On psychopaths in positions of power

Good read.  I am in the middle of it right now and so far it's what I think of politicians and the ruling class.

Joachim Hagopian writing at GlobalResearch:
Psychopaths rule the world  
Psychopaths dominate the halls of power in both the United States and throughout the world. The current economic, political, military and legal system breeds psychopaths, rewarding psychopathic behavior and punishing those with conscience and integrity. Psychopaths will naturally be drawn to and converge at the apex of the power pyramid as much from their own drive for ambitious power as the hierarchical system that both requires and reinforces those who can comfortably operate without conscience, guilt or any genuine level of empathy toward others.

Psychopaths are in love with power and risk taking, masters of manipulation, self-serving opportunism and self-aggrandizement, and hold doctorates in deceit and deception. Psychopaths are super intelligent charmers who are highly skilled at playing others in order to get what they want. They are keenly perceptive at reading people, understanding their motives and values, brilliant at learning their weaknesses and blind spots, and highly effective at inducing both sympathy and guilt in others.

Instinctively knowing what others want to hear, psychopaths are gifted at winning over others, making them feel special and wanted. They are adept at making positive and lasting first impressions and initially demonstrating that they appear to be caring and considerate, but only on the most superficial, disingenuous level. Their innately keen intelligence, social charisma and charm, extroverted energies, over-the-top confidence are all weapons they utilize in their powerful arsenal to win over, defeat and control others, especially to win over those imbued with power and position that they yearn for themselves.

Psychopaths have an uncanny ability to pick brains, soliciting information, knowledge, creative ideas and even secrets from others, yet opportunistically utilize them to their own advantage as living proof that information is power, parading them as their own ideas and knowledge, and craftily taking and receiving undeserving credit and accolades from bosses and those in power. They are gifted actors, able to take on chameleon-like colors according to their particular social setting and company. Though they lack a capacity to feel emotions with any depth or intensity, as actors and manipulators they are able to manufacture crocodile tears for effect whenever it suits and benefits them..........