Re: Conservative Bullying Has Made America Into a Broken, Dysfunctional Family: But There Are Ways to Regain Our Well-Being

An abusive, out-of-control, rageaholic GOP broke our country by
shattering our trust in democracy and in ourselves.
---
socialist dependents are helpless

wake up! ... the US has never been a democracy

On Mar 22, 9:20 am, Tommy News <tommysn...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Conservative Bullying Has Made America Into a Broken, Dysfunctional
> Family: But There Are Ways to Regain Our Well-Being
> An abusive, out-of-control, rageaholic GOP broke our country by
> shattering our trust in democracy and in ourselves.
> March 20, 2012  |
>
>         A marriage counselor friend once told me that he almost always
> knows by the end of the very first session whether he's being hired to
> guide a damaged couple back to health, or to help them work toward a
> divorce -- even when the couple doesn't know the answer to this
> question themselves.
>
> It's easy to see, he explained. The relationship's future success or
> failure all hinges on one simple thing: How much goodwill and trust
> they have left. Even if they've hurt each other badly, the couples who
> make it are the ones that still retain a few shreds of faith in each
> other's basic good intentions. She didn't mean to hurt me. He's not
> always a bastard. Deep down, she still loves me. Deep down, he really
> wants things to be better.
>
> These couples are still seeing same future together, and still cling
> to the tattered memories of why they first fell in love. Just a few
> frayed threads of trust are all that's needed -- if they've got that,
> the odds are high that with time and work, they can re-weave the
> fabric of the marriage into something that's once again strong and
> good.
>
> On the other hand, the tell-tale sign of a zombie marriage -- one
> that's already dead, even if the parties involved haven't yet
> confronted that fact -- is that one or both partners have already
> given up and checked out. The trust is broken, the dream shattered,
> the damage just too much to ever repair. Things have been said and
> done that can't ever be unsaid or undone. There's so much bad history
> that there's no way a mere human heart can ever forgive it all. It's
> so far gone that pain and rage are all that remain -- and the longer
> they stay together, the more brutal it's likely to get.
>
> If, as George Lakoff says, we tend to think of the nation as a family,
> then my friend's approach for identifying salvageable marriages may
> apply just as well to salvaging our democracy. Because, like all
> marriages, all democratic governments are founded -- first and
> foremost, above all else -- on an essential bedrock of trust and
> shared vision. We need to trust that our fellow citizens are decent
> people with good intentions. If we don't have even that much basic
> confidence in each other, there's no way that we can work together to
> build a society that works. In fact, there's not really even a reason
> to try.
>
> Seen this way, "America" is the family name for the 310 million of us
> bonded together in a covenant that's very much like the commitment
> that forms a family. We have come together to build our common wealth,
> create opportunities for each other that will secure our shared
> future, raise our children, care for our elderly, protect our assets,
> look after each other in sickness and in health, and wisely tend our
> national house and manage our gathered resources so we can hand the
> increase proudly off to the next generation.
>
> And, like a family, this is a commitment that is entirely grounded in
> mutual trust -- a bone-deep knowledge that we will keep faith and be
> there for each other; that we will look out for each others' rights,
> property, and kids; that we will generously give the family our best
> whenever possible; and that we also rely on it to be there for us when
> we need help. For better or worse, richer or poorer, sickness or
> health, we promise to be there for each other. The true strength and
> wealth of the country begins with the strength of that commitment.
>
> We cannot do this kind of mutual self-governance well -- indeed, we
> cannot do it at all -- unless we fundamentally trust each other's good
> intentions and devotion to our shared enterprise. We may disagree on
> the means, but we share the same vision about what the ends should be.
> And just like in a marriage, when that trust is damaged, our future
> viability as a nation becomes a wide-open question.
>
> This is a scary thought, because right now, America is riven by two
> very different visions of the future, held by two partners who
> obviously have radically different visions about where we should be
> going.
>
> On one hand, you've got most of the country -- center-right, center,
> center-left, and progressive -- which sees us as a family in trouble,
> but which also believes that if we return to our bedrock agreements,
> focus on solving our shared problems and fall back on our basic
> goodwill and common sense, we should be able to sort things out. This
> is the two-thirds of America that poll after poll shows is ready to
> move forward on issues like economic transformation, inequality,
> corruption and corporate overreach, climate change and energy policy,
> and remaking our infrastructure. There's a sense that, even though the
> challenges are big, we can solve them if we can come together, treat
> each other decently, reaffirm our commitment to the future, and force
> the democratic process to work again.
>
> On the other hand, there's another group that has entirely checked out
> on us, and turned ugly and abusive. The conservative minority is
> acting like Lakoff's canonical Strict Father scorned: When the family
> rejects his leadership and his attempts at authoritarian contol, he
> sinks into a punitive, bullying rage, lashing out at the rest of us
> for what he's come to believe is irredeemable broken faith because we
> won't let him be the boss. By his behavior, he is telling us in no
> uncertain terms that he wants a scorched-earth divorce -- the kind
> that leaves the rest of us broke, ruined, miserable, and utterly at
> his mercy.  He has gone so far as to hire batteries of lawyers and
> lobbyists to accomplish this, and is taking a bully's evident glee in
> his success.
>
> What Democracy Abuse Looks Like
>
> Here are a few broad-brush examples of how this screw-you attitude
> toward the idea of a balanced, strong, cooperative American family is
> playing out right now:
>
> Most conservatives now openly reject the very idea of democracy.
> Whether it's corporatists seeking to own every branch of government
> and privatize every public institution, security and intelligence
> types cracking down on our civil liberties, or Christian nationalists
> out to turn the country into a theocracy, conservatives are
> increasingly united by the conviction that Americans cannot be trusted
> to govern ourselves.
>
> According to Dave Johnson, if you really want to understand just how
> hostile conservatives are to the very idea of democracy, and how
> debased their discourse has become on the subject, just take some of
> their favorite sayings and substitute the word "government" with
> either "democracy" or "we, the people."
>
> So: "government is the problem, not the solution" becomes "democracy
> is the problem" -- or, perhaps worse: "we, the people are the
> problem." Likewise: "smaller government" becomes "smaller democracy"
> and a smaller role for we, the people.  The idea that "government
> destroys liberty" is clearly code for "democracy destroys liberty."
> And so on. (It's a great game you can play at home -- fun for the
> whole family!)
>
> Along these same lines -- and despite the conspicuous way the Tea
> Party fetishizes the Constitution -- it's increasingly evident that
> the future they have in mind very explicitly does not include the Bill
> of Rights, a people's Congress, the ability to petition our
> government, or the right to appeal to the courts for redress. I don't
> have to enumerate the violations on this front, but I do encourage
> progressives to start seeing these assaults on our rights as clear
> evidence that our opponents fundamentally do not trust democracy, and
> are very deliberately out to destroy the constitutional rules that
> ours runs on.
>
> They also don't trust diversity in any form. They're actively hostile
> to the idea of E pluribus unum -- out of the many, one. Anybody who's
> not white, straight, Christian, conservative, and male is inherently
> not-American. And the only acceptable function of government is to
> keep those Others -- both here, and abroad -- firmly in their place.
> The nightly news is full of fresh assaults on the rights of those who
> don't fit their narrow definition of Real Americans.
>
> They have embraced bullying as a political strategy and an acceptable
> cultural norm, which has in turn coarsened our civil discourse to the
> point of democratic breakdown. Rush Limbaugh and his throng of
> hate-talking imitators have given their listeners wide-open social
> permission to say ugly things in public that would most assuredly get
> them fired if they said them at work (check your company handbook,
> which no doubt has firm guidance on this point), and would probably
> precipitate an immediate divorce if they said them at home. The tone
> alone says it all: this is not the way you talk to people you intend
> to have any kind of future with.
>
> Conservative lawyers and courts are actively carving out a First
> Amendment right to bully racial and religious minorities, immigrants,
> gays, and women who won't stay in their place. Almost every family
> (including mine, unfortunately) and every workplace has a FOX-trained
> bully who makes it almost impossible to have simply collegial
> conversations. Democracy is literally not possible where such bullies
> exist, because the give-and-take and nuanced discussions that lead to
> good decision-making simply can't happen. Instead, all the power goes
> to the person who's willing and able to throw the biggest tantrum.
> That's not democracy, in any sense of the word.
>
> Our founders understood this all too well, which is why so many of our
> basic rules of government were explicitly designed to keep bullies in
> check.
>
> They are systematically destroying Americans' ability to trust almost
> every civil institution on the American landscape. The list goes on
> and on, but here's a starter collection:
>
> They are strategically undermining our schools by deliberately
> destroying community trust in them. Like a controlling father, they
> want the kids at home where they can keep a constant eye on them.
>
> They are attempting to privatize Social Security, prisons, the
> military, and our infrastructure -- all to prove their argument that
> we are no longer competent to do anything for ourselves through our
> government. Like an abusive spouse, they want us to feel too
> demoralized about ourselves to do anything effective to improve our
> lives, let alone find the courage and resolve to free ourselves from
> the abuse.
>
> They are bastardizing science and bowdlerizing history -- the two
> fields of academia most essential to developing foresight and
> understanding the implications of our future choices. And, in the
> process, they are keeping us from solving problems that threaten the
> continued existence of the entire human family.
>
> They have demonized and harassed the mainstream media to the point
> where they can no longer be truly neutral about anything, for fear of
> exhibiting "liberal bias."
>
> They repealed the Fairness Doctrine, and took over local radio.
>
> They are infringing on our religious freedoms in the name of extending
> their own.
>
> They are defunding government ("democracy") at all levels because they
> don't believe that We, the People, can spend the money right. (Again:
> this is the logic of an abusively controlling spouse.)
>
> They have destroyed our economy to benefit the top .10 percent, which
> effectively robs the rest of us of much of our cultural, economic and
> political power as well. And they have done this by telling us that
> "there is no such thing as society" -- a claim that justifies bleeding
> off the vast and very real mountain of public wealth that this
> fictitious American society has carefully amassed over the course of
> its entire history.
>
> All of these efforts, and many more, are rooted in one core fact:
> America's conservatives ultimately do not trust other Americans to run
> their own lives as individuals -- let alone govern ourselves as a
> group. And I'd argue that this mistrust runs so deep that no healing
> is possible for them. They have reached the point where they very
> clearly no longer want to be in this family together with us.
>
> The seething, simmering rage and pain are running so deep now that the
> only thing that will satisfy them is total destruction of everything
> that puts the "us" in US. In their minds, breaking America as we've
> known it for the past 80 years is the only way they'll ever be able to
> adequately punish us, and the only hope they have of someday seizing
> enough control of the shambles to finally salve their fury and fear.
>
> To Stop A Bully: How to Restore Trust
>
> This kind of dogged will to destroy is inherently pathological,
> whether it's happening within a marriage or a nation. There's no way
> it can ever be construed as healthy. My friend the marriage counselor
> would have looked at this situation -- one spouse overwhelmed by
> irrational, abusive, controlling rage and constantly imputing
> unspeakable motives to the other -- and written the marriage off.
>
> But we can't do that. We are still, for better or for worse, the
> biggest, richest family on the planet. On one hand, there's no way for
> them to leave, because there's nowhere for them to go, and no legal
> divorce is possible. On the other, letting them destroy the great
> house of America, built through generations and centuries to its
> present stature, is simply not an option.
>
> So what do we do? If these people really don't want to be in the
> marriage -- if they are, in fact, trying to destroy it by any means
> possible -- how on earth can we continue to function as a family?
>
> We may have to do what families have always done with members who have
> lost their way, but cannot be abandoned. We need to close ranks around
> them, building alliances and strategies that will enable us to protect
> ourselves and each other from their depredations. We cannot change
> them, but it helps to realize that the faithful and decent members of
> this family still vastly outnumber those who wish us harm. If we work
> together closely, we can leverage our numbers and our sanity to
> arrange things in ways that will minimize the damage our rageaholic
> members can do.
>
> The most important and critical thing we need to do is to restore
> trust; trust in each other, and in the idea of ourselves as a good and
> worthy family. We deserve so much better; and we are capable of so
> much more than our abusers tell us is possible.
>
> We can refuse to buy into divide-and-conquer strategies, realizing
> that in this situation, the only distinction that matters at all is
> the one between those who are rooting for this country to succeed, and
> those who are out to destroy it. You are either on the side of
> democracy and the great American family, or you are not.
>
> We can resolve to trust and respect each others' perceptions and
> interpretations of events, even when they don't entirely agree with
> our own. We can decide that we're going to stay sane in the face of
> the craziness -- and stand with anybody, regardless of their politics,
> who is also acting in good faith to stand against the bullies.
>
> We can work to create a consensus vision of the next America we want
> to become, and form trusting relationships with others to make that
> happen.
>
> We can refuse to reward bullying behavior with success. (Or, for that
> matter, with any more attention than it takes to get the bullies out
> of the room.)
>
> We can stand up before each other and the world and say: "Those people
> do not speak for us, and their squalid, angry vision is not our
> vision. We are a better nation than that."
>
> And we can, simply, continue to come together and govern. Because the
> specter of citizens civilly and peacefully exercising power is, above
> everything else, the one thing they fear the most, the biggest threat
> to the radical anti-democracy agenda.
>
> More:http://www.alternet.org/story/154622/conservative_bullying_has_made_a...
> --
> Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
> Have a great day,
> Tommy
>
> --
> Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
> Have a great day,
> Tommy

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