our conscience, and our conscience must become the voice of truth. True conscience raises us above the example of animal behaviour set by the pathocrats.”
– Henry See in his book “The Trick of the Psychopath’s Trade”

“Psychopaths show a stunning lack of concern for the devastating effects their actions have on others. Often they are completely forthright about the matter, calmly stating that they have no sense of guilt, are not sorry for the pain and destruction they have caused, and that there is no reason for them to be concerned.”
– Robert D. Hare

“Character-disordered individuals, unencumbered by qualms of conscience, pursue their personal goals with indifference to and often at the expense of the rights and needs of others.”
– George Simon, Jr.

“Psychopaths differ from normal people in that they lack the ability to relate emotionally to others. As a consequence, they have a terrifying ability to treat others not as human beings but as things to be exploited, tortured or killed, as they see fit.”
– Ian Hughes

“Predators use charm, manipulation, intimidation, and violence to control others and to satisfy their own selfish needs. Lacking in conscience and in feelings for others, they cold-bloodedly take what they want and do as they please, violating social norms and expectations without the slightest sense of guilt or regret.
– Robert D. Hare

“The psychopath enjoys making others suffer. Just as normal humans enjoy seeing other people happy, or doing things that make other people smile, the psychopath enjoys the exact opposite.”
– Andrew M. Lobaczewski in his book Political Ponerology: a science on the nature of evil adjusted for political purposes

“Psychopaths are experts at using people. They can ask anything of anyone without embarrassment…
Psychopaths lie for the sake of lying. They can convey the deepest heartfelt message without meaning a word of it.”
– Laura Knight-Jadczyk

“Empathy cannot defeat the psychopath. You cannot change them, you cannot reform them, you cannot find the goodness inside them, you cannot show them the way to god, and you cannot teach them about love. All these approaches are doomed to failure since psychopaths can never understand nor can they care about these concepts. While they may lead you to believe that you are getting through to them, in reality, your empathy infuriates them and far from admiring your compassion, they despise you even more. While you try to ‘understand’ the psychopath, they are secretly calculating how best to cause you the most suffering.”
– Stefan H. Verstappen

“Psychopaths are social predators and like all predators they are looking for feeding grounds. Wherever you get power, prestige and money you will find them.”
– Robert Hare

“Interpersonal traits of psychopaths include glibness, superficial charm, a grandiose sense of self-worth, pathological lying, and the manipulation of others. The affective traits include a lack of remorse and/or guilt, shallow affect, a lack of empathy, and failure to accept responsibility…
If violent offenders are psychopathic, they are able to assault, rape, and murder without concern for legal, moral, or social consequences. This allows them to do what they want, whenever they want. Ironically, these same traits exist in men and women who are drawn to high-profile and powerful positions in society including political officeholders.”
– Jim Kouri

“If you’re very bright, know how to dress well; you have, say, the gift of the gab; you’re raised in an affluent family background; then you don’t go in the bank and rob it, you get in the bank and become a director.”
– Robert Hare

“Psychopaths are smart, personable, and engaging, but have no consciences. They are not guided by a sense of right or wrong. They seem to be unaffected by the feelings of others, including feelings of distress caused by their actions. Straying from a decent way of treating people, or violating ethical codes causes no anxiety…
Psychopaths are not technically insane. They don’t have a psychosis, like schizophrenia. They are experts in appearing normal…
In a country in which much of human culture has been rendered into machines for the manufacture of money, psychopaths are the ideal leaders. They are very focused. They are outcome oriented. They are frequently charming, and usually very bright and able. They can lay off thousands of people, or deny people health care, or have them waterboarded, and it does not disturb their sleep.”
– David Schwartz

“Civilization, as we know it, is largely the creation of psychopaths. All civilizations, our own included, have been based on slavery and warfare.”
– Stuart Hertzog

“Achieving power for the sake of having power is the nature of the psychopath.”
– Robert Hare

“The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power.
We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal.
We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.”
– George Orwell in his book 1984

“Lying, deceiving, and manipulation are natural talents for psychopaths.”
– Robert D. Hare

Quotes from Machiavelli’s “The Prince” 1513

“Application of the doctrine of power holds that highminded words can be used by the powerful, the demagogue and the hypocrite, or the merely self-deluded, to arouse passion and prejudice and sentimentality for the wrong reasons in favor of disguised real aims, thus to deceive the people and to lead them by easy stages to sacrifice their own interests in the service of power.”

“Since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved.”

“Never attempt to win by force what can be won by deception.”

“He who seeks to deceive will always find someone who will allow himself to be deceived.”

Quotes from “Pathocracy: The Global Order”

“During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.”
– George Orwell

“The question is not how to get good people to rule; the question is how to stop the powerful from doing as much damage as they can to us.”
– Karl Popper

“Serial killers ruin families. Corporate and political and religious psychopaths ruin economies and societies.”
– Robert Hare

“A small proportion of people who suffer from psychologically abnormal personalities have, throughout history, had an immeasurable detrimental impact on our societies, our politics and our world. Enabled by their ruthlessness to readily acquire positions of power, they have long dominated the psychologically normal majority of the world’s population.”
– Ian Hughes

“The political system that is in place is a pathological system that is at odds in a very profound way with the being or nature of most people. People of conscience are being ruled by people with no conscience. This fact is the primary injustice and is the basis for the other ills of society.”
– Henry See in his book The Trick of the Psychopath’s Trade

“In a world of psychopaths, those who are not genetic psychopaths, are induced to behave like psychopaths simply to survive. When the rules are set up to make a society “adaptive” to psychopathy, it makes psychopaths of everyone.”
– Laura Knight-Jadczyk

“Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives.”
– John Lennon

“The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth.”
– H. L. Mencken

“Sometimes it seems impossible to escape the conclusion that the whole world is going insane with war and preparation for war. However, the situation is merely a manifestation of a psychopathic tendency in politics.”
– Jerry Russell and Richard Stanley

“Over 400 years ago, the Florentine statesman Niccolo Machiavelli engaged in a profound study of methods used by various rulers to attain power… The findings of Machiavelli and other students of power decree that to obtain power it is essential to ignore the moral laws of man and of God; that promises must be made only with the intention to deceive and to mislead others to sacrifice their own interests; that the most brutal atrocity must be committed as a matter of mere convenience; that friends or allies must be betrayed as matter of course as soon as they have served their purpose. But, it is also decreed that these atrocities must be kept hidden from the common people except only where they are of use to strike terror to the hearts of opponents; that there must be kept up a spurious aspect of benevolence and benefit for the greater number of the people, and even an aspect of humility to gain as much help as possible.”
– E. C. Knuth in his book The Empire of the City