Saturday, August 22, 2009

Chilean Student Murderer Dannie Baker to receive State Competency Examination. Pre-Trial Date set for Nov. 19.

Dannie Roy Baker, the man who shot five innocent Chilean students and murdered two of them, had his day in court last Thursday,8/20. He is charged with shooting into a south Walton apartment and killing two young Chileans. He is charged with two charges of Premeditated Murder First Degree with a Firearm, Aggravated Battery Using a Deadly Weapon, Shoot Missile Into A Dwelling and three charges of Attempted Premeditated Murder First Degree with a Firearm. Baker's defense attorney told Judge Wells his doctor’s professional opinion is Baker is incompetent. State Attorney Elmore requested and the judge signed an order for a State Competency Examination by Dr. Harry McLarin. They have until October 20 to submit the report and the pre-trial is set for November 19. The defense attorney also asked that the examination be videotaped.

2 comments:

Defensores de Democracia said...

Studying Erich Fromm to understand Racism : The Automaton, Conformity to Social, Class and Group Values - The Individual that never thinks

Erich Fromm - From Social Unconsciousness to Class Consciousness
by Bonnie Brennen - Assistant Professor at the School of Mass Communications - Virginia Commonwealth University

http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:8Uxwd7NWzA0J:www.javnost-thepublic.org/article/pdf/1997/1/1/+automatons+%22erich+fromm%22+racism&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk


Some excerpts :

He notes that it is the fear of isolation and ostracism (and the resulting loss of identity) which causes individuals to repress the awareness of information contrary to the society; people must close their eyes to things which their group claims do not exist and must accept as the truth that which most members say is true, even if their own eyes convince them that the information is false.

What people consider “true, real, sane, arethe clichés accepted by ... society, and much that does not fit in with these clichés is excluded from awareness, is unconscious”. In contemporary capitalist society, individuals confront a “covert authoritarianism” which manipulates them through signals and makes it difficult to distinguish between the authentic and the facade.

People are “under the illusion that they think, but actually, it’ thinks in them”. The prevailing ideology is so ingrained in their consciousness that most people believe that they are thinking actual thoughts even though, according to Fromm, they have never had an authentic thought in their lives.
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The inability of individuals to recognise their false sense of consciousness, to understand that their thoughts, feelings, and ideas are often imposed by outside forces, may be seen to connect with issues of freedom and authority. Fromm describes however the years, the authority of the Church was first replaced by the authority of the State and then in modern history is replaced by an “anonymous authority as it is represented by public opinion, culture patterns, common sense, or 'science' ” which act as tools of conformity.

Unaware of these pressures, on one level most people live under an illusion of individualism and yet they feel insecure and powerless. Human beings have become automatons, thinking and feeling what they should think and feel, yet disconnected from others and ultimately from themselves.

This loss of self results in a lack of confidence in one’s own identity and in an increased need for conformity. When people give up their individuality and spontaneity in an effort to conform, they merely go though the motions of living and they actually become less alive.

“Psychologically the automaton, while being alive biologically, is dead emotionally and mentally”. Fromm explains that while on the surface individuals seem optimistic and satisfied, on a deeper level they remain unfulfilled, unhappy, and desperate; people yearn to be different and independent yet they conform so as not to risk rejection and isolation.
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Passivity is considered one aspect of the alienation process; passive individuals do not actively relate to themselves, or to the outside world, and they feel estranged, anxious, powerless, and lonely.

Alienation pervades modern culture; human beings rarely experience themselves as active participants in society but instead as impoverished things, dependent upon outside powers to give meaning and satisfaction to their lives.

More Information here :

Raciality.com

Vicente Duque

Defensores de Democracia said...

The racist and the ultranationalist are usually one and the same person - Erich Fromm and the Hate against Obama - Birthers

DemocraticUnderground.com
Time for change's Journal
The Psychology Behind the Birther Movement and its Corollaries
Time for change in General Discussion
August 19, 2009

Democratic Underground Journals

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Time%20for%20change/498

Some excerpts :

The legacy of slavery in the United States has not ended. Not by a long shot. The racist and the ultranationalist – who are usually one and the same person – are very much alive and kicking in our country. Their whole identity is tied up in their country and in their race because they have never developed an individual identity. Without those crutches they feel insecure and lack a sense of identity to the point of insanity.

So what are they to do when the President of their country is a member of a race whom their ancestors brutally abused with the rationalization that that race is sub-human? They can’t reject their country. That would be “unpatriotic” and a sacrilege and deprive them of their security blanket. And yet, it would be unthinkable to accept a non-white person as the leader of their country. They are left with only a single alternative – to find a way to delegitimize their non-white leader as a fraud. And since they couldn’t think of an honest way to do that, they had to make up something. Add to that toxic brew the tendency to submit to authority and follow the herd, and you get the Birther Movement.

In the last paragraph of his section on humanity’s need for rootedness, Dr. Fromm summarizes the cure for the problem that gives rise to the kind of desperate hatred that characterizes the Birther Movement and its corollaries:

Erich Fromm says :

"Nationalism and state worship became the symptoms of a regression… Only when man succeeds in developing his reason and love further than he has done so far, only when he can build a world based on human solidarity and justice, only when he can feel rooted in the experience of universal brotherliness, will he have found a new, human form of rootedness, will he have transformed his world into a truly human home."


Raciality.com

Vicente Duque

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