ShrinkWrapped

Turning Passive into Active

One aspect of abuse that is particularly traumatic is the passivity that the perpetrator forces upon the victim.  Being forced into a passive position is almost always painful, and, especially when not allowed to defend oneself, it is infuriating; helpless rage is humiliating and evokes rage and depression.  (Please note, there are people who will actively seek out and engineer their own passivity, but this is a more complicated psychological construct.) 

Since shortly after the Iraq war began, the LSM (LameStreamMedia) and the Democrats have subjected the President to escalating, shrill, often contradictory attacks.  Essentially, everything that Bush has ever done has been wrong.  There are all sorts of transference implications in this; the various accusations, that the President is responsible for global warming, for the insurgency in Iraq, for New Orleans, for there not being enough troops in Iraq, for not pulling our troops out as soon as possible. for ______________ (fill in the blank) has irrational features which suggest the demonizing has deep roots unrelated to the specific policy disagreements. The LSM has not found any threshold under which they would not stoop if it could harm Bush.  They are at it again in the face of the nomination of Sam Alito to the SCOTUS.

Scott McClellen is a milquetoast. If John Roberts had dared to ask me, as he did McClellen, whether Judge Alito represented “sloppy seconds,” I would have narrowed my eyes and, after a beat, suggested very quietly to Roberts that his question was unworthy a White House reporter, and that it said nothing at all about Alito or the president, but it spoke VOLUMES about Roberts, himself.

McClellen just did the “not at all,” crap.

He should have said what I wrote above, and then simply said, “this conference is over - I will meet with you ladies and gentlemen again when you can comport yourselves appropriately,” and walked out. Or maybe just walked out without saying anything else.

It would have demonstrated to the press that there are BOUNDARIES. And it would have made the press, perhaps take a look at themselves. Would they report it? How could they slam McClellen if they did? Their own member behaved like a boorish clod.

The good news in this is, I suspect, that in many ways, the last week has been the peak of the crescendo of noisome noise coming out of the LSM/Democrats. 

Self Esteem and Homeostasis

From time to time, I re post some of my earlier posts.  This post was written in the early days of my blog but remains germane to the discussion of the damaged political discourse that continues to coarsen our social framework:

A healthy person has a reasonably realistic grasp of his own capabilities, is able to use his abilities to gain satisfaction, is able to love another and accept being loved by another, and is able to appreciate what the world has to offer.  In Freud's words, to be healthy is to have the ability to "work, love and play."  Inherent in this is having a relatively  stable positive self esteem.  There are many factors that go into developing self esteem.  The very young child who is loved unconditionally, but also allowed to suffer some frustration, is able to experience himself as a worthwhile, lovable, individual.  He grows up with sensitivity for others and is sensitive to their opinions and feelings about him, but is not dependent on the world for confirmation. 

[This is where so much of our current pedagogy and the entire world of PC fails most dramatically.  Children can tolerate losing; they know when another child is better at sports or math or spelling than they.  A healthy child is not defeated by this but learns what he or she is able to do, and can do their best.  The PC victimology in speech codes on so many campuses is worse than nonsensical; any person whose self esteem is damaged by cross words, is an individual with exceptionally fragile self esteem.  The so-called Self Esteem movement has things exactly backwards.  People do not achieve self esteem by never being hurt; they maintain their self esteem in the face of disappointments and hurts.]

Nurtured on Hatred

With all the focus on the Plame game coming to a denouement, it is easy to miss the importance of recent developments in the Middle East.  By now, everyone knows that the new President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmandinejad, has publicly stated, and then reiterated, that the policy of the Iranian government is to "wipe Israel off the map."  The Iranians are allied with various terror groups whose avowed aim has always been to destroy Israel; again, this is not news to anyone who has been paying attention, although it has been instructive to see that the Europeans have noticed the words of Ahmandinejad.

Noticeably silent in condemnation of the threat have been the Muslim countries; again, this is not news.

In a closely related development, the Palestinian terror groups seem unlikely to disarm under the minimalist approach of their President Mahmoud Abbas.  In yesterday's Jerusalem Post, Matthew Gutman reports in Aksa Brigades far from ready to disarm, that the murderous competition between terror groups is unlikely to end any time soon:

The world may have thought otherwise, but in the warrens of Gaza's refugee camps the war against Israel is very much still on. The Palestinian Authority announced on Sunday that it planned to disarm the Brigades and absorb its members into the PA security forces, but these gunmen seem anything but ready to disarm.

The IDF and Gaza-based terrorist groups had exchanged frequent fire since Israel quit the Gaza Strip six weeks ago. But over the past week, the groups amplified their rallying cries against Israel and even the Palestinian Authority. Hamas publicly reiterated its dreams of creating an Islamic state between the Jordan and the sea, and Islamic Jihad pressed forward with terrorist attacks and vowed more.

The Aksa Martyrs Brigades would not be outdone. In an interview in an orchard, Hassan Abu Ali, the group's commander here, claimed that the brigades have developed a new rocket, the Aksa-3. These rockets have a maximum range of 17 km., he tells The Jerusalem Post.

Meanwhile, a sad debate took place in the pages of the Jerusalem Post between the Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz and Vice Premier Shimon Peres:

The Council Has Spoken

I am delighted to learn that The Watcher's Council has voted my post on Race and the Unconscious worthy of the honor of best non-council post of the week.  Check out their site; they always have links to numerous excellent posts.

Perversion, Disavowal, & Peggy Noonan's Trolley

True perversions, and their allied fetishes, are based, in part, on a boy's terror at discovering the female's genitals, where her lack of a phallus indicates, to his immature mind, that a woman is a man who has been castrated.  The sight of a girl's or woman's genitalia creates so much anxiety that the little boy has to look away and learn to "not see" such a frightening sight.  Please note, this is hardly universal and the boy's vulnerability to just such an outcome depends in significant ways on his relationship to his parents, especially his mother, in his earliest years.  In a true sexual perversion, the adult man prefers non-vaginal sex  because intercourse creates too much anxiety for the now adult little boy.

There are several corollary statements that bear mentioning.  In a person with a perverse orientation not only must the differences between male and female be denied, but they must also deny generational differences.  To some extent, our "youth culture fetish" in this country reflects just such a disavowal.  When those who used to proudly proclaim, "Never trust anyone over 30" have all turned 60, their only option is denial of time passing and an insistence on remaining youthful forever, even if it requires expensive and sometimes dangerous plastic surgery.

[For anyone who finds the notion of castration anxiety to be fanciful, I can assure you it is a factor in the mental life of most boys, though rarely does it cause such an outcome as a perversion.  Likewise, there are women who grow up feeling inferior because they see themselves as castrated; sometimes this is felt as a literal state, for others it is more of an ex post facto explanatory metaphor.]

A perversion has other elements, as well, but for my purposes I want to use it as the model for disavowal of reality in the face of severe anxiety.   I have treated adults in psychoanalysis who function as perfectly reasonable people but have a perverse relationship to certain aspects of reality. 

The Utopianism of the Western liberal elites (fusion with the all-nurturing mother) is expressed in their wishes to force equality of outcome and dependence on the state.  The Islamic fascists' wishes to force their Utopian ideas on the world (based on the belief in the angry Paternal Allah, who answers all questions and promises paradisical fusion with the all-nurturing mother in the afterlife) are expressed through their holy violence aimed at restoring the Caliphate) can only thrive in the precincts of those who are ready, able, and willing to disavow anxiety laden realities.

[As an aside, the cultural  norms in much of the Arab world leads to circumcision during the age when a child's castration anxiety is at its height (that is, during the Oedipal phase, ~4-6, or during the recrudescent Oedipal phase in early adolescence.)  The unfortunate outcome of late circumcision, in a vulnerable boy, is a tendency to exacerbate paranoid and authoritarian trends.  This is worth a post of its own when time allows.]

Political Correctness & its Evil Offspring

In my series on Political Correctness & the Denial of Reality, I described the Utopian roots of the system of thought known as Political Correctness. In Part III, I suggested three essential components of PC thought:

1. Everyone is equal, therefore the only reason outcomes are ever unequal is because of flaws in the system.  In a perfect system, equality of outcomes would be assured.

2. Since everyone is equal, there can be no differences between people; men and women, therefore, are not just equal, but are identical in every way.  Anatomy is no longer destiny, in fact, it is irrelevant.

3. All differences in outcome, therefore, must be the result of the powerful group, the ruling class, discriminating against the weaker groups.

PC lends itself to oppression because it requires equality of outcome and inequality of outcome is taken as a priori evidence of discrimination and oppression.  The PC Thought Police have no problem telling others what they want them to think; if necessary they are perfectly willing to abridge our rights in order to enforce their "higher" rights of equality.  Of necessity, PC demands that the government become the arbiter of last resort (which is one of the reasons the battle over the Supreme Court is so crucial to the left; it is the only branch of government where their ideas still hold sway.)  When the left/liberals are in power they will attempt to aggrandize more power to themselves with the intention of ensuring greater justice for aggrieved groups of the oppressed.  [The fact that Republicans in power attempt to increase their power, but with differing justifications, is not germane to this discussion, but it does say something about the allure of power.- SW]

The Fourth Rail Goes to Iraq

Bill Roggio, at The Fourth Rail, is one of the best sources for unbiased information on the Iraq front in the War on Islamic fascism.  He has been offered an opportunity to visit the battlefield:

A couple of weeks ago I received an invitation to visit and tour the operations environment I've been covering here for the last year. That invitation, from senior Marine officers with the Regimental Combat Team - 2, 2nd Marine Division, presents an opportunity for me to provide first hand reporting from Iraq, as well as to continue to provide context to the reports coming from other sources as I've done here at the Fourth Rail.

The trip will be costly and he will have to take an unpaid leave of absence from his job.  Please take a look at his site and donate some $ if the spirit moves you.  In a just world he would be writing for a major media outlet and paid accordingly; in lieu of justice, a donation to help defray his expenses will have to do. 

Race and the Unconscious II: The Tuskegee Airmen & Rosa Parks

Rosa Parks, 1913-2005, has died.  Most Americans know her story, how she refused to get up and give up her seat on the bus, which she was legally required to do; the Montgomery bus boycott followed, Martin Luther King Jr came into prominence and America was shamed into putting an end to segregation.  La Shawn Barbera describes her impact:

Call her “the woman who refused to get up,” but I’m sure Rosa Parks had no idea what her tired feet and frustrating treatment would lead to on December 1, 1955.

What became known as the Civil Rights movement was bound to start sooner or later. It was only a matter of time before blacks would reject all that “back of the bus” and “Whites Only” nonsense. In a country where they were paying taxes, too? Please. I’m surprised the movement didn’t hit America with full force 10-15 years earlier when black men were fighting for their country in WWII.

Prominent among the "black men (who) were fighting for their country in WWII", were the Tuskegee Airmen.  Their exploits were instrumental in Truman's decision to integrate the armed forces after World War II and laid the kindling for the civil rights movement that was later ignited by Rosa Parks.  On Saturday, the Washington Post reported on some of the surviving members taking a trip to Iraq to support the morale of the troops there, Tuskegee Airmen Suit Up, Head to Iraq:

Grand Rounds

This week's Grand Rounds, a compendium of medically oriented blog posts, is hosted by hospital impact, and has brief descriptions and links to lots of interesting articles, including to my post, Science Friday: Differentiating the Self.

Evan Thomas Tells the Truth ... Reluctantly

Newsweek editor Evan Thomas appears on the Don Imus radio program every Monday morning and is a reliable gauge of the LSM sentiment on major issues of the day.  Imus spends most of his time honing his persona as a rehabilitated 60's-80's drug addict/alcoholic, who has always been cutting edge and able to spot the foibles of those who pretend to be in charge.  He has been particularly acidic toward the President and the war; he repeats the casualty counts whenever talking about the war as if the sheer number of dead and wounded Americans is an indicator of the justice or wisdom of the fight.  He typically joins the casualty figures to the "Bush lied" meme.  Most often, he treats Bush as an intellectually challenged tool being used by the evil Cheney and the neo-cons.  Evan Thomas rarely quibbles with any of the negative locutions applied to the current Administration but this morning something remarkable occurred.

The breakthrough occurred while discussing the Valerie Plame game.