The Rwandan Genocide

Posted on April 1, 2014 by Ian | disorderedworld

This… was not written ‘so that it will not happen again’, as the cliche would have it. This… was written because it almost certainly will happen again.

Anne Applebaum

Twenty two years ago, in the spring and early summer of 1994, an estimated eight hundred thousand men, women and children were systematically butchered in Rwanda. Despite the fact that the killings were mostly carried out using machetes, the death rate was several times greater than the speed at which Jews were murdered during the Holocaust. As author Philip Gourevitch has pointed out, the Rwandan genocide was the most rapid mass killing since the atomic explosions at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Continue reading →

North Korea – A Look Inside The Psychopathic State

Posted on March 16, 2014 by Ian | disorderedworld

In 2014 a United Nations Commission reported its findings on the human rights situation in North Korea. The Commission concluded that the gravity, scale and nature of human rights violations reveal a State that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world. In a world where vicious tyrants are still, tragically, not uncommon, North Korea stands out as the world’s vilest regime. Continue reading →

Hitler, Warsaw and the Holocaust

Posted on March 2, 2014 by Ian | disorderedworld

“The horror of the holocaust is not that it deviated from human norms; the horror is that it didn’t.” Yehuda Bauer

When the Nazi’s invaded Poland on September 1 1939, Hitler gained control of the largest Jewish city in Europe. In fact Warsaw, with around 360,000 Jewish residents, was second only to New York in the size of its Jewish population. Immediately life changed… Continue reading →

The Narcissistic Boss

Posted on February 17, 2014 by Ian | disorderedworld

The narcissistic boss can damage the mental health of their employees, undermine the effectiveness of their organisations, and, collectively, threaten the well-being of society. At a moment in history when sane leadership is needed to overcome the daunting challenges we face, it is a measure of the gullibility of the rest of us that we continue to believe that we need mentally disordered individuals to run our most important organisations. Continue reading →

Noam Chomsky and How the World Works

Posted on January 30, 2014 by Ian | disorderedworld

“The real drama since 1776 has been the relentless attack of the prosperous few upon the rights of the restless many.” Noam Chomsky

Noam Chomsky is a political activist whose criticisms of U.S. foreign policy are often controversial. An advocate for popular struggle to achieve real democracy, he is also scathing in his critique of what passes for democracy in the U.S.

In this post I outline three of the key positions that Chomsky has held for decades and invite you to comment on these controversial but crucial issues. Do you agree with Chomsky that this really is how the world works?

Continue reading →

How Psychopaths Changed America

Posted on January 19, 2014 by Ian | disorderedworld

I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today — my own government.

Martin Luther King

According to a recent global survey, the United States is perceived to be the greatest threat to world peace today. Its unrivalled war machine, out of control surveillance programme, decades-long record of attacking other nations, and its use of drones to carry out extrajudicial killings, lend credence to the charge that America is the world’s number one war monger. It has not always been so. Before the Second World War the United States was reluctant to intervene militarily overseas, and no American troops were stationed in any foreign country.

World War Two changed all that. Within a few short years, the United States began the largest build up of arms in history and adopted a policy of armed intervention in the affairs of other nations. Psychopaths were largely responsible for these dramatic changes. This is the story of how psychopaths changed America. Continue reading →

Psychology of Evil – Mao’s Terrifying Vision

Posted on December 27, 2013 by Ian | disorderedworld

Ten years ago, on the one hundred and tenth anniversary of Mao’s birth, a group of dissidents wrote a letter entitled ‘An Appeal for the Removal of the Corpse of Mao Zedong from Beijing’. In it they wrote[1], ‘Mao instilled in people’s minds a philosophy of cruel struggle and revolutionary superstition. Hatred took the place of love and tolerance; the barbarism of ‘It is right to rebel!’ became the substitute for rationality and love of peace. It elevated and sanctified the view that relations between human beings are best characterised as those between wolves.’

As China commemorates the 120^th anniversary of Mao’s birth, an examination of Mao’s time in power provides an insight into his pathologically disordered personality, and the devastating impact that Mao’s 27 year reign of terror had on Chinese society. Continue reading →