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Top 9 Signs Americans Are In A Narcissistic Relationship With Their Government

We Need To Set Healthy Relationship Goals

By Musing AroundPublished 3 years ago 47 min read
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Narcissistic relationships are described as toxic. Experts advise to flee rather than endure the relationship because Narcissists are notorious for not being able to change, and are diagnosed as ‘treatable’ but incurable.

That is how I see the US government. Incurable because there will always be an incurable aspect - the position wields power and power corrupts. Treatable because eventually, all players will be recycled out.

Narcissists can be magnificent leaders. Most of us can relate to narcissist tendencies because we all possess them. America’s population is viewed as one of the most narcissistic in the world. If you doubt it, take the test (here).

For example, the test revealed I have ‘severe’ narcissistic tendencies and referred me to a psychologist in my area. Amazingly, when I told my family this startling information, they were not shocked, much less surprised. Career politicians tend to test right there with me on the severity scale. There is even a term for it: Collective Narcissism.

What Is Collective Narcissism?

Collective narcissism is a belief that one’s own group (the in-group) is exceptional but not sufficiently recognized by others. It is the form of “in-group love” robustly associated with “out-group hate.”

In contrast to private collective self-esteem (or in-group satisfaction, a belief that the in-group is of high value), it predicts prejudice, retaliatory intergroup aggression, and rejoicing in the suffering of other people.

The pervasive association between collective narcissism and intergroup hostility is driven by a biased perception of the in-group as constantly threatened and out-groups as hostile and threatening.

Collective narcissism is associated with hypersensitivity to provocation and the belief that only hostile revenge is a desirable and rewarding response. It arises when the traditional group-based hierarchies are challenged and empowers extremists as well as populist politicians.

Instead of alleviating the sense of threat to one’s self-importance, it refuels it. The association between collective narcissism and intergroup hostility is weakened by experiences that fortify emotional resilience (e.g., positive identification with a community).

That definition just summed up 2019 and thus far into 2020 in a nutshell. Somewhere in the chaos of world events over the last decade, we have stopped seeing ourselves as one group - Americans (government included).

We instead fractured into separate narcissistic groups in a demented game of survival of the fittest. Each group attempts to systematically erase and devalue the others’ beliefs. It has become a quest to deprogram and re-educate by force rather than co-exist.

The results of which look something like this:

Before we can establish a healthy relationship with our government, we need to develop a healthy relationship with each other as a nation. Does this mean we agree on everything - no, of course not.

Disagreement is inevitable. It’s how we are handling conflict with each other that is not healthy. Healthy relationships do not exert power struggles for control over each other. The base, primal instinct of a narcissist, is to exert control.

The American people need to set boundaries that encourage debate amid disagreement without violence and without the need to control or censor each other. In our fight to snuff out opposition to our voice rather than respect each other’s opinions, leadership has run unchecked in the divine oligarchy.

We distract each other in oblivion. American’s are failing to see the destruction of wielding a double-edged sword of a narcissistic people and government. We fight against each other instead of for each other.

It is impossible to move forward and find the middle ground when we are too busy in our conquest to cancel culture rather than embrace it. To understand how we got here, we need to see the relationships for what they are.

How Do I Know If My Government Is A Narcissist?

Narcissists have an inherent lack of empathy and do not recognize or value others’ feelings. They are starving for admiration, disregard others’ emotions, have a sense of entitlement, and can’t handle criticism in any form. Abuse of power is their right.

If you are unsure that your government is narcissistic, the 9 examples below should leave no question in your mind about who you are dealing with.

Top 9 Examples Of Government Narcissism

#1 Government’s Nature to Denature: Prohibition Poisoning

From 1920 to 1933, it was illegal to produce, transport, or sell alcoholic beverages in the United States. Note, drinking alcohol is not listed as a criminal activity. This exclusion is no accident.

It has a great deal to do with immigrants and poor people that couldn’t afford liquor that ‘keeps’ such as whiskey. Beer doesn’t exactly get better with age. So, those that could afford shelved spirits had well-stocked cellars of glorious ‘legal’ alcohol.

Prohibition resulted from several interested groups and the government linking the consumption of alcohol to undesirable behaviors such as:

  • Crime
  • Domestic abuse, and
  • Various other social injustices

The theory was simple, the reduction of alcohol would directly impact this unwanted behavior and exterminate it. Stopping alcohol consumption proved to be an overwhelming challenge for the IRS (the entity tasked with enforcement).

The American entrepreneurial spirit, innovative mobsters, and consumer demand prevailed in a perfect storm for an obscenely lucrative black market. Alcohol consumption was up 300%. The rest is history, or is it?

Centuries later, a meme appears on Facebook (Snopes):

Gasp! Social media rumbled with activity to find out the truth of the matter. Was there truth to this madness? Yes, but it was well before prohibition started. Ironically, the government poisoned the alcohol due to taxes. I find this hysterical. Why?

The IRS was charged with the enforcement of Prohibition and was provided an immeasurable amount of resources to do so, largely failing. The irony of the dynamic between the star players, Eliot Ness, Frank Wilson, and Michael Malone (IRS/The Untouchables) & Al Capone (Infamous Bootlegger/Crime Boss), is not lost on me.

Ness was unable to convict Capone of bootlegging. It was taxes, or the lack thereof, that brought down Capone. But that didn’t stop the government from trying. It started with denaturing.

Denaturing Translates To Poisoning

Denaturing is the process of adding foul-tasting or toxic substances to alcohol. The US adopted the practice in 1906 to exempt entities producing alcohol in the use of paints, solvents, and other industrial concoctions from paying an alcohol tax.

Denaturing included adding a type of methyl alcohol (methanol) found in:

  • Formaldehyde
  • Solvents
  • Fuels, and
  • Medical supplies

This ‘industrial’ alcohol can be redistilled (renatured) into consumable alcohol (tolerable by most stomachs anyway). So, industrial alcohol was targeted by moonshiners to renature. The problem, methanol is a toxin that leads to death. Now, here is where it gets tricky.

The government’s response to the crime syndicates renaturing industrial alcohol for consumption was to make industrial alcohol even more deadly. They funneled toxins in to trip up the chemists working for the opposition. In 1927, new chemicals were introduced to industrial alcohol:

  • Kerosene
  • Brucine (similar to strychnine)
  • Gasoline
  • Benzene
  • Cadmium
  • Iodine
  • Zinc
  • Mercury Salts
  • Nicotine
  • Ether
  • Formaldehyde
  • Chloroform
  • Camphor
  • Carbolic Acid
  • Quinine
  • Acetone; and
  • More Methyl Alcohol

Chemical warfare by our government had officially begun. Did the government poison alcohol during prohibition? They will say NO by way of semantics. The government added chemicals to industrial alcohol.

If illegal activities were conducted with industrial alcohol that led to human consumption, the government was not responsible. Mm-hmm, tell yourself whatever you need to, sweetheart, if it helps you sleep at night.

The IRS confiscated 480,000 gallons of toxic liquor flowing through New York during the holidays. Unfortunately, it did not stop 10,000 people from dying by tainted alcohol consumption or hundreds of thousands that suffered permanent injury such as blindness.

Poisoning citizens is a trend in government. The detachment of responsibility to the American people encouraged spraying Mexican marijuana fields with Paraquat. Why? Because citizens that were poisoned brought it upon themselves by illegally using marijuana.

There are also rumors of the US mixing poison with illegal drug supplies (cocaine, meth, heroin, etc) circulating in the US (talking to you CIA). What matters to the government is the greater good, the higher purpose that is being served.

Should we fear the government with its endless resources more than we fear criminals? It depends which side of the definition of greater good you fall on. If you are content advocating government policy as the all-knowing secretive judge, jury, and executioner, then life is good.

#2 The CIA’s Real War On Drugs: Mind Control

The CIA has a long history of conducting experiments that would rival DC Supervillains. One of the more notable projects entertained was MK-Ultra. Let’s set the scene.

During the height of the Cold War, Americans and our government feared our communist enemies to the point of extreme paranoia. It was believed that:

  • Soviets
  • Chinese, and
  • North Korea

had mastered mind control and brainwashed US prisoners of war. This belief wasn’t wrong. The Manchurian Candidate released in 1962 took Americans through mind control and indoctrination into the Communist structure exerted on American prisoners who were labeled ‘traitors’ and hated by patriots.

The CIA was tasked with blocking intrusions into our minds and preventing brainwashing. The CIA’s solution was vested in drugs and psychological manipulation.

MK-Ultra was approved in 1953 and spun out of control shortly after, as the Senate Hearings revealed (here). Unfortunately, the program kept poor records, and a great deal of them were destroyed, so the full details of the program remain unknown, but here is what we do know:

There were roughly 150 human experiments conducted throughout universities (such as Stanford & Columbia), hospitals, and prisons in the US and Canada. Some ‘volunteers’ knew they were participating in a study; some were left oblivious even though they suffered hallucinations from the drugs and treatments administered, such as:

  • LSD
  • MDMA (ecstasy)
  • Mescaline
  • Heroin
  • Barbiturates
  • Methamphetamine
  • Psilocybin (mushrooms)
  • Electric Shock Therapy
  • Psychedelic Imagery & Conditioning

Because of the poor records, we have no idea how many participated in these studies between 1953 and 1973. Sidney Gottlieb (chemist and poison expert) believed in the success these drugs would have in brainwashing and psychological torture. He went so far as to spike CIA agent’s drinks to see what would happen at a retreat. The stunt wasn’t received well.

Operation Midnight Climax

One of Gottlieb’s more unorthodox tests was Operation Midnight Climax. The government hired prostitutes to lure men to CIA safe houses. The safe house rooms were painted in loud colors and meant to elicit the highest drug-induced reactions possible. Recording devices were hidden throughout the room.

The prostitutes would dose the men with LSD by slipping it into their cocktails. The room was equipped with a two-way mirror so the agents could observe how the men behaved. There was no oversight for any of these projects, and agents enjoyed a party-like, indulgent atmosphere. George White, a CIA agent, wrote:

“Of course, I was a very minor missionary, actually a heretic, but I toiled wholeheartedly in the vineyards because it was fun, fun, fun. Where else could a red-blooded American boy lie, kill and cheat, steal, deceive, rape and pillage with the sanction and blessing of the All-Highest?”

Another agent, Frank Olson, wasn’t as gleeful and could not stomach the depravity and disregard of test subjects. The final straw for him was when Gottlieb spiked the drinks at the retreat. He intended to separate from the project but fell to his death from a New York hotel a few days later.

Oddly, at the family’s request, a forensic team found injuries on the body that would have occurred before his fall. Maybe he was one of White’s victims as: an American boy killing, raping, and pillaging?

Olson’s family sued and received an apology from President Ford and William Colby (CIA Director) and a $750,000 settlement.

Fun fact, Ken Kesey (author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest) was a Stanford student when MK-Ultra was conducting one of its experiments. As an advocate for LSD (he was one of the lucky ones that knew), he promptly volunteered and encouraged others to ‘acid test.’

Acid tests were like today’s Rave’s but with LSD - psychedelic effects of fluorescent colors and music-like, drug aesthetics. Other volunteers of note:

  • Robert Hunter (Grateful Dead lyricist)
  • Ted Kaczynski (Unabomber)
  • James Joseph “Whitey” Bulger (Boston Mobster, ranked 2nd on FBI most wanted list & his brother was an esteemed FBI agent)

MK-Ultra did not produce any conclusive results of psychedelic drugs being beneficial for mind control; however, it did significantly disrupt people’s minds and lives. People in the experiments started to talk and journalists, such as Seymour Hersh from the New York Times, started to listen.

President Ford, who was currently wading through Watergate, saw how further distrust from the American public could be troublesome. He created the US President’s Commission on CIA Activities to investigate activities - including MK-Ultra. You may know this group as the Rockefeller Commission.

The Church Committee formed and started a more comprehensive investigation into abuses of the:

  • CIA
  • FBI
  • US Intelligence agencies
  • Nixon’s affairs
  • Foreign leader assassination plots (Castro being huge and the time), and
  • Uncovered documents from MK-Ultra

These investigations prompted the Executive Order in 1976 that prohibited:

“experimentation with drugs on human subjects, except with the informed consent, in writing and witnessed by a disinterested party, of each such human subject.”

The expendable nature in which the government saw the American people during Prohibition was disturbing. They have now added an ‘entertainment’ value to the expendability factor, which is appalling. The story gets even more disheartening. We all owe a thank you to John F. Kennedy.

Operation Northwoods

Ironically, the same year the Manchurian Candidate is released, and MK-Ultra is raving, the Joint Chiefs of Staff thought it would be an excellent idea to launch terrorist attacks on US soil and blame Cuba (National Archives). They called it Operation Northwoods.

Operation Northwoods included bombing and shooting innocent US civilians because nothing persuades war like a compelling story of casualty that pulls the patriotic heartstrings. The greater good and all, right?

Florida would be bombed, a Remember Maine event would be scheduled (after destroying it), bombing military bases, blowing up a US ship - and nothing screams terrorist like a few hijackings.

The previously Top Secret document was made public in November of 1997 by the JFK Assassination Records Review Board. Operation Northwoods was signed by the Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff Lyman Lemnitzer and provided to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in 1962. John F. Kennedy rejected the plan and was assassinated in 1963.

#3 The US Public Health Service (USPHS) Creates Bad Blood

The US Public Health Service (USPHS) can’t be sidelined in super villainous behavior. In 1798, the organization was credited with creating a system of marine hospitals. In 1912, it was renamed the Public Health Service (PHS).

The PHS focused on public health for the population. In its zest for notoriety, the PHS started the Tuskegee Experiment in 1932. At this point, syphilis was on the government’s radar and set as a high priority.

The severely contagious venereal disease was ripping through the United States. Syphilis penetrates the nervous system causing:

  • Headaches
  • Altered Behaviors
  • Loss of control in muscle movement, including paralysis
  • Sensory Deficits
  • Dementia
  • Tumors
  • Blindness
  • Organ damage (including the brain)
  • Genital sores

Among other painful conditions, including death. Before World War II, syphilis was the fourth leading cause of death. Although the bacteria that caused the disease was discovered in 1904, penicillin didn’t make an appearance until 1920, and it wasn’t used for syphilis till well after the Tuskegee experiment.

Arsenic and mercury (both toxic) were used for treatment thanks to a German Nobel Prize winner. The Tuskegee Experiment wasn’t about treatment. It was focused on observing the natural history of untreated syphilis. This is code for seeing what happens to a human if left untreated.

But, who would volunteer for such a dangerous mission and not be provided the cure, even after it was discovered? The simple answer is no one. This was no problem for the Public Health Service - they were the government.

The PHS veiled the Tuskegee Experiment as a ‘study in nature.’ Macon County was chosen as the study area because approximately 35% of the population was infected with syphilis. The PHS recruited the black male population, aged 25-60, to receive free medical care for ‘bad blood’ for six months.

At first, males were hesitant to come forward because they believed they would be sent to the military. Really? No trust in the government intent, whatever for? So, to ease their minds, doctors began examining black women and children.

Slowly, about 600 black men emerged, including men diagnosed with syphilis (399 of them) were recruited. Things were going well, so in 1933, scientists extended the Tuskegee Experiment to continue as a long-term project.

They recruited more than 200 more control patients who didn’t have syphilis and switched them to the syphilis group if they developed the condition. Researchers started providing placebos & ineffective medicines to maintain the facade of being ‘treated.’

Some of the groups started missing appointments, so a nurse was hired to:

  • Bring them to the appointments
  • Provide food
  • Deliver ‘medicines’

all highly-coveted services during the Great Depression. To ensure the researchers would have access to their test subject’s bodies after death, they covered funeral expenses. All the while not treating syphilis, just observing its course.

In 1934, researchers provided lists to doctors in the area advising them not to treat these patients should they come in complaining of syphilis. In 1940, another list went out to the Alabama Health Department to distribute among doctors in an effort to ensure that patients did not receive treatment.

In 1941 when many of the men were drafted, the military discovered syphilis upon examination. The researchers intervened and released the men from the military rather than allowing treatment. Let’s break this down:

  • The PHS told the subjects they were being treated
  • The PHS prevented treatment from any other facility
  • The PHS had several opportunities to stop the study-and didn’t

It gets worse. In 1943, the Henderson Act made tests and treatments for venereal diseases publicly funded. The PHS was required to open rapid treatment centers to treat syphilis with penicillin. Researchers still prevented all 399 of their test subjects from receiving treatment at the rapid treatment centers by informing them they were being treated.

The men were dying and suffering from complications of syphilis. As the disease progressed, the researchers continued to watch, jot down notes, and provide placebos.

By 1952, 30% of the men had received penicillin by another source. In 1965, over 30 years into the Tuskegee Experiment, the scientists told their subjects that it was too late to treat them with penicillin because syphilis was in advanced stages. The study continued on-only this time, by the Center for Disease Control (CDC).

Nuremberg Code & More Regulation

In 1947, both the Nuremberg Code (which the US would violate 3 short years later) and the Declaration of Helsinki were enacted to protect humans from experimentation. In the wake of these changes, The Center for Disease Control (CDC) took over for the PHS and approved continuing the Tuskegee Experiment through 1969.

Still, it didn’t officially end until 1972-40 years after it began. Peter Buxtun found out about the study and confronted the PHS, who said they would look at the study regarding ethics or violations. After looking, they saw no reason to stop it. The PHS wanted to perform autopsies on all that died so the results could be analyzed.

Undeterred, Buxton informed the New York Times about the experiment. Shortly after, America was alerted to the Tuskegee Experiment in all of its horrors on the front page. Only 74 test subject remained while:

  • 128 patients had died
  • 40 wives had been infected
  • 19 children had acquired congenital syphilis

The story was met with public outrage and a class-action lawsuit against the PHS by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. It settled two years later for $10 million and paid medical treatment for the remaining subjects and infected family- the last one passing away in 2004.

The National Research Act was passed in 1974 to ensure informed consent was obtained by all participants in any human study.

The Tuskegee Experiment left a deep-seated mistrust for government, health care, and doctors in the African American Community. In 1997, President Bill Clinton issued an apology (more than 60 years later) with plans to establish the Tuskegee University National Center for Bioethics in Research & Health Care. The President stated:

“The United States government did something that was wrong—deeply, profoundly, morally wrong… It is not only in remembering that shameful past that we can make amends and repair our nation, but it is in remembering that past that we can build a better present and a better future.”

The doctor that had headed up the Tuskegee Experiment, Dr. John Cutler, had worked with the Guatemalan government in a US-sponsored experiment to infect 700 men and women with syphilis unknowingly. The study’s results were never published.

On Dr. Cutler’s death in 2003, the experiment in Guatemala was discovered through his written records. This time, it was Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, and President Barack Obama delivering the apology in 2010.

#4 The Navy Says: Nuremberg Schnuremburg & Sprays Coast

The Nuremberg trials held in Germany after World War II exposed Nazi doctors (we will revisit Nazis in Operation Paperclip) to the world for egregious behavior in murdering and torturing people in human experiments while in concentration camps.

The American judges sitting on the panel were appalled at the war crimes and general disregard for human subjects. In response, they created the Nuremberg Code in 1947, which outlined 10 standards that physicians must follow when carrying out experiments. This code was accepted worldwide as ethical behavior for the medical field.

If you remember, the Tuskegee Experiment did not end until 1972 - US immunity from the Code maybe? Let’s say the researchers at Tuskegee were living under a rock and didn’t know (I can’t even say that without rolling my eyes).

Three years later, in 1950, it could be reasonably accepted that the US Military certainly should have known of the Nuremberg code, right? Maybe since they were ‘military scientists’ and not doctors, they didn’t fall under the Nuremberg code? Right.

Operation Sea Spray is only one of hundreds of self-damaging bioweapon assaults on US soil in 1950 - 1960. In this particular case, the weapon of choice was Serratia Marcescens.

This bacteria lives in soil and water and produces a red pigment easily identifiable-making it magnificent to track for illegal operations run by the US Navy and its scientists. Who needs discreteness when you are the government?

To simulate a large-scale biowarfare blowout, the US Navy filled their ship Minesweeper to the brim and spent six days spraying the bacteria into the air 2 miles from the Southern California coast.

The idea was to determine if a well-populated city, like San Francisco, was susceptible to a bioweapon terrorist attack. The military observed and tracked the spread of the bacteria by taking samples of at least 43 sites. They found that it not only infected the test sites but spread quickly to the suburbs.

The families in suburbia were inhaling bacteria, millions of spores with every breath. But, it was OK because the military didn’t think the bacteria would harm humans because it normally attacked food. The bacteria had never actually been clinically tested anywhere, much less on humans. Good ‘nuff, right?

Trouble In Paradise

A week later, Stanford University Hospital had 11 patients from the suburbs with severe urinary tract infections. The doctors noticed red-colored bacteria in the urine. It took time, but doctors and scientists identified the Serratia Marcescens after an extensive investigation.

They recorded it as the first outbreak of this type of bacteria - what they lacked was the outbreak’s source. Pneumonia increased in San Francisco, but the phenomenon was not correlated with the release of the pathogen.

One man recovering from prostate surgery lost his life after heart infection complications as the bacteria infested in the organ and he could not recover from the infection. The family sued unsuccessfully in 1981, denied due to lack of study that the bacteria was harmful.

The gentleman’s death didn’t deter the military from conducting similar tests over the next decades.

The military successfully unleashed open-air-testing using various substances at least 239 more times from New York City to Panama City, Florida. A minority of the population (elderly, young, and immunocompromised population) were exposed to severe risk. President Nixon put the kibosh on germ warfare in 1969.

Nearly 800,000 people in San Francisco and surrounding areas were exposed to a massive dose of Serratia Marcescens. The size of the exposure area makes it one of the largest violations of the Nuremberg Code and vile betrayal of civil liberty. The project was seen as a success, the military report read:

“It was noted that a successful BW [biological warfare] attack on this area can be launched from the sea and that effective dosages can be produced over relatively large areas.”

After the successful report, the US collaborated with the UK military scientists and decided to add phenol and anthrax to the bacteria and sprayed it across south Dorset (DICE trials) from 1971 to 1975 without informing the public. Doctors wonder if the experiment is responsible for heart valve infections that spiked around the same time.

It wasn’t until the Senate subcommittee hearings that Operation Sea Spray became public in 1976, with the army admitting its existence in 1977, claiming negative effects were coincidental. It is believed to have altered the microbial ecology in areas of testing and surrounding areas forever.

Again in 1977, the National Research Council informed the public that the US had used zinc cadmium sulfide carried by plane and sprayed across the midwest from St Louis, Missouri to Minneapolis, Minnesota. Although the military claimed minimum amounts were used, so no harm was done, a sociology professor found a spike in cancer rates.

In 2019, due to the long history of the government exposing Americans to pathogens, the House of Representatives demanded the Pentagon disclose whether it released ticks infected with Lyme disease between 1950 and 1975.

Information had been leaked to the House by bioweapons scientist Willy Burgdofer who discovered the disease in 1982. It was never pursued as discovery of the disease occurred after testing periods.

You think the Pentagon would have been more interested in finding out since, in 1949, bacteria was released in the air conditioning system at the Pentagon to prove a point, just a year before Operation Sea Spray.

Operation Big Itch

If we can’t prove ticks, we can prove there were fleas. Operation Big Itch in 1954 was launched to find out if fleas could be loaded into bombs. The answer was an enthusiastic ‘yes.’

We can probably thank the Soviets for accusing the US of dropping insects infected with chorea and the plague in Korea and China during the Korean War for giving us the idea - or we actually did it. Kind of a coin toss at this point.

Finally, we come to Project 112, which is by all means not the last assault on the American public, but one of the more memorable. In 1966, scientists filled lighting in the subway with Bacillus Globigii bacteria and systematically smashed all the lights, causing the bacteria to fall on the tracks.

Miles of track were infected with the traveling bacteria and breathed in by thousands of subway travelers, and stuck to their clothing. Over 40 years later, the US Government Accountability Office (yeah, I couldn’t read that with a straight face at this point either) acknowledged the test and that tens of thousands were potentially exposed to pathogens.

The Department of Defense claims there was no harmful disease involved. Still, many of the people identified as being exposed claim to have long-term medical conditions they are suffering from. I don’t believe we will ever know the full extent of chemical warfare testing or how many diseases today are due to complications from the harmless pathogen dumps.

#5 The US Intelligence: Birds of a Feather Flock Together

Remember how I said we would get back to those Nazi doctors and scientists from the Nuremberg trials that committed atrocious war crimes? May I introduce Operation Paperclip - it sounds cute, right?

World War II was coming to a close, and America and Britain realized they were behind the race in technological development, it was sobering. The Combined Intelligence Objective Subcommittee (CIOS) was tasked with:

  • Confiscating war-related documents
  • Interrogating scientists at facilities found, and
  • Examining experimental research that existed from the Third Reich

In these discoveries, they found a list of scientists and engineers that contributed to Nazi research. The same Nazi research that established the need for a tribunal due to the indecent assault on humanity.

The US was in a forgiving mood or high on victory and recruited about 1,600 German (it would be in poor taste to call them Nazis at this point) scientists and their families to live and work in the United States to help us with the Cold War.

The Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency (JIOA) was in its infancy, and its first decision was to gather these scientists to develop biological & chemical weapons. Just like the ones released on US soil, well, better, these would be dangerous after all. President Truman sanctioned the operation but forbade the use of Nazi members or supporters.

The JIOA, which would later become the CIA, ignored the President’s orders and went about their business of recruiting Nazis - erm, Germans. It was much more comfortable after the agency eliminated all of the incriminating evidence of ‘alleged’ war crimes from the scientists’ records (History).

Wernher Von Braun appreciated the expunged record since he served as the technical director of a research center in Germany and was instrumental in creating the V-2 rocket used on England during the war and devastated the drop site in ruin. The Nazi scientists were brought to Texas as ‘War Department, Special Employees.’

Von Braun, a natural leader, became the director of NASA’s Space Flight Center and chief architect of the Saturn V launch vehicle. This vehicle propelled two dozen American astronauts to the moon, beating the Soviets.

We won, but did we? As the military has often reported, the mission was a success; any prior harmful circumstances (like the ethical toll for ignoring war crimes on humanity) are purely coincidental.

#6 US Government - Don’t Worry! The Cockroaches & I Are Fine!

We have all seen the post-apocalyptic movies where top government officials and ‘the chosen ones’ are bustled away to a safety bunker so the government will survive for the legacy of humanity.

So, it should not surprise you that in 1992, the Washington Post reported 33 building complexes for top-secret intelligence were built or were under construction in Washington DC and surrounding areas since 2001. I am reasonably sure there are more, this is just one we know about and is now a tourist attraction.

Humble right? Snugly underneath the service of West Virginia’s Greenbrier Resort is an enormous luxury bomb shelter full of supplies reserved for Congress members that lay hidden for 30 years. If this is Congress, imagine what the President’s cabinet has.

Photo Credit Raz/NPR

The entrance is in Greenbrier’s exhibition hall. The wealthy and prestigious rubbed elbows often at the luxury resort. Specific questions were repeatedly raised by the locals, like “Why is there a 7,000-foot landing strip for a small town of 3,000?” The answer from the government was “no such thing exists good people.”

The bunker was equipped with radiation filters, air intake, personal items, and 1,100 beds with someone's name on each of them. Interestingly, it was built in the 1950s - you know, when the US was deep in suburban chemical warfare with itself and conducting human experiments against its people without their knowledge.

Had America known, the bunker would have been needed to protect the government against American backlash, not nuclear war. President Eisenhower decided on Greenbrier, and Project Greek Island broke ground in 1958.

A company called Forsyth Associates maintained the state of the bunker and kept it occupation ready at all times, unbeknownst to the hotel. That means checking rations, pharmaceuticals, cleanliness, supplies - a full-time job.

Where Is All This Money Going?

One of the hotel executives, Ted Kleisner, couldn’t figure out why the resort was spending a fortune on maintenance, or thousands of gallons of diesel fuel that disappeared on arrival, or every payday checks were mailed out to names that weren’t on the employee roster. He decided to dig deeper, but his superiors wouldn’t hear it until he mentioned the police.

Kleisner was met by a Pentagon official who disclosed the top-secret bunker to him after Kleisner signed the secrecy pledge. He found out that 65 feet below the surface was an operational bomb shelter that was fully staffed and large enough for both houses of Congress, their families, and key aides.

The bunker was built simultaneously with the new wing of the hotel to maintain its secrecy. The government paid for both projects, making the hotel owners very happy. The bunker boasted 153 rooms, 18 dormitories, kitchen, cafeteria, and full hospital suite, among other rooms and features.

It was also fully equipped with a broadcasting system so the bunker could send messages of hope, encouragement, and love to the survivors of the fall out fending for themselves on the outside.

The project was $10 million (like $80 million today), with the hotel wing costing $4 million and was fully functioning by the Cuban missile crisis (had Kennedy not vetoed the proposal to bomb America). In fact, Congress was 12 hours away from relocation to Greenbrier - it was that close.

Part of the bunker remains as a secure data storage facility. The government has to have a ton of file cabinets for the documents they don’t shred - and the rest is a tourist attraction. If the Washington Post hadn’t exposed it, odds are it would still be secretly reserved for Congress.

The interesting thing, one of the reporters (Bill Arkin) that exposed the bunker has a bed with his name on it in the new bunker - not likely we will be able to get the info from him anytime soon.

#7 The US Department of Energy Jockeys For Super Villain Position Under The Sun

With all the talk of atomic fallout and the Manhattan Project, the natural progression of government curiosity would settle its eye on the nuclear prospects. Keeping with the code of secrecy and unwilling participants, the US and Britain conducted studies on the effects of radioactive fallout-for over half a century.

Project Sunshine, launched in 1953, studied dead babies, measuring the amount of radioactive strontium-90 absorbed by humans of nuclear testing. This project was uncovered when the Australian Ministry for Health and Aged Care started asking questions about baby samples sent away to Project Sunshine without parental permission.

A British newspaper had reported that scientists were obtaining children’s bodies from hospitals and were sending them to the US for nuclear experiments and urged investigations. This prompted questions from Australia. What did these questions yield?

More than 1,500 bodies, a significant portion of them babies, were collected from several countries throughout Europe to Australia in the 1950s by the Atomic Energy Commission. Project Sunshine’s Report was made publicly available as a result of the investigations and multi-country inquiries.

The US Department of Energy and the UK Atomic Energy Authority studied the human tissue and bone for the absorption of strontium-90 and noted its effects. In 1995, President Clinton allowed the release of the documents proving that the scientists conducting the project were well aware of the ethical and legal problems in which research was conducted.

In one of the meetings in 1955, Dr. Willard Libby acknowledged the challenge in getting human samples; he said:

"I don't know how to get them, but I do say that it is a matter of prime importance to get them and particularly in the young age group. So, human samples are of prime importance, and if anybody knows how to do a good job of body snatching, they will really be serving their country."

Um, he went on to win the Nobel Prize. In serving the country, a British mother found that the hospital doctors had removed her stillborn daughter’s legs to send to the US. She wasn’t allowed to dress her daughter for the funeral because they didn’t want her to know what had happened to the body parts.

The story was featured in a 1995 documentary, Deadly Experiments, in Britain. Record keeping for the transporting of body parts was lax and over a century old. No one will uncover the full extent of how many bodies, or bits and pieces, were snatched and shipped to the US.

We do know that the scientists also measured residents of nuclear testing sites, anyone found exposed, cancer patients, and homeless people after death. About 9,000 samples were examined under Project Sunshine.

After the backlash from several countries, Project Sunshine moved to Belgium, where it tested soils, not human remains. The goal now was to see if soil transferred strontium-90 to grass, to the cows that ate the grass or crops, and to the milk and meat humans consumed. In 1957, it was reported that the amounts consumed were not harmful.

#8 Pentagon Gives Dr. Saenger A Glowing Review

Radiation had captured the interest of government officials and the American public. Even Time Magazine contributed by placing a bomb shelter on the cover of their magazine, encouraging people to build bunkers. Doomsday preppers were prevalent. America was asking one question, “How much radiation can a person take before disability or death?”

This question became an obsession at the Pentagon, who worried about how effective soldiers would be if exposed to radiation. They sought their answer from Dr. Eugene Saenger at the University of Cincinnati. Dr. Saenger was considered an expert in the radiology field due to his past achievements and awards. After Chernobyl, he was called in to assess the hazards.

The Pentagon provided funding to find the answer in 1960. Dr. Saenger conducted radiation experiments on 88 cancer patients from ages 9 to 84, most were poor, and 60% were black. He exposed patients to the highest level doses of radiation possible and tracked the mental and physical responses. The goal was to establish a urine test that would measure radiation exposure.

Only one patient was not terminally ill at the time, and all have passed away. Controversy surrounds whether it was the intensive whole-body doses of radiation that killed the patients or cancer. Three faculty member reports from the University of Cincinnati did conclude that at least a quarter of the patients died from the radiation.

The exposure to radiation for these patients was one hour at 300 rads. This amount is equivalent to 20,000 chest X-rays. The amount significantly impaired half of the patients with side effects of nausea, vomiting, mental confusion, and abdominal pains.

The caveat here was patient releases were not signed until around 1965 - after already receiving treatment - due to government regulation on University experiments. The Pentagon’s involvement was not part of the release.

The families of the deceased were convinced scientific evidence existed that the types of treatment were excessive for malignant tumors and filed lawsuits against Dr. Saenger, his colleagues, the federal government, the City of Cincinnati, and the University.

Several Committee members had privately voiced their concerns for years against the experiment on moral and safety issues. Dr. Edward P. Radford, the retired environmental medical specialist, said:

"The problem was the amount of radiation they were giving to patients was enough to do a lot of damage to normal cells, but it wasn't the kind of dose normally given for treatment.”

There were several investigations launched, but nothing became of them due to Dr. Saenger’s contacts, good works in the community, and fishing buddies who signed off on the investigations. Dr. Saenger was a government consultant on radiation and health; his work was so renowned that the university named a laboratory on campus in his honor.

He was also the gold medal recipient for career achievements from the American College of Radiology - one of the entities investigating his current experiment. After releasing some documents regarding his research, Congress took an interest - 20 years later.

Ethics? What’s The Problem?

One of the problematic things found in the documents to the Pentagon from Dr. Saenger’s Office was the instruction not to inform patients about the effects of high-dose radiation. The patients were to be told that they were receiving treatment for cancer, period. This instruction was also relayed to the medical staff and researchers.

Another problem with the research was that whole-body radiation had already been discounted for treating the kinds of tumors these patients had, as verified by Dr. David Engilman at Brown University.

Dr. Engilman testified at the Congressional hearings that the focus of Dr. Saenger’s study was designed to test the effect of radiation on soldiers rather than treat cancer. He added:

“...What happened here is one of the worst things this Government has ever done to its citizens in secret."

In the end, a federal judge handed down a $4 million settlement to the families of the patients and a plaque at Cincinnati University Hospital commemorating the patients that had taken part in the experiment.

Dr. Saenger’s questionable experiment did answer several questions on dosage, categorization of acute radiation syndromes, and development of triage procedures. He was also credited for reporting cancer cells’ growth in children and proved radioiodine therapy was not associated with increased leukemia incidence. He paved the way for bone marrow transplant techniques.

Although he provided answers that are still used by the medical and military fields today, his name remains tarnished. In 2007, Dr. Saenger lost his battle with bladder cancer (tasting the irony here) and passed away at 90 years of age.

This was only one of several radiation studies conducted with government funding. There were over 4,000 radiation experiments conducted in the interest of health, energy source, and a weapon for warfare. The Manhattan Project is probably the most famous of these types of experiments.

Manhattan Project

The medical team had made plans to inject polonium, plutonium, uranium, and other radioactive elements into humans. The research was conducted in hospitals, the University of California, University of Chicago, University of Rochester, and Army hospital in Oak Ridge in secret and unknown to the patients.

From 1945 to 1947, 18 people were injected with plutonium. The experiment used unwilling participants that were poor, powerless, or sick. A 4-year old was even sent from Australia to participate in the ‘treatment.’

Pregnant women were given mixtures of radioactive material, and 200 other patients were irradiated in Cincinnati. Another 102 people in Chicago received a different set of injections. In Massachusetts, 57 developmentally disabled children were fed radioactive oatmeal sponsored by MIT and Quaker Oats Company.

The community at large was also exposed. Stafford Warren recounted how researchers purposely contaminated an alfalfa field next to the University of Rochester medical school with radio sodium. After receiving the shipment by plane from MIT, it was mixed in a barrel and injected into the sprinkler system.

The exposure to humans in these communities was a given. Besides injecting humans, external radiation on humans was conducted by Dr. Stone in Chicago, San Francisco, and Memorial Hospital in New York City in secret and unknown to patients.

Experiments were also conducted on how radiation moved through the environment. Hanford, in Washington state, was chosen as the site for a plutonium-producing facility and a secret research program to study the effects of radioactive pollution in water, air, and wildlife. The Defense Department-funded the research to find out how to keep workers safe while racing towards the atomic bomb.

Containment and disposal proved difficult, and all scientists underestimated the effects on people and the environment. Radioactive waste leaked into areas surrounding the Manhattan Project sites, especially the Columbia River in Hanford.

The Plutonium Files, written by Eileen Welsome, goes into several radiation experiments and their accidents. Such as US soldiers purposely exposed to nuclear bomb blasts, families living near atomic test sites, exposure in the Marshall Islands, and much more. These stories remained hidden until 1993, when President Clinton changed federal agencies’ policy, making the records available regarding human radiation experiments.

The final report on these government secrets came but received little attention. Why? America was watching the OJ Simpson verdict - which is where the media coverage was at. Coincidental - not likely.

#9 CIA Keeping It On Lockdown In Vault 7: It’s An Internet Thing

The Internet of Things (IoT) has the phenomenal potential in its duality to destroy civil liberties and enhance our quality of life at the same time. To explain it simply, brain bug.

If you have ever watched Starship Troopers (if you haven’t - you are missing out), you are familiar with the brain bug’s superior intelligence and telepathy to oversee every bugs’ action and thoughts in its colony to keep order and control in profound efficiency.

The IoT works the same way. Anything that connects to the internet is under IoT control. The devices connected to the internet serve as the bugs (like literally bugs, as in spying devices). This includes your thermostat, refrigerator, sprinkler system, security locks, TV, phones, computers, video doorbells, Alexa, automobiles, lights-anything.

Devices connected to the internet can talk to each other through the IoT without your intervention. So, say your sprinklers are timed to water the yard, and they discover (yes, they) that you have a water leak. They (yes, the sprinklers) will communicate with your landscaper, the water department, and you - may be even self-correct.

They will stop watering that section, tell the landscaper which section needs to be fixed, tell the water company there is a leak and what they are doing to fix it, tell you about all of the actions they (yup, still the sprinklers) did to remedy the situation.

An IoT parking garage can alert your car to an open parking spot, and your vehicle will guide you to the location. Your refrigerator can tell you when you are out of something and either create a list for you and send it to your phone, or it can order it for you online.

Because of the efficiency and sustainability benefits of IoT, it is used in apartment and commercial buildings, from devices such as security cameras and locks to controlling the utilities and maintenance. IoT knows what is ‘best’ for you and delivers it like a boss.

So, when WikiLeaks published over 8,500 CIA documents (Vault 7) in 2017 that outlined the US’s capability to hack into devices, including the IoT, the government freaked out. In those documents was the ‘how to’ on the hack. Fun fact, the government uses the internet and is therefore subject to hacking of their own IoT by foreign entities or the American population.

The CIA failed to secure their own workplace system in the pursuit of attempting to hack other systems and have been hacked a few times. Hence WikiLeaks. Millions of lines of codes have circulated throughout various entities that should not have access.

The CIA’s documents described several programs, such as Assassin. Assassin can monitor computers running Microsoft Windows without detection. Share my Screen on steroids.

Overwatch Offensive

Wayne Ronaldson, who makes a career out of finding vulnerabilities in corporate client systems, reviewed the Assassin program with great interest. Using the information from WikiLeaks, he was able to create Overwatch Offensive in 16 months.

Overwatch Offensive provides a hacker portal that allows you to collect screenshots, turn on a computer’s microphone, access schedules, among several other things, and report it (encrypted) to the hacker. Ronaldson provided a tour for CyberScoop and the images below.

dropdown box on the left-hand side of Overwatch Offensive’s navigation screen offers a glimpse into the tool’s capabilities (Wayne Ronaldson).

Overwatch Offensive would be distributed via phishing tools such as email attachments. It could also be infected with physical access. Luckily, Ronaldson has no interest in distributing Overwatch Offensive or provide the code he used to do it. He was interested in testing his skillset and intends to add learning capabilities to the program, such as when and what to collect. But what about those that don’t have the same moral compass?

The entire first portion of the WikiLeak discussed how the CIA targeted French political parties and candidates in the 2012 election. ‘Year Zero’ refers to how the CIA intends to use the hacking program, and ‘Zero Day’ refers to the CIA’s plan to hack Apple and Android phones, Samsung TVs, and Microsoft Windows devices in the US and Europe. That’s right, the US.

The CIA employs an entire department of hackers under the Center for Cyber Intelligence (CCI) bubble to produce weaponized programs, including trojans, viruses, and malware. The CCIs budget is extensive, and so is their reach with very little oversight. The lack of oversight was concerning to Julian Assange (WikiLeaks editor), who stated:

"There is an extreme proliferation risk in the development of cyber 'weapons'. Comparisons can be drawn between the uncontrolled proliferation of such 'weapons', which results from the inability to contain them combined with their high market value, and the global arms trade. But the significance of "Year Zero" goes well beyond the choice between cyberwar and cyberpeace. The disclosure is also exceptional from a political, legal and forensic perspective."

One of the other programs, known as Weeping Angel, can turn Samsung smart TVs into microphones. The TV appears as it is off and can record conversations within the room with the CIA listening in.

The CIA also toyed with vehicle control systems found in today’s automobiles to utilize them for undetectable assassinations. Hacking into smartphones would allow the CIA to know the users’ location, view text, listen to conversations and have access to the camera and microphone.

CIA Keeps Their Secrets

The CIA has failed to report how it can hack into Apple, Samsung, Google, Microsoft, and other large tech companies, which directly violates a Vulnerability Order by President Obama. The CIA keeps the secrets and leaves all devices hackable, and has not been called to task so the companies can improve the security. It leads one to believe this is by design.

Unfortunately, if the CIA can hack our devices, so can other countries or hackers. It does not give me a great deal of confidence knowing that the CIA is hacked more than I am. Well, that I know of. There is a vulnerability market at play that allows contractors and hackers alike generous salaries, or extorted funds, to improve security or keep secrets private. Most of what we know has been leaked by government agencies’ own workers.

For example, Harold T. Martin III was arrested with 20 counts of mishandling classified information. The Department of Justice retrieved 50,000 gigabytes he lifted from NSA and CIA that contained code for these hacking tools. It’s not just Snowden and Assange. The internet is instant, and once the information and instruction are out there, the possibility that others will use it is imminent. Abuse is rampant in this industry in every direction.

In the direction of Frankfurt, Germany, the embassy is used as a base for US hackers to move between 25 countries without checks and balances as well as provided State Department cover. This is convenient as several CIA hacker attack strategies are designed for physical or proximity implementation.

This allows the CIA to access security networks disconnected from the internet - like police record databases- using a USB containing the malware. Fine Dining is the program’s name that makes the system appear to be playing a game or virus scanner when in reality, the malware infects the system and gives the CIA access.

Fun fact, the CIA secretly unclassified a grip of spyware code. The Constitution restricts the US from asserting any copyrights over the code, so this code can be freely pirated to whoever has the knowledge to use it. I wonder how many missiles are online? Or within proximity, for that matter. Although, simply executing military maneuvers in succession via observation, infiltration, occupation, and exploitation are more lucrative.

The CIA, and other hackers, for that matter, can remove digital fingerprints. It is as if they were never there and evades forensics. I am a realist and understand that companies will continue to release smart appliances, toys, and gadgets because the public demands it.

I am not concerned about my government spying on me; I am concerned that the CIA does not divulge weaknesses to the CEOs of Companies. I am also concerned that a smart toy teddy bear will give out my child’s name, birthday, and private voice recordings to some hacker that is a pedophile. Researchers discovered a bear that did just that.

If they hacked the bear, they could hack my security lock. If they hack the security lock, they can know my schedule. They can get at my kid. It’s this scenario that weighs on my mind. The access to convenience may be at the sacrifice of personal security and safety.

Setting Our Boundaries

These actions are the ones we know about. Imagine what we don’t know. I’m not saying the American people should know everything, but there is one common theme that runs through every one of these projects:

  • They were secret
  • They disregarded fundamental human rights and value
  • They were justified as being for the greater good
  • They extorted entitlement and control over a nation
  • We were lied to

We are in a narcissistic relationship with our government. To be honest, we will always be in a somewhat narcissistic relationship with the government - what will change are the players and the level of narcissism. There are a few things we can do in this situation, we can either continue to remain fractured and keep the status quo, or we recognize the relationship.

  1. See them for who they are (don’t limit their potential as supervillains or superheroes)
  2. Stop focusing on them (don’t let their vile behavior dictate yours)
  3. Speak up for yourself (do not allow yourself or each other to be violated or censored)
  4. Set clear boundaries (treat people as you want to be treated, accept others views, and debate respectfully-review your rules of engagement)
  5. Expect the pushback (not everyone is going to learn how to handle conflict at once, teach tolerance, patience, and how to stand firm without being 100% a-hole)
  6. Stop the blame (blame-shifting aggravates, focus on the real problem, and work it)
  7. Practice Consistency (temperance)

Right now, it is dangerous to disagree anywhere on anything. That is not the America that I want to live in, and it certainly isn’t the America I was raised in. There is always more than one point of view, and both can be right.

Step back, take a breath; we all know we are better than how we are behaving. Respect is earned; let’s all start there.

Teaching Future Generations

Narcissists are not skilled critical thinkers. Critical thinking requires:

  • Analysis
  • Interpretation
  • Inference
  • Explanation
  • Self-regulation
  • Open-mindedness; and
  • Problem-Solving

Knowing that there are several paths to a solution disarms hostilities and deflection from the real problem. Rationality prevails, and collaboration is possible.

It is vital that we teach our youth the skills to combat and navigate narcissism and nurture the virtues to propel us forward. Our children should not be trapped in the same relationships we currently have with our leadership. We have the opportunity to influence tomorrow’s leaders; let’s break the mold.

satire
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About the Creator

Musing Around

Articles authored here exhibit Satirical Editorial Prowess- unfiltered. You may find them thought-provoking, offensive, or slightly arousing. Side effects: Riveting debate and a heightened sense of humor.

@musingaroundlv

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