Thursday January 2, 2025
SNc Channels:

Search
About Salem-News.com

 

Sep-09-2012 11:04printcomments

Contagious Paranoia

As the U.S. and Israel move closer to a larger pre-emptive war with Iran, our only hope is that enough of the American public can resist those with paranoid delusions.

Paranoia
Paranoia...

(MANAMA, Bahrain) - Five years ago I wrote an article on mass paranoia. At the time I argued that U.S. and Israeli paranoia threaten to lead the entire world to oblivion.

In that previous article, I defined paranoia as “a psychotic disorder characterized by delusions of persecution with or without grandeur, often strenuously defended with apparent logic and reason. It involves an extreme, irrational distrust of others.”

That definition of paranoia applies not only to individuals; it also fits large groups of people, like the disastrous gathering of people in Jonestown, Guyana who killed themselves with cyanide poisoning.

It's contagious and can spread like a pandemic. The U.S. and Israel are acting as paranoid as the Jim Jones cult that led to the murder/suicide of over 900 people.

The entire cold war was an expression of national paranoia on the parts of both America and Russia. As soon as both sides in the cold war relaxed, the U.S. started its moves to create paranoia through its threatening activities.

The U.S. brought virtually the whole Warsaw Pact into NATO, a real threat to Russia. America gave up its policy of deterrence for one of pre-emptive attacks and occupations.

Norman Podhoretz, the godfather of the American neocon movement wrote, "It now remains to be seen whether this president ... will find it possible to take the only action that can stop Iran from following through on its evil intentions both toward us and toward Israel. As an American and as a Jew, I pray with all my heart that he will."

Paranoia took stronger hold in America with 9/11; and the large numbers of security measures that have followed reveal an increasing disorder.

From its beginnings as terrorists in Palestine, Israelis have shifted between their irrational fears of another holocaust and their equally irrational fears of attacks by neighbouring states.

In a study of different island cultures, anthropologist Ruth Benedict in Patterns of Culture referred to the Dobuans whose culture seemed to her magic-ridden, with everyone fearing and hating everyone else. She characterised the islanders as "paranoiac and mean-spirited".

According to Israel Shamir, in the Wall, this "definition fits the Jews as culture to a boot."

Shamir adds, "The Jewish state is enactment of the paranoid Jewish fear and loathing of stranger, while the Cabal policies of Pentagon are another manifestation of the same fear and loathing on global scale."

The Medical Encyclopaedia says, "Paranoid individuals constantly suspect the motives of those around them, and believe that certain individuals, or people in general, are ‘out to get them’.”

Present Israel, the country of perennial body search, is the ultimate of paranoid societies.

While paranoia in individuals has no known cure, it can be treated with medication. Group paranoia has no known treatment. Thus, if a group like those following the dictates of cult leader Jim Jones succumbs to paranoia, it's incurable.

Not only is it incurable, it's exceptionally dangerous to members of the group as well as to others in contact with the group. When the group happens to be a nation, the dangers become even greater.

The motivation for pre-emptive strikes (Israeli bombing of Iraq and Syria) and pre-emptive wars (American invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan) comes from group paranoia.

The Sci-Tech dictionary, by McGraw Hill describes this sort of paranoia as having “…properties of suspiciousness, fearfulness, hypersensitivity, hostility, rigidity of conviction, and an exaggerated sense of self-reference."

As the U.S. and Israel move closer to a larger pre-emptive war with Iran, our only hope is that enough of the American public can resist those with paranoid delusions.

___________________________________

Throughout his life as an educator, Dr. Paul J. Balles, a retired American university professor and freelance writer, has lived and worked in the Middle East for 40 years - first as an English professor (Universities of Kuwait and Bahrain), and for the past ten years as a writer, editor and editorial consultant.

He’s a weekly Op-Ed columnist for the GULF DAILY NEWS . Dr. Balles is also Editorial Consultant for Red House Marketing and a regular contributor to Bahrain This Month. He writes a weekly op-ed column for Akbar Al Khaleej (Arabic). He has also edited seven websites, including bahrainthismonth.com, womenthismonth.com

Paul has had more than 350 articles published, focusing on companies, personality profiles, entrpreneurs, women achievers, journalists and the media, the Middle East, American politics, the Internet and the Web, consumer reports, Arabs, diplomats, dining out and travel. Paul's articles on Salem-News.com are frank and enlightening. We are very appreciative of the incredible writings Dr. Balles has generated for our readers over the years, and we are very pleased to list him among our most valued contributors.

Indulging the hard subjects that keep the world divided is our specialty at Salem-News.com, and with writers like Dr. Paul Balles on our team, we amplify our ability to meet challenges and someday, will see the effects of this exist in context with a more peaceful and generally successful world.

________________________________________

________________________________________

_________________________________________




Comments Leave a comment on this story.
Name:

All comments and messages are approved by people and self promotional links or unacceptable comments are denied.


[Return to Top]
©2025 Salem-News.com. All opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Salem-News.com.


Articles for September 8, 2012 | Articles for September 9, 2012 | Articles for September 10, 2012
Click here for all of William's articles and letters.



Special Section: Truth telling news about marijuana related issues and events.

Support
Salem-News.com:

Annual Hemp Festival & Event Calendar

Sean Flynn was a photojournalist in Vietnam, taken captive in 1970 in Cambodia and never seen again.