There is no way government will bother targetting the passionate ones here as long as nothing that they view as a threat happens to them and they don't make the connection to the discussions. If the passion stays here, nobody here will be targetted. It's good to be a compassionate progressive just in case.

>>ob·ses·sion (b-sshn, b-)
n.
1. Compulsive preoccupation with an idea or an unwanted feeling or emotion, often accompanied by symptoms of anxiety.
2. A compulsive, often unreasonable idea or emotion.

The term obsession refers to images, ideas, or words that force themselves into the subject's consciousness against their will, and which momentarily deprive them of the ability to think and sometimes even to act. The term is derived from the Latin obsidere, which means "to sit before," "to lay siege to," and figuratively "to control an audience." From this is derived the noun obsidio, which means "detention," or "captivity," and figuratively "a pressing danger."

Classical psychiatrists had described the experience of a person whose consciousness was besieged by an intrusive thought and who, although lucid and in possession of his faculties, was incapable of stopping it. Philippe Pinel (mania without delusion), Jean-Étienne Esquirol (affective monomania), and Jules Baillarger (madness accompanied by conscious awareness) all distinguished this pathology from mental alienation in the strict sense. But it was Bénédict-Augustin Morel (emotional delusion) and Jean-Pierre Falret (the madness of doubt and the delusion of touch) who described a clinical picture that was closest to what would later be referred to as obsessional neurosis.

It was Sigmund Freud, however, in his description of obsessional neurosis in "Heredity and Aetiology of the Neuroses" (1896a), who considered obsession to be a symptom that is part of a larger clinical picture, a symptom that serves as a compromise and has an economic function. "Obsessive ideas . . . are nothing but reproaches addressed by the subject to himself because of anticipated sexual pleasure, but these reproaches are disfigured by an unconscious psychic process of transformation and substitution."

For Freud the notion of Zwang (compulsion) assumed a much broader and more fundamental meaning than that which he gave it in the clinical picture of obsessional neurosis. It reflects what is most radical in the drive: "In the mental unconscious, we can recognize the supremacy of a repetition compulsion arising from libidinal emotions that are most likely dependent on the most intimate nature of drives that are sufficiently powerful to place themselves above the pleasure principle, lending certain aspects of psychic life their demoniacal character" (1919h).

In his article on the case of the "Rat Man" (1909d) Freud writes, "The definition I gave in 1896 of compulsive ideas, namely that they are 'reproaches that have been repressed but now return transformed, always related to a sexual act from childhood that brought pleasure when carried out,' seems to me today to be arguable in formal terms. . . . In fact it is more correct to speak of 'compulsive thinking' and to emphasize the fact that compulsive structures may be equivalent to the most diverse psychic actions. These may be defined as wishes, temptations, impulses, reflections, doubts, commands and prohibitions."

Obsessions must be distinguished from phobias. A phobia is the fear of an object in the outside world whose absence or avoidance is sufficient, in principle, to avoid anxiety, while an obsession involves a mental representation that the subject cannot escape. Although the distinction had little meaning for Pierre Janet when he described "psychasthenia," it was essential for Freud. Phobias are associated with the qualities of objects, whereas obsessions are concerned with the characteristics of mental representations. Obsessions must also be distinguished from idées fixes and prevalent ideas: "The latter are integrated in the subject's personality and are not recognized as unhealthy. A claimant can be constantly preoccupied with the idea of an injustice suffered; he suffers from it, tries to obtain satisfaction by any means, but never thinks that the object of his preoccupations is absurd or without grounds" (Guiraud, 1956). As for the impulsive act, it lacks the hesitation and internal struggle typical of obsession, which, even resolved, always entails a period of uneasiness and indecision.

There would be little point in making a list of obsessions by type. They can be religious, metaphysical or moral; they might concern purity or physical protection, or protection against external dangers; or follow questions of precision and completeness, order and symmetry, or the flow of time (Green, 1965).

It would almost be possible to retrace the evolution of psychiatry from the classical period to the present-day by following the status of obsessions within the clinical groupings provided by various authors. We have seen how Freud, by giving obsession its status as a symptom, something that is both a compromise and has an economic function, enabled dynamic psychiatry to become thoroughly modern. The description of obsessional neurosis served as a model for all psychoanalytic theory. This is why Freud, throughout his work, constantly returned to the economic, topographical, and metapsychological problems presented by this concept.

Innovations in the United States (DSM III and IV—Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) have expanded the framework of clinical concepts and brought about the near disappearance of the science of psychopathology. As a result, new groups of symptoms have been introduced, based on a statistical approach, and new entities created, such as the compulsive obsessional disturbances. These revisions have expanded the clinical spectrum by including somatic obsessions (hypochondria, dysmorphophobia), physical obsessions (eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia), sexual obsessions (paraphilia), and pathological jealousy. In this way we have come full circle, back to a prepsychoanalytic era, back to the origins of classical psychiatry itself.<<
http://www.answers.com/topic/obsession

Gary

Passion is a positive obsession. Obsession is a negative passion.”
-- Paul Carvel

HHAAHAHA818181!

A couple of million years ago, our ancestors crowded around fires to protect themselves from large, hungry cats. Humans were not all that well suited for survival in a physical sense. We aren't particularly strong and agile in comparison to many of the beasts that occupied the planet. These societies prevented us from becoming extinct. Modern humans are not all that well suited for survival as individuals either. We are specialists and while there are a few "mountain men", most of us have developed specialized skills which allow us to contribute to society and in turn, allow us to survive.

The role of a properly functioning society and government is to provide people with protection from predators and to pool our resources in order to survive and live a decent life. What we are failing to realize is the fact that humans themselves become predatory in behavior and society has every responsibility and right to protect itself from these predators. Unfortunately, these predators have been able to acquire undue influence and power in our modern society and they often display themselves in the form of corporations and big money interests. They work mightily to disrupt the normal pooling of resources in order for them to realize their predatory bloodlust. Witness the vast discrepancies of wealth throughout the world today. Small shifts in this wealth would improve considerably the lives of billions of people. Predation for the sake of predation.

Eliminating societal cooperation and protections is the holy grail of the modern predator. Divide and conquer is the game they are playing. You don't seem to understand this fact. You in turn would like to throw the baby out with the bath water. More than ever, we need governmental regulation and enforcement of sane, humane law. Instead, we are heading in the opposite direction.

Sioux Rose

Thanks, BILL, well-said.

By the way, there is a film entitled, "The Advocate" that depicts these trials. It's worth watching. Some trials, judge and all, were done on animals said to be bewitched! And those trials were considered lawful in their days! Slavery was once considered lawful, as was the slaughter of the indigenous, the withholding of meaningful rights from women. What any society defines as its law often departs substantially from its Divine equivalent. This is one reason I speak for the Eternal verities, and the law of karma in this forum. The higher truths have been masked, almost lost when not discredited, much like the healing powers of indigenous socieities and the learned traditions of their shaman.

It is increasingly important for individuals to essentially step out of time and place, to cognitively detach in order to recognize where their own culture has come to misuse LAW in the interest of imposing a false ORDER on its society members.

There was actually a "Book of the dead" issued by Spanish Inquistors. It gave details as to how one could determine the "Guilt" of a person, said guilt meaning the individual in league with Satan and could be burned at the Stake.

1>If a Third party claimed the individual was in league with the devil.

2>If the person Confessed to being in league with Satan after torture.

3>If the person denied being in league with Satan even after torture given that only a person in league with Satan would lie about his or her guilt.

>>Which really is worse? "Just-kill-him" with no due process or oversight whatsoever, or ritual public lynchings as spectacle, wrapped up with all the trappings of law?

Not sure if your question was rhetorical but I'd say the arbitrary judge/jury/executioner thing is about as low as it gets. I watched the Frontline thing on technology the other night and it was truly disturbing. Americans engaged in wholesale slaughter via drone aircraft operated from the safety of Las Vegas. They had some guy tell us how he followed a guy around all day via a drone and then killed him and all his friends at the end of the day. "He was hanging out with the bad guys" or something to that effect. Then the myriad of images where cars, people and buildings mysteriously explode via a magical drone missile. Then the guy driving home from a hard day of killing, being greeted by his two toddler daughters and lovely wife. His tidy condominium the model of modern suburban American living. The joystick turned killstick.

I've worked hard all my life, paid my taxes and tried to do unto others as I would have them do unto me. In the final analysis, I've become nothing more than an enabler for a group of homicidal maniacs who engage in evil acts that make the Roman Colosseum seem timid. Putting my empathy hat on, I try to imagine how living would be in a country where these drones now fly. Sightless, soundless aircraft monitoring people from seven miles off. Explosion, death, destruction without a moments notice like a bolt of lightening from an angry god. Would you tell your child to "go out and play"?

I am a co-dependent in a relationship with a society gone bad. My fight or flight instincts are starting to kick in. Careful contemplation is required at this point in time.

I believe an USA Army training manual already defines a peaceful protest as lo level terrorism

>>Forget Bush, he's gone. If Obama doesn't wake up to what's happening and get on the bus we're doomed.

I wouldn't put all your eggs in the Obama basket. He is only one man and while it would benefit this country if he were sympathetic to the causes of justice, decency and cooperation, it is increasingly apparent that he is the opposite. Time to look in the mirror and to the faces of those around you.

we must take back the land that has been taken from us...

It's brilliant!

If you pay your taxes, you are supporting war, torture, indefinite detention et al. We are the enablers for this homicidal terrorist rampage we are now fully engaged in. The blood is on my hands as much as it is on some rabid tea-bagger's hands.

I'm not quite sure that I grasp exactly what you are trying to say, but like Chris Hedges, Glenn Greenwald possesses exceptional erudition, which allows him to write scathing indictments of our state-capitalist government's craven corruption, hypocrisy, and abuses of power. For this reason, both Hedges and Greenwald usually strike a nerve, which, in turn, generates the large number of comments their essays receive by people on CD, most of whom feel strongly about their government's regression into depravity.