The Lead

Is Your Leader Suffering From a Cognitive Impairment?

by David Shavin (EIRNS) — Jul. 09, 2024

How can you tell if the leader of your country is suffering from a cognitive impairment, senility or dementia?

As NATO opened its summit in Washington, DC today, well-dressed men and women are supposed to spend the three days pretending that tens and tens of billions of dollars of armaments—never mind whether they can be produced or not—will bankrupt Russia and, hopefully, break it apart. And what happens when a nation with a vast number of nuclear weapons is taken apart… is tomorrow’s problem.

Last week, the population of Ukraine’s biggest defender, Britain, handed their ruling Tory party a thunderous rejection; and France handed President Emanuel “Let’s send NATO troops to Ukraine” Macron an inglorious rejection—before turning around and handing last week’s vehicle of protest its own rejection within days. At least, Ukraine and Israel have figured out that elections are outmoded.

In the U.S., Vice-President Kamala Harris is Joe Biden’s best insurance policy for suppressing a revolt—and both parties have relied upon each other’s insane behavior as a source for their own rage-driven ‘buzz’ words, to raise money and try to turn out a vote. The issues? War on Russia or China—which to choose first? Is your team Israel or Ukraine? Or perhaps, who will go senile more quickly?

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin embraced Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India, a country the second largest population in the world, in a bear-hug, as they got down to a two-day session filled with massive scientific and industrial projects to secure a healthy future. The embrace sent chills through the NATO/Atlanticist world, with their mascot, Volodymyr Zelensky, saying it out loud: “It is a huge disappointment and a devastating blow to peace efforts to see the leader of the world’s largest democracy hug the world’s most bloody criminal in Moscow on such a day.”

Yesterday, Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban delivered a third shock in one week to the ‘permanent war’ gang, showing up in Beijing, with he and China’s Xi Jinping finding their peace offensives to draw strength from each other. Orban, who insists upon being “public, open and direct” and then being completely transparent about the method behind his reality-based diplomacy, is making it pretty clear to European leaders that they can actually stand on their own two feet and defend the sovereign interests of their own country. Even were he not allowed to say a thing in the three days of the NATO ingathering, his mere presence there undermines the ‘you have no choice but to submit’ dynamic of such events that has prevailed the last few decades.

It appears that the ‘NATO’ narrative is on its last feet. The well-dressed men and women are now to be held in place behind the narrative with yet another horror story, that the savage Russians bomb children at hospitals. This “Bucha 2.0” moment is supposed to pre-empt any thoughts of jumping ship. How cheap is this retreaded horror story? Mykhailo Podolyak, a key adviser in Ukraine’s Office of the President, skipped the dinner and the flowers and posted his message to NATO:

Moscow is sending an “informal signal” that “even the outright murder of children will not make” the NATO alliance “take all the necessary decisions…. This is a fully deliberate action, specifically designed and approved by … Putin. On the eve of the @Nato summit. As a slap in the face to the alliance.” Translation: Podolyak is telling the well-dressed men and women that Russia thinks targeting children for death is a good way to do what? To taunt NATO and rub it in their face, that they are a bunch of wimps who won’t stand up to Moscow. Somehow, Moscow is gambling that slapping NATO in the face will cement their control over a broken West. So, clearly, you NATO celebrants have no choice but to prove Moscow wrong and “take all the necessary decisions.”

So, how can you tell if the leader of your nation is suffering from a cognitive impairment, senility or dementia? It’s not complicated. He or she engages in prolonged public fantasies, while avoiding very basic realities of statecraft—projects for potable water, nuclear energy plants, raw materials processing, modern energy-intensive agriculture, public health and basic R&D. Perhaps Joe Biden’s travails are somehow a public acting out of the problems that a dying Western culture is going through.

Combat cognitive impairment with https://eir.news/ and some energetic organizing, triggered by the LaRouche Organization’s daily video summaries, https://laroucheorganization.com/HarleySchlangerReport