WHY WE MUST ENSURE THE DEFEAT OF BJP IN 2024:60 REASONS WITH FACTS AND EVIDENCE By Sanjay Jha

No Jumla.  India is bigger than any political party or leader. It deserves much much better.  It is up to you now. Thank you.

1) The BIGGEST SCAM SINCE 1947: Electoral Bonds. Corruption, Criminality and Crony capitalism combined. The government told the SC; People have no right to know who funds political parties

2) Chandigarh Mayor election fraud under cameras: SC said; Murder of Democracy, mockery of democracy.

3) Patanjali: The government allowed the company to fraud Indians during Covid. Why?

4) Farmers were lied to by saying their income will double by 2022. Agriculture growth has been below average.

5) Demographic dividend story destroyed; Record unemployment among the young in India, has effectively damaged the “ India story”. 2 crore jobs per yer were promised.

6) The Great Washing Machine of BJP: 23 out of 25 opposition leaders who joined the BJP found their cases closed or in cold storage.

7) Abuse of Power: 95% of cases against opposition leaders by CBI/ED/IT etc.

8) Over 500,000 Indians died during Covid, and will you ever forget the nightmare of second Covid wave of 2021 ever in your life?

9) Instead of giving credit to vaccine manufacturers, a politician’s face was marketed on Vaccine certificates even as people were dying left, right and center. No other world leader sold themselves amidst the humanitarian tragedy.

10) Operation Lotus and resort politics to buy MLA’s lowered India’s stature. India resembled a banana republic.

11) MLA Stock Exchange boomed during 2014-24 as many opposition governments were toppled. Source of funds? Cash? Or was threats enough?

12) Lynching deaths in mob violence made India look like a Ku Klux Klan republic. But nobody cared.

13) Over 150 deaths and nearly 50,000 homeless in Manipur, but the PM of India has not even visited the state in 10 months. That is okay? Really?

14) What happened to the extradition of Nirav Modi, Lalit Modi, Mehul Choksi etc?

15) Do you know who is India’s Lok Pal and what exactly are they doing on anti-corruption since 2014? The UPA was defeated on this issue despite the fact that they passed the RTI and Lok Pal Act. You are fine with this?

16) In Dharam Sansads there was an open call for the genocide of Muslims. A deathly silence from the powers that be has since followed.

17) CAG pointed out serious corruption charges of approximately Rs 7.75 Lakh crore in the handling of infrastructure projects. No discussion because blanked out by Big Media

18) Rafale Scam: Yet to be investigated; why was a big industrialist favored over India’s biggest defense manufacturer HAL ? This issue is far from closed. Will need to be reopened.

19) The Adani Group Scam: The allegations are yet to be fully investigated. This does not need further elaboration as the markets have spoken. SEBI/SC looking into it. A potential financial heist could emerge.

20) The PM in 10 years has not held a SINGLE press conference, a world record. Seriously??? Why would that be? Democracy?

21) The 11 rapists of Bilkis Bano who was gangraped during the 2002 Gujarat riots were released on India’s 75th anniversary of Independence Day. Nari Shakti, anyone?  

22) Women wrestling champions of India were forced to protest on the streets of Delhi for justice for many months, as they accused a BJP MP of sexual harassment. No one bothered.

23) A former Governor of Jammu and Kashmir Satya Pal Malik ( a BJP leader ) alleges that he was told to keep quiet after the Pulwama terror attack that killed 40 brave soldiers. A disturbing expose which has not been followed up. Why?

24) Over 16-20 lakh Indians have surrendered their citizenship and / or left India during the last decade. Acche Din? Why would they do so if everything was hunky dory?

25) Inequality has worsened during the last 10 years with 1% of Indians owning over 40% of its wealth. Inequality is worse than during the British Raj and only one rank better than South Africa.

26) On an average over 30% of our children are stunted, underweight, wasted etc. And yet, health budgets are barely growing. Why?

27) Free foodgrains for over 57% of Indians for 5 years shows that poverty and destitution remains disturbingly high. The PR says Amrit Kaal?

28) Average GDP growth during 10 years of BJP rule of 2014-24 is just 5.9%, way below Congress/UPA’s 7.8%. In the last 5 years ( 2019-24), GDP average growth has been 4.1%. That’s why the USD 5 trillion spin that was promised in 2024?

29) Make in India was another jumla; the share of manufacturing in India’s GDP has dipped to around 14%

30) The RTI act, empowering citizens, has been steadily diluted. Afraid to disclose?

31) A record 146 MP’s were suspended from the opposition, and bills passed without any discussion.

32) On a Jaipur-Mumbai train, a railway police constable went on a shooting spree targeting Muslims. Can you imagine the anger and hate within? Who is causing it? Why?

33) Snooping and surveillance is rampant; besides Pegasus spyware, there was the issue of Apple iPhones being hacked. A thorough investigation never really happened.

34) A BJP MP in Parliament named Ramesh Bidhuri used the obscenest offensive speech against Muslims. No action taken against him.

35) 75% of all hate-speeches have happened in BJP ruled states.

36) The SBI became a puppet bank, as it tried to obstruct investigation into Electoral Bonds at the behest of the government. Another one bites the dust.

37) A HC Judge who suddenly resigned and joined the BJP said: I cannot make up my mind between Mahatma Gandhi and Nathuram Godse, when asked to choose in a rapid-fire round on TV. This is the ideology amongst the educated in the ruling party?

38) Rural real wages of agriculture labour, unorganized sector and the self-employed has remained stagnant over the last decade. Farmer suicides are averaging over 10,000. That’s why the farmers are on the streets.

39) India’s independent institutions such as the Election Commission, ED, CBI, IT, NIA, PSU’s etc are all weak and are being strangulated further every day in front of our eyes.

40) The Great Washing Machine saga : Extortion, mafia-style is evident. Criminals overnight become approvers. Where does the ordinary Indian go? Is Arvind Kejriwal’s arrest justified?

41) On Electoral Bonds, besides threats and favors, there is obvious use of black money, as companies with no income and profits, donated money. Where did they get the money from?

42) In Lakhimpur-Kheri, several farmers were maliciously run over by a jeep which had prominent leaders from the BJP. The case is nowhere near closure.

43) 42% of Modi’s cabinet has criminal charges against them. How can change ever happen?

44) SC Judge on Demonetization: Where is the black money?? This is another scam like Electoral Bonds. An investigation is a must.

45) 40% of children between 14-18 years unable to read, write or do math’s of standard 2.

46) Police constables kicked Muslims offering namaaz, while students were beaten up for offering Ramazan prayers in a hostel. Is this what India should be?

47) Dalits and Adivasis have faced extreme penury, discrimination ( Rohit Vemula case and Unna thrashing) and marginalization. Caste bigotry has worsened during the last 10 years.

48) Mahua Moitra targeted for exposing the Adani issue repeatedly in parliament and public. Scared?

49) BJP leaders like Anant Hegde and others openly threatening about changing India’s constitution after 2024 if they were to win. Hindu Rashtra on the way?

50) The top 10 most polluted cities in the world are in India. Should that not bother us? What changed since 2014? Did they become a Smart City?

51) Whatever happened to the investigation in money laundering cases exposed in the Panama Papers, Paradise Papers, Paragon Papers etc.??? Rs 15 lakh came in your bank account?

52) India’s ranking in key Global Index : Human Development Index ( 134 of 193), Per Capita Income ( 131), Global Hunger Index ( 107 out of 121), World Press Freedom Index ( 161 out of 180), Gender Disparity Index ( 127 out of 146), Environmental Performance Index ( 180 out of 180). It is a dismal story of failure and incompetence.

53) Why is the public of India not being told about the PM-CARES Fund: source of money, utilization, etc?? Why the secrecy? What is there to hide? Has it been used for political purposes?

54) Is there any justification for arresting writers, activists, journalists, etc.  under charges of sedition and anti-terrorism because they questioned the government? Disha Ravi, a 23 year old girl was arrested for fanning a global conspiracy against India. How bizarre can one get?

55) Why are think-tanks, Amnesty International, NGO’s etc. being regularly hounded? Is this free speech?

56) The famous case of BK-16 is worrying, as it alleges that evidence was planted against the accused using digital hacking; in that case, is anyone safe? Are you safe?

57) Why is the government silent on Chinese incursion on Indian soil? Is that the reason why they allowed the renowned activist Sonam Wangchuk to fast for 21 days and completely ignore him?

58) The Agniveer scheme makes a mockery of building a strong skilled permanent defense manpower. Does this government even have the right to talk about national security?

59) When an 84 year old activist Stan Swamy is denied even a sipper to drink water and dies while in captivity, can we deny that we have become a brutal authoritarian police state?

60) This government lives in the past; it is rewriting history, dropping uncomfortable truths, one of them being that its founders did not participate in India’s freedom struggle. But can one change facts, historically recorded and available in libraries and the internet?

The above is a list compiled using elementary mental recollection of the prominent events post-2014, but it is far from exhaustive. I will update this from time to time. Please share liberally on social media and WhatsApp groups you are part of. With the media capture and regulatory bulldozing in place, direct access to our friends and family, acquaintances and associates is the only option. But it can work magic, so do not be complacent if you care for India’s democracy and its future.

Good luck!

THE GAZA SAGA

Israel has admittedly dropped over 6000 bombs in two weeks in Gaza over
an area of 345 sq. km. which is 16 bombs/ sq. km. This kind of bombing
goes beyond the intent of getting at Hamas who are hiding in the
underground tunnels for the most part, and one cannot but entertain the
suspicion that Israel may also have genocidal intent as over 10,000 people
have been killed, including over 4000 children, with many still not removed
from the rubble. A million people have been displaced and under siege with
no food or water or fuel. The Gazan people are not Hamas. They want to
live in peace, but they have been the victims of several wars, often initiated
by others: Egypt Syria, Jordan, and Iraq.
These Arab countries were guilty of aggression against Israel and thought
they could destroy it and I recall that I joined protests against them at the
University of Michigan during the 6-day war in 1967, the Yom-Kippur war in
1972, and the 1982 Lebanon war.
But did these countries suffer? Hell No!….. It was the Palestinians who had
to bear the brunt of Israeli response and they became the political football
to be kicked around by everybody including their own weak leaders.
Hamas terrorizes their own people who have no means to fight its
dictatorship. Their launching of rockets near residential areas demonstrates
their insensitivity to the deadly repercussions that such strategies invite on
their own people.
But Gutierrez is right. Hamas’ action was provoked by Israel’s settler
colonization, its apartheid treatment of Palestinians, and the fact that over
the course of the conflict 13 Palestinians have been killed for every 2
Israelis. I certainly condemn Hamas fiercely for its brutality and fanaticism,
but I understand that it gives voice to long simmering Palestinian rage that
only needs a spark to explode.
Israel lost about 1400 people. Gaza lost 10,000 including about 4000
children in about 3 weeks Of course, the US and Israel will say the Hamas
figures cannot be trusted, but the Red Cross has indicated that in previous
conflicts, their own statistics were not dissimilar to what was provided by
the Gaza ministry of health.
To understand how intense this bombing was, by comparison the US
dropped about 7500 bombs in all of Afghanistan in 2019 with an area of
650,000 sq. km. The bombing density was 0.011 bombs/sq km. in  Afghanistan compared to 16 bombs/sq. km. in Gaza, a factor of 1450
higher. Even if we assume that only a quarter of Afghanistan was bombed,
it still is higher by a factor of 360. Over 50% of civilian homes were
destroyed. Worse yet the Afghan figure is for a whole year, the Gaza
figures are just for only two weeks.
Israel may insist that this is a one-sided view as Hamas has also fired 7000
rockets into Israel in the same amount of time. The difference is that
Israel’s Iron Dome of missile defense has intercepted 90% of these rockets,
with only about 15 people killed and minimal structural damage. The
contrast is about as stark as it gets.
Make your own conclusions about the statement that Israel is only going
after Hamas. It appears they are going to keep killing Palestinian people
until the hostages are released by Hamas. Basically, they are saying every
day you keep the hostages, we are going to kill x number of Palestinians
and are actually doing it. In support, Israel cites the false claim that Hamas
slit Israeli children’s throats, and that claim was eagerly and luridly spread
across the Western Media without any authentication. The blood of
Palestinian citizens is on both Hamas and Israel.
Given the limited target area of Gaza and the intensity of bombing, and
comparing this effort to what is happening in Ukraine, these Israelis make
the Russians look like Boy Scouts. I cannot recall in recent history where
the “collateral” damage/sq. km. in a conflict is so high.
Don’t blame Hamas because you, Israel, went to sleep on security, with a
massive intelligence failure, focusing instead on removing the authority of
your supreme court, and on subverting democracy, and were militarily
unprepared, despite you being light years ahead of Hamas in military
capability. Accept part of the responsibility for Hamas’ rise, because you,
Israel, funded it in the beginning as a countervailing force to the Palestinian
Authority, and that decision to sustain instability in that region has come
back to bite you in spades.
US has paved the way for Israel to follow its own historically destructive
path. It destroyed 110,000 civilians in minutes in Hiroshima and Nagasaki
in action against Japan, and decimated the Native American population by
85% in the land they have taken over, and then also enslaved over 4
million Black people, all in the period between 1700 and 1948. Killing and starving civilians is the game that it has played in that time with the excuse
that such action has prevented casualties in their own ranks.
Hamas does not look at its people in the same protective way that Hirohito
did when he surrendered to prevent further civilian bloodshed. In his culture
that surrender was the ultimate shame, and he had to experience it and
embrace it for his people. Don’t expect that from Hamas.
US…...Land of the Free they say? Home of the Brave they say? Please!
Love it or Leave it they say?
I say stay and devote your life to make it live up to its stated ideals instead
of making a mockery of it and expose those who are making a mockery of
it, and getting unthinking people to swallow their lies. People, like myself,
dearly want to make it so, but we are still a long way from getting there.
Want peace Israel? No way will you get it by destroying the Gazan people.
They have long memories and have suffered far far more than your people.
The proud legacy of your struggle to survive and thrive in a hostile
environment will be stained by the carnage recently caused. Hamas, who
has been sadistically brutal in its own right at times, has to be defanged
and decommissioned, without, or with far far less civilian collateral
damage, no matter they are being used as shields. You don’t bomb a
school bus with children because a terrorist Hamas person is in with
them, and you take him out along with the children, and then absolve
yourself of your own brutality.
I believe the Israelis know they can take out Hamas without the collateral
civilian damage if they really wanted to by focusing on the tunnels and a
slowly moving ground war, especially given their superior weaponry and
resources, but chose not to, and even though carpet bombing was the best
way to minimize Israeli military casualties, the price of killing over 4000
children in the process ends up making Israel look no less brutal than
Hamas.
Get rid of ultraright wing, bribery charged Netanyahu who has invited
genocide on the Palestinians with a quote from the Old Testament
"Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and
spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and
sheep, camel and ass," Samuel 15:3 before the party with the upper hand has reached significant
strategic military milestones.
The irony is that the fox is guarding the chicken coop in the U.N. Security
council, as most of the players there, China, France, Russia, Great Britain,
and the US have had current or past imperial designs. They are more
concerned about using their vetoes to jockey for more power, than in
promoting world peace.
How and when can we rid the Security Council of these U.N. oligarchs that
hold the entire U.N. hostage, and find a way to enforce the will of the
General Assembly.
So, tell me folks, who is under the greater existential threat, Israel of Gaza?
It's a slam dunk answer. Power keeps on trumping Justice and it is time we
all woke up simultaneously and decided it was time to turn the tide. I am
heartened that many of the Jewish children of people killed in the holocaust
,and now much aged themselves have protested vociferously and said to
Israel “Enough”!
Despite my stand on Israel in the current conflict, be sure my sympathies
are not with the surrounding Arab countries. They have used the
Palestinian people as a political football to kick around, as, and when they
like, and I don't have the same respect for them as I do the Palestinian
people who will lament and tell you, as did eloquent Palestinian leader
Hanan Ashrawi, "May you never be sold out by your friends”. The Israelis
are tough people and have the fortitude to stand up to anything that comes
in their way. They knew they had to be so, in order to survive, and I have
serious admiration for their guts, their smarts, and their achievements.
My deepest sympathies however are with the vulnerable people of Gaza
who keep relentlessly suffering for the sins of others no matter in which
direction they turn. They do not deserve it. But we have much deeper philosophical issues to confront that are
underpinning such recurring conflicts. Much historical brutal violence has
been orchestrated not merely to gain resources, but to demonstrate the
superiority of one belief system over another. These memories do not die,
especially for the vanquished, and the simmering desire for revenge can
explode at any time.
The religious institutions that ostensibly promote the teachings of their
original inspiring spiritual founders, with few exceptions, are actually
focused on expanding their own power, wealth and influence, and often
feed the strong undercurrents of ideological conflict that permeate the world
today, and that erupt from time to time into militarily expressed ones.
The hold that these institutions have on the social structures in which they
function, and in which they transmit their pitch, even as we are barely out of
the womb, makes it very isolating if one insists that we return to the actual
teachings of the original founders sans the institutional lens to guide us,
and it becomes challenging to bring even our own loved ones, totally
entrenched in the religious/social status quo, with us and embrace deeper
truths.
Humanity cannot afford to continue to move in this direction and it is
imperative that the leaders of competing religious belief systems with
genuine spiritual heft, create a forum to examine how they may infuse
natural law into their ideology/spiritual practices where respect for all living
things, and doing unto others as others do unto you, becomes the core of
the moral compass that they all are willing to embrace to guide us through
the most turbulent and menacing period in human history where one false
step can explode in a global military conflict that annihilates us all, or in the
case of climate change, where we respond as unaware frogs dumped into
cold, but slowly heating water, not noticing that we are being slowly cooked
to death until it is too late.
The paralyzed response to climate change and multiple localized conflicts
between neighbors makes it clear that we seriously lack political leaders
globally who have both a vision and a concrete plan to move us towards
global peace and/or reversing climate change. They are too seriously bent
on obtaining power and becoming as authoritarian as necessary, (and we
find them increasingly so across the world), to retain it as their main focus.
Sadly, their brainwashed fevered sycophants scream so loudly in support, that opposed voices of reason that point that the Emperor has no clothes
can barely be heard, because the rest have already gone blind.
We also lack a global body that can intervene effectively in conflicts
between states as the historical imperialists have, through the U.N.
Security Council maneuvered themselves into being the U.N.’s puppeteers.
It should have long been more appropriately named as the U.N. Insecurity
Council. We need to create a body where justice trumps power and
everyone has an equal vote and we also need to support systems in nation
states that can remove incompetent leaders without violent repercussions.
Lastly, we need to have global institutions that can swiftly and effectively
intervene in conflicts internal to a country directed against the powerless
and especially when genocidal intent rears its ugly head.
We have the tools to reach people globally with our message of peace. We
need those of us who have a better idea of where we are headed to be far
more activist than we currently are, if only to spread the message far and
wide. Until we are ALL ready, despite the ascent of multiple divisive forces,
to embrace our interconnectedness with one another, and with all living
things, and are focused on the preservation of nature, instead of having
dominion over it to do anything we arrogantly please, and we realize that
doing unto others should be modeled after our expectation of what should
be done to us in the same circumstances, we will not escape from
inevitable fate.

 

THE MEASURE OF THE MAN By Mitali Saran

An accurate portrayal of Narendra Modi. A must read.

The trouble with  manufacturing a larger-than-life persona for a man of averagely limited personality is that he will forever after be on the run from his own reputation. He must dodge and weave endlessly to avoid exposing his true measure, else people might begin to question the outsize shadow it casts. That is why Narendra Modi doesn’t risk open press conferences, it is why he won’t face questions in Parliament, why his speech is jealously controlled one-way monologue, why all his ministers’ primary responsibility is to defend the PM at all costs, and why he’s so much happier preening on the election-free foreign stage than on the domestic one that comes with scrutiny—or would do, if most of the Indian media weren’t such enthusiastic cogs in his image-building machinery.

And the trouble with constantly running and hiding is that eventually people will see that as his true measure: he is not much more than a man incredibly determined to gain and hold on to power, devoted to his image at the cost of actually doing the job.

The blood-drenched crisis in Manipur, and the Prime Minister’s tone-deaf and cowardly refusal to face, address, and answer the Indian public, his inexplicable refusal to speak in Parliament about the nightmare unfolding in the state, is only the latest instance of his dereliction of duty, but it is the worst. 

His image has allowed him to weather what many democratic leaders would not have: holding massive election rallies as covid ravaged India (suck on that, Partygate Johnson!), denying Chinese intrusion as the Chinese built villages in Arunachal Pradesh, and the worst unemployment numbers in half a century to name just a few. He’s weathered the death of all his vaunted promises—achchhe din, 50 days to end corruption, maximum governance, minimum government, sabka saath, sabka vikas. Lately it seems that the public is becoming more watchful. but old habits die hard, so with Manipur on fire, Modi is still brazening it out. His silence has been punctuated by just one, brief, mealy-mouthed comment comprised of hollow whataboutery. It is the most devastating instance of his contempt for democratic accountability.

Democratic leaders around the world possess varying degrees of actual relatability and empathy, but they have learned to at least be seen to be trying. When a domestic crisis blooms, they drop what they’re doing, cut short whatever trip they’re on, and show up for their people. They hold and comfort the suffering, wipe tears, listen, understand, talk, offer aid—and make sure it’s on camera, because they have to at least be seen to be trying. The people gave them power, and can just as easily take it back. That’s democracy. 

Narendra Modi has substituted accountability—the bedrock of democracy—with the projection of unassailability. Perhaps he has bought into his own myth so far that he experiences his own tone-deafness as strength, and his remoteness as splendour. But people mired in blood and terror want empathy, dialogue, and sensitive action. They will remember that the prime minister said and did nothing. 

In Manipur, in Haryana, in minority communities, in the barbaric sexual terrorism of women—in every instance of violence that flares along the seams of ethnic or religious or sexual chauvinism, the PM’s echoing silence looks like incompetence at best, indifference, or complicity at worst. People will remember that the man whose X (previously Twitter) handle is on a permanent hair-trigger to tweet birthday greetings and sympathy for the most distant troubles in the most distant countries, the man posturing as the wise and peaceable world leader of democracy, has publicly ignored a months-long civil war raging in his own country. 

Trying to figure out whether he’s complicit or indifferent or incompetent is just nitpicking. 

*The bottom line is, he’s not fit to be the Prime Minister of India.*

BUDDY BENCH

A friend recently told me, "Walking through my son's schoolyard, I noticed a bench painted bright red.

I asked my son, 

"Is that the only place to sit around here?"

He said, "No, that's the Buddy Bench. ..When someone feels lonely or they have nobody to play with, they sit there, and kids ask them to play." 

What an inspiring idea ..!!

I then told him how wonderful that was and asked him if he ever used it.

 He said, "Yeah. When I was new I sat there and someone came and asked me to play. I felt happy. And now, when I see kids on it, I ask them to play with me. We all do."

This simple anecdote teaches so many things*.

1. Don't hesitate to ask people to give you company if you are feeling lonely. 

2. Don't be immersed in your own self so much, that you don't notice another's silent cry for help. Look around. 

3. Everyone needs someone at some point in life. Step up and help someone when you can.

4. Appreciate life giving you new friends. For that to happen, you need to welcome new experiences.

5. Be childlike and innocent, and don't overthink. Ask for what you want. Life has a way of giving you what you want when you help yourself. 

6. What you give comes back to you, manifold. Give someone love and a little of your time. You will be blessed. 

The Best Helping Hand is at the end of Your own Arm... Help Others, and You Help Yourself .. We all need a Buddy .. Let's keep a Buddy bench for All* ...!!!

REMEMBER ..

KIDS AND SENIORS ARE THE SAME  

DO MEDICINES REALLY EXPIRE OR ARE WE BEING TAKEN FOR A RIDE?*

DO MEDICINES REALLY EXPIRE OR ARE WE BEING TAKEN FOR A RIDE?*

A Family of Doctors in England & in  Mumbai* have been hammering the point that *medicines don’t expire....*

By Richard Altschuler

If a bottle of Tylenol, (Paracetamol) for example, says something like "Do not use after June 1998," and it is August 2002, should you take the Tylenol? Should you discard it? Can you get hurt if you take it? Will it simply have lost its potency and do you no good?

In other words, are drug manufacturers being honest with us when they put an expiration date on their medications, or is the practice of dating just another drug industry scam, to get us to buy new medications when the old ones that purportedly have *expired* are still perfectly good?

These☝ are the pressing points I wanted to investigate.

I immediately scoured the medical databases & general literature for the answer to my question about drug expiration labelling. And voila, no sooner than I could say *Screwed again by the pharmaceutical industry,* I had my answer.

*Here are the simple facts:*👇🏻
FIRST, the *Expiration date, required by law in the United States, beginning in 1979, specifies only the date the manufacturer guarantees the full potency and safety of the drug -- it does not mean how long the drug is actually "good" or safe to use.*

SECOND, *medical authorities uniformly say it is safe to take drugs past their expiration date -- no matter how "expired" the drugs purportedly are*

*Studies show that expired drugs may lose some of their potency over time*

*Even 10 years after the "expiration date," most drugs have a good deal of their original potency*.

*One of the largest studies ever conducted that supports the above points about "expired drug" was done by the US military nearly 18 years ago, according to a feature story inThe Wall Street Journal (March 29, 2000), reported by Laurie P. Cohen*

"The military was sitting on a $1 billion stockpile of drugs and facing the daunting process of destroying and replacing its supply every 2 to 3 years. So it began a testing programme to see if it could extend the life of its inventory.

*The testing, conducted by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), ultimately covered more than 100 drugs*, prescription and over-the-counter."

The *results showed, about 90% of them were safe and effective “even 15 years past their expiration date...”*

In the light of these results, a former *director of the testing programme, Francis Flaherty, said he concluded that expiration dates put on by manufacturers typically have no bearing on whether a drug is usable for longer period.*

*The expiration date doesn't mean, or even suggest, that the drug will stop being effective after that, nor that it will become harmful*.

*"Manufacturers put expiration dates for marketing, rather than scientific reasons," said Mr. Flaherty, a pharmacist at the FDA until his retirement in 1999* "It's not profitable for them to have products on a shelf for 10 years. They want turnover."

The FDA cautioned there isn't enough evidence from the programme, which is weighed towards drugs used during combat, to conclude most drugs in consumers' medicine cabinets are potent beyond the expiration date.

However, *Joel Davis, a former FDA expiration-date compliance chief, said that* with a handful of exceptions -- notably nitroglycerin, insulin and some liquid antibiotics -- *most drugs are probably as durable as those the agency has tested for the military*.

"Most drugs degrade very slowly," he said. "In all likelihood, you can take a product you have at home for many years."
*when Bayer had tested 4-year-old aspirin, it remained 100% effective*,

Bayer has never tested aspirin beyond 4 years, Mr. Allen said. But Jens Carstensen has.

*Dr. Carstensen, professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin's (US) pharmacy school*, who wrote what is considered the main text on drug stability, *said, "I did a study of different aspirins, and after 5 years, Bayer was still excellent.” Aspirin, if made correctly, is very stable.*

Now I think I'll take a swig of the 10-year dead package of Alka Seltzer in my medicine chest to ease the nausea I'm feeling from calculating how many billions of dollars the pharmaceutical industry milks out of unknowing consumers every year who discard perfectly good drugs and buy new ones because they trust the industry.

THE GUJARAT STORY

The Gujarat Story

SYNOPSIS: 

The state of Gujarat has reported over 40,000 missing women over a span of five years, says the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data. In 2016, 7105 women went missing; 7712 in 2017; 9246 in 2018; 9268 in 2019; and 8290 in 2020. In the NCRB data (2022), the total missing report amounts to 41,621 in Gujarat alone.

LINK: 

https://youtu.be/QdJt5fBLo64  

https://www.siasat.com/over-40k-women-reported-missing-in-gujarat-in-last-5-years-ncrb-data-2584068/

The psychodynamics of lynch mobs: Grouping, ganging or lynching

Stuart Stevensonhttps://orcid.org/0000-0002-8494-0686

Abstract

This article engages with human groupings when they are operating at their very worst. These are human groupings enacting a particularly insidious, enduring and specific set of ‘othering’ dynamics that occur within and between in-groups and out-groups. This is known as lynching and these vicious and destructive human groupings are known as ‘lynch mobs’. I attempt to bring a psychodynamic lens to explore the complex issues that constitute the particular group dynamics enacted by ‘lynch mobs’ that usually target members of marginalized communities. I consider the meaning of the assault in the context of white supremacy and, whilst foregrounding race in the discussion, recognizing that members of other marginalized groups such as gay men and women are often lynched. The article shows how psychodynamic ideas can contribute to our understanding of this most horrific and inhumane phenomena, and can provide clinicians with some conceptual tools to manage the myriad of complex issues related to lynching and how it presents currently. Can lynching dynamics be compared and contrasted with bullying and scapegoating dynamics and, if so, can they be paralleled and operate more subtly and interpersonally in our psychotherapy groups and within our organizations and work teams? If so, do we have the theoretical and conceptual skills to work with them? I argue that there is now more than ever a need to remain relevant to the diverse and often-marginalized communities we serve and that we must develop our theories and practices to address such phenomena. To do this requires group analysts and, indeed, all clinicians to urgently scrutinize and develop theories and techniques in working with these very dangerous othering dynamics in our practices and clinics. A lack of intervention equates to by-standing or turning a blind eye, which is a significant factor in lynching dynamics, and a complicit collusion with the traumatization of marginalized communities.

Keywords

lynching, white supremacy, racism, group dynamics, homophobia, rape, gangs, mobs

Introduction

In the middle of Main St in a Southern American town there stood a majestic tree. It held a sacred place in the hearts of the town’s people . . . It blocked traffic . . . It was the potential cause of many accidents . . . And yet it could not be cut down. It was the local lynching tree, and it was performing its duty to perpetually and eternally remind the black town’s people of whom among them had last been hanged from its limbs and who could be next. The tree was awaiting its appointed hour, and the white townspeople were willing to risk inconvenience, injury, and death, even to themselves to keep the tree and the subordinate caste in their places. The tree bore silent witness to black citizens of their eternal lot, and in so doing; it whispered reassurances to the dominant caste of theirs. (Isabel Wilkerson, 2020: 90–91)

The method of force which hides itself in secrecy is a method as old as humanity. The kind of thing that men are afraid or ashamed to do openly, and by day, they accomplish secretly, masked, and at night. The method has certain advantages. It uses Fear to cast out Fear; it dares things at which open method hesitates; it may with a certain impunity attack the high and the low; it need hesitate at no outrage of maiming or murder; it shields itself in the mob mind and then throws over all a veil of darkness which becomes glamor. It attracts people who otherwise could not be reached. It harnesses the mob. (Du Bois, 2008: 677)

The ‘mob mind’ and ‘the method of force that is as old as humanity’ and the group dynamics that ‘harnesses the mob’ of which Du Bois talks in the above quote is the subject of this article. At this time of Black Lives Matter and the Me Too movements my motivation for writing this article is due to the huge amount of hate crime and murder at the hands of individuals and groups that is happening currently. Crimes driven by hatred and consequent violent enactments often represent the culmination and crystallization of decades, perhaps even centuries, of painful attacks on marginalized communities who are attempting to negotiate a place of dignity and equality and power within the broader community.

I, along with many others, watched with horror the police publicly murder an African American man, George Floyd, in the US despite his plea for mercy and the voice of another African American man, on and off camera, also pleading with the police officers to stop, only to be met with what seemed to be a response of deadened eyes from the white police officer with his knee on George Floyd’s neck. I will return to the eight minutes, 46 seconds that it took to murder George Floyd at the very end of this article, as at that stage I hope to have demonstrated the ‘lynch mob state of mind’ of the police officer and his colleagues and the group dynamic operating at the time of the lynching. Confronting the legacy of lynching and understanding the psychodynamic processes that drive it is critical to our understanding of racist, misogynist and homophobic violence when it occurs within a group, or indeed, ‘mob’ or ‘gang’ context.

When does a ‘work group’ of police officers, whose primary task (Hirschhorn, 1999) is to ‘protect and serve’ in the case of George Floyd, different from a group of drunken adolescents, transform into a ‘lynch mob’ that murders a black man?’ What constitutes the binding force of a lynch mob in terms of its exclusively destructive and harmful function? What type of destructive group dynamics are we experiencing? The level of dehumanization during this public lynching was sickening, but I believe that the dynamics that enabled the dehumanization to lynch and the more subtle manifestations of this phenomenon are commonplace and need to be understood.

I am a gay man of colour, born and raised in Liverpool, a city in the northwest of England, that has a significant slave trading history and a very old black community descended from enslaved Africans, slave traders, and African sailors pre dating the larger UK black community who arrived from the Caribbean in 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. Indeed, I am a descendant of this black community. Belonging simultaneously to two very marginalized groups, being a man of colour and, also, a gay man, I grew up all too well aware of violence toward people of colour, women and gay people. ‘Paki bashing’ and ‘gay bashing’ were almost a right of passage for the adolescents in some communities (Hobbs, 2016). The police in the UK have had a very poor reputation for responding to hate crime against certain marginalized groups, preferring to criminalize, rather than protect them (Macpherson, 1999; Akala, 2019) which, I suspect, is a tacit collusion with the violence toward these groups.

I vividly recall as a child being told by my parents about an incident of lynching in my hometown of Liverpool. The victim of this particular lynch mob was a black man named Charles Wootten. In 1919 a lynch mob chased him through the streets, down towards the city’s docks where he jumped into the River Mersey to escape them. Whilst struggling in the cold sea, he was stoned, and eventually drowned. For weeks later there were lynch mobs marauding the streets of Liverpool attacking groups of African sailors and black families, to the point that many black people had to be taken into police protection.

Additionally over the years I have personally known many gay men who have been seriously hurt and at least two murdered in similar circumstances. I do not know a gay man who has not suffered physical or verbal attacks by hate groups at various points in their lives. The same extends to gay women who are simultaneously vulnerable due to being both women and gay. I recall reading about a night bus attack on a lesbian couple by a mob of four teenage boys in November 2019. There was a picture in the newspaper of the two traumatized women covered in blood. Being bullied is in my experience a significant part of being gay. So, as well as there being racist terrorism there is also homophobic terrorism with both communities living in constant fear of violence as an everyday part of their lives, often victimized by groups or mobs who specifically hurt and murder people who are considered different.

I was also reminded of my recent clinical work with people who have witnessed, or have been the victim of, racist violence, sometimes at the hands of a group, and the trauma this has caused. In one case, an Asian woman in her 70s was standing at a bus stop. A young white woman in her early 20s was also at the bus stop with her three-year old child. The Asian woman was set upon by a group of white youths. She was verbally and racially abused, spat at, punched in the stomach and head and kicked in the genital area before they ran off, laughing. Meanwhile, the young white woman and her child stood, frozen. The child did not make a sound during the attack, which lasted less than a minute. I have often wondered about those young men and their state of mind when they attacked the Asian woman and I have written about the impact of this racist violence previously (Stevenson, 2019).

History of lynching

In the US, slavery was prohibited in 1865 and formerly enslaved Africans, at least in principle, were granted full citizenship, the right to vote, and under the 14th Amendment of the US constitution, protection from racial violence. However, the lived reality was somewhat different as this level of emancipation angered many white people in the southern states who did not want African Americans to have the same rights and many turned to violence as a response. Across the US resistance to racial equality resulted in the re-establishment of racial subordination, through biased laws, disenfranchisement and terrorism, most dramatically enforced through the public murder of African Americans by lynching. At this time lynching was directed at African Americans to enforce compliance with racial hierarchy and white supremacy and ensured racial segregation and denial of equal rights. These prejudices are still embedded in society and institutional structures (Wilkerson, 2020). A deeper examination of the history of racial violence and a more honest and reflective understanding of the history of racial injustice is essential for us to engage with issues like police violence, excessive punishment in the criminal justice system and even harsh and punitive treatment of children of colour in schools and on the streets (Ifill, 2018).

Although lynching has not always been exclusively directed at African Americans, they soon became the focus of the lynch mobs that became the unofficial execution and assassination squad of white supremacist ideology. 5,000 lynchings took place in the United States between 1885 and 1960 and part of this function was to enforce white supremacy by instilling terror into African Americans and was a response to the threat of African American advancement, independence and citizenship. The burning and destruction of African American businesses and homes and African Americans being chased out of economic communities were often accompanied by the lynchings of individuals (Ifill, 2018).

Lynching is one of the most violent aspects of ‘racist erasure’ in a white supremacy. It is used to reinforce white supremacy on an interpersonal, group and societal level. Racist erasure ranges from subtle micro aggressions, like rolling one’s eyes when a person of colour starts speaking of an experience of racism, to the public lynching of George Floyd in the US, by a police officer who put his knee on his neck until he later died, whilst other police officers, standing by, looked on. Within this systemically and structurally racist context, the projections and projective identifications directed toward those that have been racially othered will receive powerful institutional and group reinforcement and drive the dehumanizing perceptions of the lynch mob.

Projective identification (Klein, 1959; Segal, 1957) is a defence mechanism used to maintain psychic equilibrium. It is an unconscious mechanism in which aspects of the self or an internal object are split off and attributed to an external object. When malignant it is used to evacuate unwanted parts of the self or control the object rather than communicate states of mind. That is, the phantasy of who the ‘other’ unconsciously represents dominates and organizes behaviour toward the other, and this was well described by the African American psychoanalyst Kirklands C. Vaughans in the documentary Black Psychoanalysts Speak (Winograd, 2014). He gives the example of his work in a school when the white teaching staff described having to take four adults to hold down an angry and upset 10 year old African American old boy. Vaughans points out that it was in fact ‘the four adults having to hold their unconscious phantasy of this 10 year old child and not the child himself’. This symbolic equation (Segal, 1957) demonstrates a tendency of the unconscious phantasy, when dominating, driving the dehumanization, leading to excessive and dangerous responses and clearly parallels the behaviour of the police that lead to the death of George Floyd and other black people due to police brutality.

Here in the UK ‘Paki bashing’ and ‘gay bashing’ were common growing up in Northern England and in the East End of London (Hobbs, 2016). They had a degree of respectably in some areas and these communities remain vulnerable today. The high-profile lynching of a young black man, Stephen Lawrence, by a group of white youths put a painful mirror to British society. Investigations and public inquiries have severally criticized police responses and found them to be institutionally racist, which is the collective effect of bias that marginalizes people who are not white and who suffer a structural disadvantage in the way that they are treated by the authorities, who prefer to view them as criminals even when they have clearly been victimized (Macpherson, 1999).

A report titled LGBT in Britain: Hate crime and discrimination: ‘Stonewall’ (2017) reported 21% of Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) people have experienced a hate crime or incident based on their sexual orientation and/or gender identity in the last 12 months. 81% who experienced a hate crime or incident did not report it to the police. 29% avoid certain streets because they do not feel safe there as an LGBT person. 58% of gay men and women say they do not feel comfortable walking down the street while holding their partner’s hand (Bachmann and Gooch, 2017).

The psychodynamic structure of a lynch mob

Racism and homophobia are real conditions of all our lives in this place and time. I urge each one of us here to reach down into that deep place of knowledge inside herself and touch that terror and loathing of any difference that lives here. See whose face it wears . . . (Audre Lorde, 1983: 175)

The group phenomenon that drives a lynching is the product of an extremely complex and horrifying combination of external and internal events. It reflects all levels of the matrix which become condensed and exacted in a violent assault or murder of an individual who is identified as belonging to one group—usually a marginalized and hated group—by a group of individuals or a gang who belong to, or represent, another group and who believe they have an unofficial mandate to exact justice for a perceived transgression. This ‘justice’ can go as far as a public execution. Lynching is related to bullying and scapegoating but has a number of different and additional aspects. The first is that lynching takes part in a mob or gang so requires bystanders. It happens intermittently over frequencies that are difficult to quantify, but often relate to happenings in the social unconscious at a given time. For instance, politicians might use racist rhetoric to cynically gather support by exploiting insecurities in society, which bolster ignorance, racism and scapegoating of marginalized groups. ‘If you want a N*gger for a neighbour vote labour’ was reported to be the Conservative party’s unofficial slogan in a 1964 British general election (Deakin, 1965). More recent examples are the election of Trump in the US, based on blatant racist assertions, which are arguably powerful drivers for the public lynchings and racist murders in the US.

What relationship is there between the lynch mob and the formal power structure in society that turns a blind eye to it? The lyrics of a song by the pop group The Police below speaks to a lynch mob state of state of mind and how the mob enacts the wishes of those in power.

Once that you’ve decided on a killing

First you make a stone of your heart

And if you find that your hands are still willing

Then you can turn a murder into art

Now if you have a taste for this experience

And you’re flushed with your very first success

Then you must try a twosome or a threesome

And you’ll find your conscience bothers you much less

But you can reach the top of your profession

If you become the leader of the land

For murder is the sport of the elected

And you don’t need to lift a finger of your hand (Murder by Numbers, The Police, 1983)

The lynch mob enables its members to more readily ‘make a stone of your heart’. It must have an object or person to lynch and this is anchored in structures of race, gender sexual orientation, and ethnicity—indeed in any oppressive group which, by means of power, violence, cruelty or perversity persecutes another (Waddell, 2007). We are talking, in other words, of a dynamic relationship in which, aggravated or fuelled by external circumstances, negative aspects of the personality and group dynamics are played out with usually tragic consequences, as we have just witnessed with the death of George Floyd in the US and previously here in the UK with the murder of Stephen Lawrence. These group dynamics are part of the ‘social unconscious’ and are aggravated or fueled by external and internal circumstances.

Clearly, lynching cannot be separated from wider social, cultural and political issues. It is often sanctioned by a set of tacitly socially accepted perverse ideals, and those lynched are perceived to be outside a defined space and are accused of having transgressed a social taboo. Tacitly licensed, the lynch mob operates outside of a legitimately governed space, exacting a punishment for a perceived transgression, which could simply involve being different or having ideas and aspirations that might attract envy.

Total depravity, human hate . . . do not explain fully the mob spirit in America. Before the wide eyes of the mob is ever the Shape of Fear. Back of the writhing, yelling, cruel-eyed demons who break, destroy, maim and lynch and burn at the stake, is a knot, large or small, of normal human beings, and these human beings at heart are desperately afraid of something. Of what? Of many things, but usually of losing their jobs, being declassed, degraded, or actually disgraced; of losing their hopes, their savings, their plans for their children; of the actual pangs of hunger, of dirt, of crime. (Du Bois, 2008: 677)

Therefore, the lynch mob speaks for, and enacts, a split off and projected part of society that wants to punish and even destroy those who are considered other. The other that represents potency on the one hand or dirt and deprivation on the other, that needs to be erased at all costs. This is known but denied by society; the mechanism of turning a blind eye to the suffering and the dehumanization of those lynched is in operation (Steiner, 1985). Paradoxically, at the same time racial terror lynchings of African Americans, although denied by the government, often had the atmosphere of carnivals, with postcards depicting lynchings advertising the event and food vendors and souvenir stands. Hundreds, or thousands, of white people including their own children would often gather to watch and take part in the lynching of African Americans (Wilkerson, 2020; Ifill, 2018). At present, a ‘symbolic parallel process’ operates throughout the world with many hundreds of monuments honouring the memory of slave traders and colonizers littering the landscape of major industrial cities.

In a white supremacy, lynching and micro aggressions operate at different ends of the racist spectrum. The lynching of people of colour is an extreme enactment of white supremacy and racist erasure (Stevenson, 2020). How and why do such ‘groupings’, ‘gangings’ and lynch mobs occur and what factors determine a move from one state of mind or grouping to another? The terms ‘group’, ‘gang’ and mob’ can be related to Klein’s (1959) description of the depressive and paranoid-schizoid positions and the group or gang reflects such states of mind. In adulthood at times of regression the paranoid-schizoid (egocentric and paranoid) and depressive positions (concern for others) still operate and are not just located in infancy and childhood. Although they are ordinary/normal states of mind in infancy and early childhood, they become dangerous when they dominate in adulthood, such as in a regression to the paranoid schizoid position, which is a characteristic of lynch mobs. The structure of human groups, gangs and lynch mobs can relate to the states of mind displayed by these two constellations from a descriptive and theoretical point of view. Bion (1948) challenged Freud’s view of groups as a family and introduced a ‘work group’, that is functional and approximated to normality (depressive) as opposed to a group formed by a pathological organization (paranoid-schizoid) led by psychotic mechanisms. The latter offers a false stability with paranoid fears and a lack of genuine stability at the nucleus of such a group.

It is its nucleus of ordinary men that continually gives the mob its initial and awful impetus. Around this nucleus, to be sure, gather snowball-wise all manner of flotsam, filth and human garbage, and every lewdness of alcohol and current fashion. But all this is the horrible covering of this inner nucleus of Fear. (Du Bois, 2008: 677)

Gangs, or mobs operate internally and externally. Rosenfeld (1965) talks about the internal gang, which is an aspect of the mind that corners the most constructive parts of the psyche and keeps them hostage, preventing psychological growth. This is paralleled in society, preventing social change and a more equitable distribution of resources and liberty. The gang or mob needs a scapegoat, an ‘other’ outside of itself that is to be blamed and punished for the sins or grievances of the in-group and to create a sense of binding that holds it together.

A depressive state of mind equates with a work group and the individuals within the group can tolerate different states of mind and explore differences and operate outside of the psychotic (Bion, 1948; Klein, 1952; Segal, 1957). Their minds can be emotionally flexible; they can manage tension and creativity, although these abilities are not static and there will be periods of splitting off and projecting aspects that are felt to be intolerable even in a functional work group. None the less such a group values difference and diversity. It can bear dissension and conflict. This is in contrast to the regressive pull that drives the gang or the lynch mob, which is dominated by symbolic equations (Segal, 1957) and paranoid schizoid thinking. This means seeing the world in a very split way in terms of people who are good and the same, and people who are bad and other, with no nuances or concern for welfare, and even hatred of the people who are felt to be different and an idealization for those considered to be same. A lynch mob is a destructive and violent gang imbued with, and bonded by, hatred as opposed to a work or social group bonded by creative impulses (Segal, 1957).

It is these psychodynamic processes that help us understand how and why a social group of young men on a night out, or after a soccer match, turn into a racist hate mob or go on to gang rape a girl. Why a work team turn into a bully mob targeting team members who are different in some way, forcing them out of the organization. Why a group of police officers, who have a duty to protective and serve, turn into a racist mob that murders a black man.

The lynch mob as anti-group

When individuals come together in a group all their individual inhibitions fall away and all the cruel, brutal and destructive instincts, which lie dormant in individuals as relics of a primitive epoch, are stirred up to find free gratification. (Freud, 1921: 79)

Nitsun (1996) critiques the notion of groups as being only benign and positive and advocates ‘realism’, recognizing the group’s potential for healing as well as destruction. He emphasizes the need to understand and manage both aspects of these complex dynamics. There is a social context to any group that can represent a wider social pathology. This applies to all groups, ranging from a task focused work group to a lynch mob. The latter is in the thrall of anti-group phenomena. The group members may find themselves pulled towards anti-social behaviours as well as towards benign activities.

What constitutes a crime might not be guided by morality but by the law. Rules can be set down by the powerful, outside universal parameters or justice. We need not remind ourselves that the chemical castration of gay men (Nadin, 2020), 245 years and 12 generations of slavery, apartheid, Jim Crow, a man’s right to rape his wife, were all legal at one stage of very recent history (Akala, 2019) so an individual would not be considered to be deviating from the group norm if they indulged in these activities. The group norm, therefore, is not static and is anchored in societal and cultural values at any given time in history, which could reflect very oppressive forces for some communities.

The anti-group is generated from a yearning for an ideal relationship with a primary carer and harks to an imagined time of purity and un-contamination. A third term, such as the father, is seen as a threat to this relationship (Nitsun, 1996). This is the ‘other’ who needs to be attacked and destroyed. This attack could take place in a therapy group or a lynching. An anti-group is saturated with symbolic equations (Segal, 1957) and the members’ malignant projections and projective identifications. The conscious and unconscious dynamics of a constructive work group make it holding and nourishing, whilst the dynamics of an anti-group make it undependable, unsafe and persecuting.

A lynch mob is Mafia like (Rosenfeld, 1965) and dominates and persecutes its members; it binds them into a lie of sameness: ‘We are white and superior’, ‘We are not gay or sexually deviant’, ‘We are secure in our gender identity’ etc. This is a pathological organization that offers the promise of stability. It is at one and the same time same time infantile and adolescent, as both immature states of mind are imbued with a great deal of psychic instability that leads to an aggressive need to split off and project. These mental states feel unbearable, due to the lack of a mature psychic apparatus to process them. Instead, the infant or adolescent resorts to evacuation and action, which contributes to group destructive forces. During adolescence anxieties about identity arouse an acute intolerance of difference either in the self or in the other and there is a need to bolster the ego at the expense of others, often in a very cruel way (Waddell, 2007).

This fiction of ‘sameness’, belonging and stability of identity in a lynch mob is a paranoid schizoid defence and the containment it offers is very fragile. The group members, who are relating in anti-group attitudes sense this unconsciously and find themselves in the thrall of a compulsion to attack and destroy. This can be directed at the group from within (anti-group) or something outside of the group (lynch mob as anti-group). This is a weak and dangerous container that leads to a vicious cycle; the group members are anxious and insecure, generating a malignant form of projective identification that binds them together in a most destructive and hateful way. This paranoid-schizoid state of mind characterized by an excessive operation of splitting and projection drives the mob that aggressively deploys a projective and splitting frenzy of denial and attribution. Within this is a wish for a world free of difference and an idealized pre-oedipal history, uncontaminated by the other who is imbued with negative attributions, located in an out-group. The lynch mob as anti-group

reflects underlying fears of annihilation and in particular, deprivation. In the foetid psyches of the lynch mob is a terrible fear of deprivation that makes the ‘other’ not just a threat (the powerful, potent black other) but the one onto whom are projected intense associations of shameful deprivation (the dirt-poor, shameful, black other) and both have to be eradicated. (Nitsun, personal correspondence)

Additionally, there is wish for a revised, perfect history that involves a denial of psychic reality and a paranoid fear of the return of what has been repressed and projected. Also active are a hatred of thinking, doubt and concern, a lack of curiosity and a need to exclude and triumph violently. Human commonality is denied. There is also a retreat into omnipotence and an attraction to violence and even murder. The gang or mob promises protection to its members but its intention is to do damage. A lynch mob gives its members a sense of intoxicating power; a promise of safety from the most persecutory and primitive anxieties. It panders to the gang members’ sadomasochistic fantasies and allows an enactment of the most destructive fantasies without remorse (Bell and Novakovic, 2013; Keval, 2018). The lynch mob feeds lies and promises that cannot be delivered outside of the realm of the psychotic and perverse.