Reason and Rant

2009-01-03T08:25:00.000-08:00

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL RESPONSE TO RECESSION
Michael Bader, DMH

Having recently lost 40% of my own retirement savings, it’s not hard to feel empathy for my psychotherapy clients who are in the same boat. Since my clientele comes from the middle and upper middle classes, their losses have been sudden and severe, although not yet a threat to their survival. There’s nothing neurotic, of course, about the depression and anxiety that accompanies an economic downturn, particularly one as severe as this one. Depleted savings, disappearing home equity, layoffs, and objective insecurity about the future all combine to create psychological stress in every area of life. Ultimately, such stress can only be cured through politics, not psychotherapy.

The problem for progressives, however, is not just a practical one—it’s also psychological. Like everyone else, we struggle with passivity, cynicism, and confusion about how to effect change in the current climate. Some of us are waiting on the sidelines to see what Obama will do, criticizing or celebrating his choice of advisors. Others are actively organizing and participating in various efforts to influence political outcomes. But most of us, I believe, are facing the difficulty of maintaining and building on the hope and passion generated over the last year in the Presidential campaign. I think that the obstacles we currently face are internal as well as external. Our capacity and energy for political engagement is sapped by, among other things, our psychological reactions to the current economic catastrophe, reactions complicated by feelings of guilt, responsibility, and helplessness. We feel responsible for things we didn’t do and helpless in the face of things we could do. We feel guilty when we should feel innocent, cynical when we should feel hopeful, and powerless when we should feel powerful. Understanding and resolving this confusion should help progressives enormously.

Everyone processes economic stress and anxiety differently. For every rational response to this recession there is an irrational one--one that derives less from objective circumstances and more from the peculiarities of the human psyche. Such peculiarities are no less unreasonable because they are common. Irrational feelings of envy, self-blame, and denial rear their ugly heads in many of us, often with painful results. I see them in myself. I see them in friends. And I see them in my clients.

Self-blame is one of the most insidious and common of these reactions. It’s not that we blame ourselves for failing to anticipate the exact moment when the stock market began to collapse, although some do. Most of us are too rational to openly fault ourselves for not being that omniscient. Instead, the self-blaming is subtler and starts a little later in the time-line, e.g., I should have moved everything to cash when it first happened, or I was in denial and now I’m paying for it, or So-and-so predicted that the bottom was falling out and I just didn’t listen. Sometimes, such guilt is spiced up with a dash of envy: My neighbor just sold his house and was sitting on the profits waiting to buy another one—the lucky bastard, or My brother-in-law saw this coming and moved to the sidelines a year ago, or even, from one patient, My best friend consulted a psychic last Spring who convinced her to get completely out of the stock market! Such stories, real and apocryphal, invariably provoke twinges of envy and self-criticism. Their good fortune highlights our failure. Often, such self-castigation continues right up to the present: I should probably get out now, but am afraid I’ll miss the recovery. The implied judgment here is “fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.” Whatever the facts of the matter (even the savviest of investors are not sure what to do at the moment), the underlying sentiment involves blaming oneself for some mistake, failure of nerve, intelligence, or judgment.

In fact, while individuals here and there may have outguessed the markets, most of us didn’t. And when “most of us” find ourselves in a similar predicament, that predicament can’t possibly be an individual problem or be reasonably solved by individuals making smarter or more rational decisions. When the dot-com bubble burst in the Spring of 2000, many of my patients blamed themselves for being too greedy, or for going against their common sense by listening too much to their brokers, or for going along with the herd even though they knew better. The fact that millions of people were saying the exact same thing didn’t mitigate the painful feelings of responsibility and guilt that they had then and such facts don’t seem to alter similar feelings today. People feel a deep need, almost a compulsion, to take on individual responsibility for their lot in life, despite oceans of evidence that they’re victims of forces they cannot individually control. And every story of someone who beat the odds, bet against the market, or escaped unscathed just serves to reinforce this self-blaming tendency.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my work over 30 years with people who have been hurt or traumatized, it’s this: Human beings can’t tolerate helplessness. When we’re helpless, we feel an unconscious need to spin a story about it, a story in which we somehow had choices or one in which our suffering had some transcendent meaning. One of my patients lost everything in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. Even though she had retrofitted her house in exactly the same casual way as her neighbors, she criticized herself for not hiring a top-flight structural engineer to insure that the retrofit was state-of-the-art. Another patient dealt with feelings of loss about finally leaving her abusive boyfriend of 7 years by feeling guilty that she hadn’t given him enough “chances.” Abused children routinely blame themselves for their parents’ neglect and violence. In each of these cases, we see someone who can’t feel cleanly and simply victimized, who can’t feel helpless, and who certainly cannot feel innocent.

Innocence and helplessness are intertwined in our psyches. After all, if we’re truly helpless, we should feel innocent and not guilty. If we can’t really control a situation, then we can’t be responsible for its outcome. But since our psyches can’t tolerate facing helplessness, then they will also have a problem feeling innocent. For example, when people are given a chance to talk at length about financial losses over which they had no control, there is usually more than a trace of guilt. Recently, I’ve had the opportunity to listen to people who were swindled by Bernard Madoff blame themselves for having trusted him. Their outrage and despair is contaminated by an irrational guilt, irrational because while they might have been legally responsible for their investment, it was obviously not a “choice” in the sense for which they blame themselves. Madoff had impeccable credentials and came highly recommended by all the “experts.” It would be like women in the 1950s blaming themselves for babies born with birth defects because they took the Thalidomide prescribed by their doctors for morning sickness. Choice, responsibility, and guilt would hardly be reasonable considerations here, and yet, we all know that this is exactly what many of these women felt then and it’s what victimized shareholders privately feel now. We have a difficult time feeling innocent and helpless.

Why is this? Well, we certainly have a culture that idealizes individual responsibility, that idealizes the “self-made man” who succeeds despite all obstacles. Despite abundant evidence demonstrating the near-impossibility of overcoming the combined constraints of social class, education, early child-rearing, cultural norms, and even chance, it’s almost impossible to shake off the notion that we live in a meritocracy that rewards the worthy. Because some people overcome the odds, just like some people anticipated this recession, there can be no innocent victims here. Since everybody in the same situation doesn’t fail, then failure has to be an individual matter. Or perhaps there is something quintessentially human about free choice--namely, that even in the harshest and most constrained of environments, we are compelled to believe we’re free, that we have choices, that, we believe, with Sartre, that “freedom is what you do with what’s been done to you.” Perhaps I can’t control my external environment but I can control how I feel about it. Thus, despite being objectively helpless, whether in the face of a stock market crash or an economic recession, a natural disaster, or the gross injustice of other people, we will always believe that there’s something we could have done about it then or can do about it now, and blame ourselves if such reactions are absent.

A deeper and, in my view, more important source of the difficulty most people have feeling helpless and innocent lies in the psychology of childhood. The psychoanalyst W.R.D. Fairbairn once said that “children would rather be sinners in heaven than saints in hell.” What he meant was that children would prefer to believe that they come from a just and good family in which they were bad than an unjust or bad family in which they were good. For this reason, abused children often report that they provoked their parents' violence and adults often qualify accounts of their own early beatings with the caveat that they were "difficult" children. Most people can't let themselves feel innocent, because in a truly moral universe their caregivers would then have to be guilty, and that recognition is intolerable. It would mean that they, as children, were not protected, that the attachment necessary to their psychological survival was absent, disturbed, or even dangerous, and that the beings upon whom they helplessly depended might, at times, have meant harm. Children can rarely face this emotional reality, and neither can most adults. It is not even necessary that these perceptions be objectively true--it is the subjective experience of parental failures that is so frightening, it leads to self-blaming.

I think that the residue of this childhood denial can be found in the last-ditch psychic efforts of many of the people I know and treat to continue to believe in the goodness of our political and financial institutions. Our public outrage at being betrayed by the greed, mismanagement, and political shenanigans that created the current crisis is compromised by all the subtle and secret ways that we irrationally hold ourselves accountable. This creates a political problem: While the helplessness we feel is legitimate, our ability to rationally respond to it by trying to correct its real structural causes is compromised by the guilt and shame that we’re internalized. Our real responsibility to change the world—something we can do--is undermined by our false and self-blaming feelings of responsibility for things that we didn’t and can’t do. To say the obvious: We’re not children objectively helpless in the face of overwhelming parental authority. The system has been rigged against us, but it doesn’t have to be. Our culpability is not in having trusted this system, but in not seeing that—unlike children in a family—we currently have the freedom to change it. The paradox is that we have to face the ways that we’re really helpless in order to own the ways that we’re not.

The argument that most of us irrationally resist feeling helpless and innocent may seem spurious given how often we hear parents, teachers, pundits, and politicians extol the importance of personal responsibility. And isn’t it true that too many, not too few, people seem to blame others constantly for their own problems? How can I argue that people suffer from an inability to feel helpless and innocent rather than an inability to take responsibility?

Here’s why: public displays of innocence are almost always defenses against private feelings of self-blame. In both my personal and clinical experience, the louder someone proclaims his or her victimization, the more guilty that person is liable to feel underneath. The reason is simple: guilt and self-blame are too painful for most people to consciously tolerate for too long. They’re compelled to externalize it, vainly trying to convince themselves and others that they’re innocent victims and that everyone else is to blame for their predicament. Such folks—and there are many – appear to wrap themselves in the flag of helpless and blameless innocence. Secretly, however, they feel guilty. This system isn’t stable because it rests on a foundation of guilt and its denial and thus the cycle of blame and guilt goes on endlessly.

What is the alternative? The alternative to irrational guilt is real innocence. The alternative to denial is grief. And the solution to helplessness is to fight back.

Most of us are, in fact, helpless and innocent victims of the breakdown of an economic system rigged to benefit the rich. However much we might have, at times, followed our worst instincts when it came to spending, debt, and investments, we are not to blame for our current predicament. We need to develop compassion for ourselves and each other. We need to mourn the loss of our money, and the financial dreams that they fuelled. This is not to say that we won’t recover some of our losses or shouldn’t have dreams, but we can’t turn back the clock and pretend that this catastrophe hasn’t happened. Thus, like mourning the death of a loved one, we have to come to terms with a new reality in a way that allows us to experience a range of normal reactions, reactions we can openly share with others rather than hide in the closet as if they were private failures and sources of shame. I have too many patients and friends who are ashamed of talking about their financial losses for fear of being judged. Shame makes loss and trauma indigestible.

And, finally, we have to get angry, get organized, and empower ourselves to change a system over which we have had too little control. It is—and should be—infuriating that economic elites, along with their political enablers, have gamed the system such that they’ve reaped astronomical benefits while exposing the rest of us to the toxic by-products of their greed and indifference.

The antidote to helplessness begins with compassion and acceptance, but it doesn’t end there. It involves grief but can’t rest there. The ultimate antidote to helplessness is power. The antidote to private guilt is collective outrage. We need to face our current helplessness with compassion but fight the forces that created it with righteousness.

Wahhhhh!!! Quit Whining, for God's Sake...

2008-11-26T11:10:00.000-08:00

Great article reprinted in Alternet.org today about the inability of the Left to celebrate victory. Sure, it's a bummer to see Paul F....g Volcker back in the news, but as the article points out, would you rather see Marxist Leninist Downer-of-all Time Bob Avakian there? I mean, we can--and many probably WILL--sit around and whine about Obama's "move to the Center," as if we're all passive spectators sitting on our couches eating Fritos and burritos, getting flabby, waiting for him to save me, but.....ain't gonna' happen. We have to help him, push him, and "make him" be the best that he can be.

Omigod! Sex and Love United At Last!

2008-11-03T09:51:00.000-08:00

If I were French, I'd say that my jouissance was exploding all over the place. I'm not, though--French. The presence of two celestial beings on one stage, in one photo--well, I just have to say that my life's dreams and ambitions have finally--finally--been fulfilled. Thanks to Lorrie Smith, my high school girlfriend -- also my date for the Senior Prom at Rumson-Fairhaven Regional High School where we heard Bruce perform with his band Steel Mill in 1970--for the photo.

O.K. Despite My Deep Wisdom About Politics, I Sometimes Can't Really Understand

2008-11-02T18:36:00.001-08:00

...people who don't really care about folks who are less fortunate. I know the psychology of it, the various sophisticated analyses of the conservative mind offered from geniuses like Michael Lerner or George Lakoff. But when it comes right down to it, a deep and sort of structurally fundamental sense that people get what they deserve, that we should just look out for ourselves, that poor people or people of color are undeserving and fucked up.....well, I just don't really get it. Most principled right wingers are not self-aware, they're not psychologically minded enough to give us a real peek into their hearts and deepest minds, but I'd love to get inside there--just for a minute.

Taking YES For An Answer--Come on! Don't Be Afraid To Celebrate!

2008-10-31T10:18:00.000-07:00

Progressives are right not to celebrate Obama’s victory too early. History has shown us that even when we win, the bad guys can steal it. We have to work until the bitter end—and afterwards, if necessary—to insure that our victory is substantial and to defend it against attempts by the Right to rain on our parade again.

So, I suppose it makes sense that when I say, even to a friend, even in private, something like “Man, next Tuesday is going to be one of the greatest days of our lives,” that friend will always have the same emotional reflex—namely fear, caution, and usually some type of grim reservation. For example, “Don’t jinx it, man..it ain’t over ‘till it’s over,” or “yeah, if they don’t find a way to steal it,” or “yeah, or it’ll be the worst day in our lives,” or “Shhh…don’t say it out loud,” or “That’s what we thought in 2000…remember Florida?”

We’ve all been part of such conversations, I’m sure. You just don’t celebrate in advance. It’s bad luck. It’s bad karma. It’s bad juju.

Now, I understand the rationale here, both practically and culturally. Not only is this election not “in the bag,” but such an attitude comes across as unseemly and cocky in general. After all, don’t sports teams routinely position themselves as underdogs even when they’re heavily favored? There’s something universal about the notion that public displays of confidence and exuberance increase the likelihood of failure. It’s the sin of hubris; it’s chutzpah; it’s “the bigger they are, the harder they fall;” it’s knocking on wood, warding off the evil eye, it’s not mentioning a no-hitter—the list could go on. Draw attention to your triumphant feelings and fate, nature, or god will strike you down.

It’s interesting to note that we see a version of this all the time in psychotherapy. People come in to see us often because they are holding themselves back from success or putting themselves down even when reality suggests the opposite. We “choke” all the time in our lives, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. We have a success, but can’t enjoy it. We get a promotion but feel blue and empty. We think a potential partner is great but when we “get” him or her, we find them wanting. We work towards a goal but quit when we near the end. We can’t take compliments but, instead, downplay their credibility. Athletes escape poor beginnings and acquire fame and fortune, but then blow it with drug use or self-destructive violence.

Politically, we’ve seen this all too often on the Left. Union leaders I work with freely admit they’d rather be fighting the boss from “below” than collaborating with them in a position of power. I’ve seen conference after conference seem like it was going well, only to be brought down by infighting over political correctness. We’ve spent so long as outsiders, as disenfranchised, that when we have a chance to get real power, we figure out how to redefine ourselves as righteous victims. So often, the Left can’t take Yes for an answer. So many of our sectarian groups would rather be right than win. Anyone who has been on the Left for any length of time has seen this.

Ultimately, I think that this sensibility is a form of survivor guilt. Survivor guilt is the unconscious belief that one is not supposed to have the good things in life because it will hurt others. It was originally used to describe the guilt that holocaust survivors felt about surviving while others perished. In clinical work, we see it in the various ways that children grow up unconsciously believing that if they have more than others—siblings, parents, peers—that they’ll be punished or that such a victory will threaten their connections to others. So, when we’re “winning,” or on the verge of “winning” something important—an achievement, a pleasure, a new form of mastery, an important recognition or relationship—we get unconsciously worried and guilty. We sort of metaphorically look around and have thoughts like: “what am I doing here? Do I really belong here? Am I really a member of this club? I better not broadcast that fact, or celebrate it too much and draw attention because then I’ll be found out and asked to leave.” It’s one thing to do well, to succeed, even to feel privately proud, but it’s safer to keep our light under a bushel so as not to draw upon us the envy, wrath and ill-fortune that seems seek out those who display too much hubris.

And, yet, we also admire hubris, even as it makes us uncomfortable. In January of 1969, despite being a 17-point underdog, Joe Namath predicted victory over the Baltimore Colts and backed it up with an MVP performance. And who can forget the scene last summer when Usain Bolt, 20 meters from the finish line, looked around, saw he was going to win and actually started to celebrate before the tape? Fans were both awed and a little disturbed by the sheer arrogance of each of these gestures.

I think that progressives can walk and chew gum at the same time in the sense that we can work like the dickens for an Obama victory but also allow ourselves now to anticipate and celebrate a likely victory. We don’t have to do it in public spaces where our enemies can use it as political capital. But we can, I believe, let ourselves really begin to consciously and emotionally register this ecstatic historical moment.

I’m reminded of a Bruce Springsteen song, Lucky Town, in which he’s waking up to the fact that he’s sick of portraying himself as an alienated hard-on-his-luck outsider while his real life has gotten better and better. He sings, “Tonight I’m laying in your arms carving lucky charms out of these hard-luck bones.” I think those of us in the Obama campaign can do the same

Icarus? Nah--I don't think so...

2008-10-29T20:11:00.000-07:00

Seems we can't really celebrate our upcoming victory on Tuesday....too goddamn superstitious, I think. I'm writing an article about it....it's all about survivor guilt...stay tuned!

A Moment--Just a Moment--of Empathy for the Undecided..

2008-10-26T11:50:00.001-07:00

My friend, Larry, pointed out that for some folks, their "vote" is the only thing they can call truly their own, one of the few things that they can exercise with freedom. And then they personalize everything, don't care about the issues really, but react to who "seems" nice or who "seems" strong ---crap like that. So, something like a gaffe or TV wall-to-wall advertising that trades ENTIRELY in images, that reduces everything to a psycho-drama.

Larry is right, I think.

Still, these so called undecided voters can kiss my ass!

Who Are These Stupid Fucking Undecided Morons...uhh., I Mean Voters?

2008-10-23T15:16:00.000-07:00

I think that David Sedaris put it best:

"I look at these people and can't quite believe that they exist. Are they professional actors? I wonder. Or are they simply laymen who want a lot of attention? To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. "Can I interest you in the chicken?" she asks. "Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it? To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked."

Love Trumps Reason Every Time--Eugene Debs and Barack Obama

2008-10-20T16:04:00.001-07:00

In a biography of Eugene Debs, the author describes a meeting in which Debs is speaking. The intensity of the crowd was incredible. And yet, many of those attending didn't speak English and couldn't therefore understand the content of Debs' speech. As one observer put it, "It was not so much that they cared for what he said, but that they cared that he cared for them..."

When asked how they could be so enthusiastic if they couldn't understand Debs, one person in the audience responded simply: "Debs talks to us with his hands, with his heart, and we all understood everything he said."

Obama is smart and progressive in what he says, for sure, but it's his heart that draws these crowds.

Bill Ayers, Bill Haywood, and Justice in America

2008-10-18T11:03:00.000-07:00

Speaking of terrorists, on May 9, 1907, IWW leader Bill Haywood was tried for the killing of former Idaho governor--and vicious union-buster--Frank Steunenberg

The trial was a slam-dunk for the prosecution, except for one thing: Haywood was represented by Clarence Darrow. Here's a section of his famous closing summary:

"I speak for the poor, for the weak, for the weary, for that long line of men who, in darkness and despair, have borne the labors of the human race," Darrow told the jury. "Their eyes are on you twelve men of Idaho tonight. If you should decree Bill Haywood's death, in the railroad offices of our great cities men will applaud your names.… In every bank in the world, where men hate Haywood because he fights for the poor and against that accursed system upon which the favored live and grow rich and fat," they would "receive blessings and unstinted praise." But "Out on our broad prairies where men toil with their hands, out on the wide ocean where men are tossed and buffeted on the waves, through our mills and factories, and down deep under the earth, thousands of men, and of women and children will kneel tonight and ask their God to guide your hearts—these men and women and these little children, the poor, the weak, and the suffering of the world, are stretching out their helpless hands to this jury in mute appeal for Bill Haywood's life."
In my view, both Haywood and Ayers were screwed up and their violence set progressive movements back. But in both cases, they became scapegoats for the most virulent right-wing elements of society to justify their repressive policies.

I guess we need another lawyer from Chicago--like Darrow-- to speak up today for the common man! Oh--right...WE HAVE ONE!

Prescient, No?

2008-10-18T07:10:00.000-07:00

The Larger the Organization You're In, the More Alienated the Relationships

2008-10-17T17:17:00.000-07:00

It seems to me sad, but true that if you want to play in the big leagues, to really make a difference in the world, you have to work in organizations that have subcultures of competition, non-recognition, and often a misuse of authority.

You can leave and tend your own garden in smaller, healthier groups and institutions, but you give up a certain possibility.

Which is better? I don't know. I've done both. In the end, I suppose I vote for being places where you're loved and appreciated....I guess.

Tired, tired, tired of jingoism....

2008-10-16T08:17:00.000-07:00

Jingoism (defintion): Extreme nationalism characterized especially by a belligerent foreign policy; chauvinistic patriotism.

John McCain and his flag-waving Republican war-mongers are a case in point. Aren’t you tired of this constant repetition of self-congratulatory nationalism? Here’s a story that’s a corrective.

From Otto Scharmer’s book Theory U: He tells the story of Rusty Schweickart who was on the Apollo mission that preceded the first moon landing, where they tested the lunar lander in orbit. 10 years later, Rusty figured out how to talk about what had happened. He figured out that the only way to describe it was in the second person, e.g. “now you see this; now you see that.” As Rusty put it: “I was there…..I could see something with my eyes, but it wasn’t just me seeing. It was humankind seeing.”

He goes on: “Now you’re near the end of the mission, and you’re very fortunate because the mission has gone very well technically. And so you have free time that you really had no right to expect. So these last days you actually spend much of the time just looking out the window. And as you look out the window, you realize that your identity has shifted—that for the first several days, whenever you had the chance to look out the window, you looked for the west coast of California, or you looked for Texas, or you looked for the Florida peninsula. You looked for the things that were familiar to you. And then you suddenly realize that you’re now looking forward to the west coast of Africa. And you’re looking forward to the Sinai. And you’re looking forward to the Indian subcontinent. You realized that your identity has shifted, and you are now identifying with all of it.”

“And now you’re well into the last day. And you find yourself just looking. And you’re drifting over that very familiar piece of geography that we call the Middle East. And you’re looking down at this, and suddenly it hits you that there are no boundaries. Every time you’ve seen this before, from the time you were a little child, there were always lines. And you realize that there are no lines. The lines do not exist. Lines only exist because we hold them in our mind as existing. They you realize, at that instant, that people are busy killing each other over those imaginary lines.”

Some days later, someone else asked Rusty “what was it like up there?” Rusty stood there a long time. Then he said, “It was like seeing a baby about to be born.”

Rusty could, finally, see—through a lens of possibility—the sacred totality of the Earth, an Earth without lines.

Is there a politician alive who could say the same?

I CAN'T STAND MCCAIN'S PHONY WEIRD SATANIC SMILE

2008-10-15T19:02:00.000-07:00

I can't stand it!!! McCain's smile is so phony and hostile and smarmy I want to wring his dry-drunk, surly, volatile, bug-eyed, lying sack-of-shit neck..! Don't you?

Oh--So NOW You're Afraid of an Economic Slowdown?

2008-10-15T14:08:00.000-07:00

The NY Times headline today "Dow Down 700 Points As Fears of Economic Slowdown Grow" confuses me. I mean--HAVEN'T YOU FUCKING STOCKOWNING ASSHOLES BEEN READING THE GODDAMN NEWS FOR THE LAST 3 WEEKS? Has ANYBODY you've read said that all of these rescue efforts are going to prevent a significant recession? How come, now, you're suddenly "afraid" of a slowdown? NOW your selling? You're suddenly saying--hey, Gladys, I thought everything was GREAT until today... I'm scared.....Sell...Sell!"

Why don't you all just SELL and then God will come in and announce: "we're at the bottom!" And then I can digest it all, realize that I'll now have to work 'till I'm 93 and get able to get on with life!

McCain Might As Well Accuse Obama of Pedophilia

2008-10-14T20:54:00.000-07:00

After all, he loves children--his own--right? And while he's at it, why doesn't McCain say that Obama is a diaper-wearer. I mean, he probably once did wear diapers, don't you think? And, I mean--I suppose that Obama was once close to the Black Panther Party, too. Well, he comes from Chicago...and, uh, Bobby Hutton was a famous black panther who was gunned down in Chicago by the cops. Good enough connection, I'd say. And, finally, why not throw in genocide and rape--after all, Obama's father comes from Africa and there have certainly been genocidal conflicts there involving rape, haven't there?

It doesn't matter what they say--they just make shit up, right? And then the Times "corrects" them by saying that there are distortions in their ads. Distortions? Well, like when you report something that is the opposite of the truth, it's a......distortion? NO--YOU FUCKING CHICKEN-SHIT NYTIMES REPORTERS--IT'S A LIE.

McCain, Rabid Dogs and Hitler

2008-10-13T20:21:00.001-07:00

I love it that when the Obama camp complained about McCain supporters yelling "kill him" and "traitor", that some dickwad from the McCain camp said-- in effect -- how dare Obama put down the good ordinary people that come out for McCain!
That's like attacking folks who were upset that Hitler drew the "good German people" to his rallies, albeit people who...uhh..like...were anti-semitic and all...

Heard It Through the Grapevine..

2008-10-12T20:08:00.000-07:00

...that there is an incredible new book out about male sexuality--its psychology, politics, and social meaning--by a well known psychoanalyst. It's called Male Sexuality: Why Women Don't Understand It, and Men Don't Either.

It's only available on Amazon because it's so incendiary that the Dept. of Homeland Security, the NSA, and the Catholic Church have banded together to censor its distribution.

Some folks think that it'll be up for a Pulitzer....others say that if the author is assassinated that he'll be put forth for the next Nobel Peace Prize.

Hard to say....either way, I think that he's a drum major for freedom. 'Nuff said.

What Is It Like--Really--To Be Stupid?

2008-10-11T14:37:00.000-07:00

Now, I've spent my life empathizing with people, those I treat and those who oppose us politically. But yesterday I was watching the "town hall" meeting where an older woman was talking to McCain, saying, first, "I don't trust Obama.."--and McCain is nodding--and then she goes on "...because he's an Arab!" -- and McCain starts shaking his head. The woman says, "he's not?" And McCain says No.
Now, I know tha many people in our society are ignorant, uneducated, and gripped with the fear-based prejudices that so often lie at the heart of right-wing, racist, attitudes.
But, really--what the fuck is this old bag thinking? What's it like to be inside her head? Even scumbag rabble-rousers like O'Reilly and big fat idiots like Limbaugh don't literally say "Obama is an Arab." So, I ask again--what is it really like to be inside the skin of this frightened old racist biddy? I don't think that I can really say--can you?

What I Would Say To McCain During Debate Next Wed. If I Were Obama

2008-10-10T15:07:00.000-07:00

If I were Obama, I'd say this directly to McCain next Wed.

John--Shame on you. The American people are fearful about their homes, their jobs, their retirement, their children's education and they need someone to call them to their higher selves, to bring them together. Instead, using the time-honored methods of hate-mongers throughout history, you and Governor Palin stoke the flames of those fears by casting aspersions on my patriotism, and by insinuating that I've befriended terrorists. John, when your supporters shout out that I'm a traitor or that someone should kill me, and you and Governor Palin do nothing to stop it, there's a message there, a message that it's o.k. to hate, that American politics is about scapegoating and dirty tricks and not about principles and about bringing people together. These are the same tactics that Richard Nixon used to get elected in 1968 and they're the same tactics that Bush and Rove used against you in South Carolina in 2000. Have you no shame, John? You were and are an American hero. I think that we should have been able to expect that you act like one.

New McCain Ad: A Bad Acid Trip

2008-10-10T09:47:00.000-07:00

McCain's new ad targeting Obama's terrorist friend, Bill Ayers, and the De-Regulating Dems who caused the current economic crisis. Watching this is like being inside a bad acid trip. Talk me down!!!

"It's O.K., Michael, it's only 26 more days..."

"No, it's not, it's not....reality doesn't exist...everything is upside down.....inside out...I'm going crazy.....Obama's not a terrorist.....the Dems didn't de-regulate.....did they? Am I psychotic?....Am I really a woman?.....Is our Sun going super-nova?.....are we really all part of a dream that someone--or something--else is having.......? Can people swallow their own lips?...asldfjkas;dl fsjdl; kj?

Help!

Unions Kick Ass!

2008-10-09T10:41:00.000-07:00

Richard Trumpka from the AFL-CIO kicks some big time butt in this video

My fellow prisoners

2008-10-08T20:58:00.001-07:00

McCain, today, conflated several of his tired salutations--my friend, my fellow Americans, etc.--and said "my fellow prisoners."
A Freudian slip, of course. McCain--a prisoner of his imploding campaign, his archaic ideology, his fundamentalist base, his rabid hate-filled neo-nazi white militants......

My friends, my friends, my friends....

2008-10-07T19:40:00.000-07:00

my friends, my friends, my friends, my friends, my friends, my friends.......
Hmmm....McCain has few, actually--that's why it seems so phony and irritating. Harry Reid said that he, Reid, didn't like McCain and hadn't for 25 years, citing one incident in which McCain said, about Senator Diane Feinstein, to "get that fucking bitch out of my office."
McCain has few friends. He's a reckless, tyrannical, bully--volatile and irritable--my friends.

"The Rack" and Modern Politics

2008-10-06T15:43:00.000-07:00

Do you ever feel like you're on the rack and the bad guys are turning it?

Helplessness is the most destructive human emotion, worse than grief, self-hatred, guilt, or anxiety. Helplessness is so toxic, in fact, that we'll do anything to try to alleviate it. We'll even become self-blaming--e.g. it wasn't that my parents beat me and I couldn't do anything about it...it was just that I was bad. Often, we get enraged. Rage is simultaneously a reaction to helplessness and an ineffective way to try to master it.

For me, and many others, this election stirs up feelings of helplessness and, therefore, rage. I'm doing what I can to help the good guys win, but so much of what's said and done is obviously out of my control. And my love for and belief in Obama only makes it worse; when he gets slimed, I feel slimed and helpless to do anything about it.

I have spent much of my professional and political life trying to understand people who are fucked up, both in my consulting room and in the society at large. And I believe at the deepest level that people do bad or dumb things for reasons that make psychological sense if you really put yourself in their shoes.

Still, I'm human. I can't help it. I hate McCain, Palin, and the neo-cons and christian fundamentalists making up his base. When I read again about another lie, baldly repeated and propagated in the face of universal condemnation, I want tro rip their throats out. When McCain insinuates -- as he and Palin and the Rove-termites working for them are now doing--that Obama is a terrorist, a muslim, connected to palestinians, etc., I want to stick a shit-dipped punji in his eyes. And when I hear the so-called "ordinary guy or gal" say that he or she does think that Obama is a Muslim despite being told 22 times he's not, I want to do the same to them. You fucking morons, you racist, small-minded, anxious, self-righteous victims turning on the only champion you'll ever have in favor of someone who despises you and your social class---you should rot in hell, the hell that this society will become if McCain wins. THEN we'll have a nation of whiners--you --and a little part of me will think--serves you fuckheads right!

Whew! Well, you know, that particular flavor of vomit fortunately doesn't dominate me, nor do I act on it or advocate it for a second.

But--hey--come on...the most "reasonable" leftist opinion leaders I know all feel a version of this...We just don'e say it in print.

"People are feeling...." YOU DON'T HAVE THE FAINTEST IDEA!!!!

2008-10-05T16:23:00.000-07:00

Hardly a news program goes by where someone--an expert, a pundit, a campaign flack--doesn't say something like "people are wondering if McCain is really tuned in..." or "people feel angry at Wall Street for riding high all these years.." Usually, the person speaking is imagining that "people" feel (fortunately) just like him or her. Of course, such speakers also have their heads completely up their asses, since they don't have any direct experience of what "people" think. They don't talk to people outside their narrow little fucking universe of other pundits or politicians or political parasites orbiting those in power. Occasionally they read polls which also don't tell us much. Why? Because questions are framed in ways that don't really get at what people feel at anything other than a superficial level, and a level defined by the pollster and the prevailing political blathering.

The fact is that few people really "listen" to others. Few people actually spend the time and have the curiosity and empathy to really find out what "people" think--even if they COULD EVER BE SUCH A THING AS THE GODDAMN "PEOPLE" WHICH THERE ISN'T. It reminds me of meetings or conferences where someone says "you know, Michael, people are feeling that they're not really being heard..." and it turns out that 2 out of 67 people said that. These talking head-fuckwads should be made to actually go out into the world, be trained to listen, and take a shot at earning their millions of dollars by hearing people in different social classes and ethnic groups actually talk about their lives.

What's the Chance Reporters Will Confront McCain Campaign About This?

2008-10-04T13:26:00.000-07:00

Hey, do you think that the next time David Gregory or Wolfie talks to McCain, he's confront him about this shocker (courtesy of my brother, Joe) from the VP debate?

Just A Thought....

2008-10-04T11:18:00.001-07:00

To the Left: Beware of Mitch Kupchack

2008-10-03T08:44:00.000-07:00

During the 1985 Laker/Celtics NBA Championship series, the matchups -- Bird/Magic, Kareem/Parrish, D. Johnson/Scott--were so overanalyzed that commentators were looking for something new to say. One day, Tommy Heinsohn weighed in by saying that Lakers backup center Mitch Kupchack was "the key." Uhhh...no, Tommy, he wasn't. Tommy was just looking for something counter-intuitive, something that wasn't obvious, to say.

Today, while progressives are savoring the strong performance of Joe Biden last night, tolerating the popular spin that Palin "stopped the bleeding" with her Stepford Candidate performance last night, I notice in various blogs the notion emerging that actually Palin's performance was good, that it was very strong, that unbeknownst to the liberal East Coast elite, her performance played very well in the heartland. I think this is like being reminded about Mitch Kupchack. "Hey, liberals--don't notice the obvious, don't use common sense, don't trust any of your instincts......the reality is different and scary and right there under your nose...Palin was terrific and you can't see it..."

Our guys are gaining momentum. They're going to win and possibly win big. And that scares us because we've been robbed and fooled and traumatically disappointed before. So--we're knocking on wood anytime we feel too hopeful or any time our experience and reality-sense detects positive hopeful things, like that debate last night. We pull back, warn each other not to get too celebratory, caution ourselves that we really are out of touch with the American people and that for all we know black could be white and vice versa.

In my view, it's not. We were not banking on Palin torpedoing the McCain campaign anyway, and Biden significantly helped us last night and we should be happy about it!

Here's What Kills Me....

2008-10-02T20:07:00.000-07:00

Wolf or Anderson or someone will not infrequently ask one of their "experts" ---- "What do you hear on the campaign trail from independents, Candy"....or "you were there in the hall, Joe--what was the feeling like THERE?"
Invariably, they DON'T REALLY KNOW BUT PRETEND THEY DO. These fuckhead spinners DON'T SPEAK TO ANYONE OUTSIDE THE ECHO CHAMBER OF POLITICAL CONSULTANTS AND OTHER TALKING HEADS. They report the effect of x, y, or z by regurgitating what other beltway wonks are saying....it's a creepy psychotic feeling, if you think about it....

It's a Goddamn House of Mirrors

2008-10-02T19:52:00.000-07:00

Yeah, yeah, one sees what one wants to see. Is it not experientially clear that Palin was Stepford-like in her recitation of canned answers---like a kid using "adult language" in a slightly uncomfortable way? Come on? Is that not something that A SINGLE FUCKING COMMENTATOR could mention? No. They analyze the performance of false selves and phony theater speaking without a scintilla of deep conviction or passion as if it were REAL. it makes me want to gag.

Stepford Candidate?

2008-10-02T19:22:00.001-07:00

How do you do that?

2008-10-02T19:19:00.000-07:00

How do you smile while talking? It's like the Miss America pageant -- the personal interview section. They do it....Sarah does it.....I can't do it? Can you?

I'm As Proud As Mitch McConnell..

2008-10-02T13:36:00.000-07:00

Yep, watching Senators McConnell, Reid, Gregg and Dodd congratulate each other last night for passing the Rescue-Plan-With-Much-Needed-Tax-Cuts-For-Business made me proud, proud that we have a bunch of rich, bloviating, pasty-white, flabby narcissists falling all over themselves honoring each other for their great political courage, the courage they showed passing a bill that barely staves off a total imminent economic conflagration for a short while, while caving into the crass extortion from the far-right nutballs in the House. Boy--these 4 egomaniacal tubs of lard really make me proud to be an American! They should have their own Mt. Rushmore. Perhaps -- after the revolution -- we can build them one in D-Block at San Quentin.

The Creepiness That Cannot Speak Its Name

2008-10-01T19:02:00.000-07:00

Here's 2 things that Dems can't really say in public: 1) that McCain has systematically and consistently voted against veterans and 2) that prior to McCain's noble sacrifice in a North Vietnamese POW camp, he was a cocky asshole flyboy who killed thousands of innocent Vietnamese civilians in bombing raids in an immoral, illegal, and ultimately discredited war.

I'm not saying that we should about this shit, but only that it's a pathetic commentary on our current political climate and our revisionist view of Vietnam that we can't.

Oh, Aren't We Liberal Intellectuals So Special!

2008-09-30T20:27:00.000-07:00

I love watching Olbermann et all on MSNBC. Keeps me sane. But they're starting to bug the shit out of me with what can come off as a smarmy insider-ness that is unnecessary and -- I can imagine -- offensive to some people we might want on our side.

So, We all know that Sarah Palin is an idiot--a joke of a candidate. She's ridiculous, embarrassing, etc.

Tonight, however, Olbermann and his guests mock her for not knowing a single Supreme Court decision other than Roe v. Wade, saying things like, "I mean, she could have at least mentioned Marbury v. Madison or Plessy v. Ferguson or ......." Yeah, Keith--that bimbo really should have mentioned Marbury or Plessy...let's see...I have a doctorate..hmm...is that Stephon Marbury who plays for the Knicks? Or ..Plessy...gee...right...that's a real household name, Keith....what fucking idiot wouldn't--off the cuff-- know about the famous Plessy v. Ferguson, right? I remember these names from high school American History, but they're not exactly on the tip of my tongue.

So, rather than doing your circle-jerk with other liberals "in-the-know" thereby confirming the view of many that we're condescending douche-bags, you might be more discriminating about which display of ignorance Palin reveals.

Wall Street, Main Street, and LSD

2008-09-30T13:20:00.000-07:00

30 years or more ago, my friends and I used to occasionally take LSD. When we tripped, we'd sometimes have epiphanies about life, love, and the foibles of the human race. Sometimes, one of us would key in on a word and repeat it until it lost all meaning, e.g. "Hey--did you ever think about the word scissors?" ....and we'd repeat it until the group dissolved in either laughter or profound self-congratulatory insight.

Aren't you getting tired of hearing people talk about Wall Street and Main Street. The most right-wing, business-oriented, robber-baron-istic ruthlesslessly self-centered asshole talks about the evils of "Wall Street" and what's good for "Main Street." They've lost their meaning. They're like scissors and we're all on acid nodding our heads in understanding of words that no longer signify anything.

Suck and Swallow

2008-09-30T06:23:00.000-07:00

It's all well and good for progressives to hate this bailout and scream about welfare for the rich, but here are 2 realities at this particular moment in time: 1) businesses can't get lines of credit to start, expand, or even at times maintain their operations, and 2) this Congress isn't going to nationalize the banking industry in Sweden-like ways. #1 means that economic activity is slowing down at an even faster rate than it was under pre-crisis fucked up conditions. And "economic activity" represents not only profits but people's livelihoods and security. Outrage at the rape of the economic commons by the Wall Street profiteers feels good but is also the typical helpless flailing-about of the Left who'd rather be "right" than helpful. Even progressive economists like Krugman and DeLong took their compazine and supported the bill. So, when you read folks on the Left expressing relief or some type of moral victory at the defeat of the bill--a defeat primarily engineered by fucked-up right-wing free market nazis--I think you should tell them, no thank you--I don't reallly want to commit suicide today...

Pretty much sums up Compassionate Conservatism

2008-09-29T12:06:00.000-07:00

in a one minute song.

Psychology and Politics

2008-09-28T12:18:00.000-07:00

Everybody is a psychologist nowadays. Pundits raise the issue of "character" at the drop of a hat. We apparently don't really "know" Obama well enough. Bush is an idiot but has decent, albeit simpleminded "values." Bill Clinton's "character" was sullied because he was obsessed with sex. Hillary is a "ball-buster" who threatens men, but Joe Biden is a good guy because he raised his kids and takes the train home every night.

Fact is, we don't know shit, and should stop pretending that we do.

I don't even know shit, and I study character and psychology for a living.

In our culture of celebrity, everyone's an expert, entitled it seems to weigh in with psychological judgements about people about whose real personal life they know squat. Give me a fucking break! We don't "know" Obama? What the fuck do you want to know? His sexual fantasies? Whether he wipes his ass sitting down or standing up? The cute names he calls Michelle at home? You know more than enough to decide how to vote for him. So, Wolf Blitzer, quit "reporting" this as a relevant fact unless you attempt to actually understand what it really means when someone tells a pollster that he or she doens't "know" Obama. Otherwise, Wolf, you're just repeating the undigested code words and idiocy of the public as if we all know what they mean.

Fact is, we have no fucking idea what any of these folks are really like and should stop acting like we do.

Victory, Middle Class, and Angels on the Head of a Pin

2008-09-28T12:05:00.000-07:00

So, according to the NYTimes, the Obama Campaign is running ads mentioning that McCain never mentioned the words "middle class" during the debate, while McCain's ads point out that Obama never mentioned the word "Victory." Neither of them, I want to point out, mentioned my name once--which hurts--nor the words "crumb cake" which would have offended my grandmother if she'd been alive. What a load of crap. "Victory," of course, signifies McCain's delusional jingoistic testosterone fantasies of world domination, and "middle class" signifies the focus-group tested appelation for "all of us" who are pissed off that we're not rich and goddamned-if-we're-gonna'-be-labelled-poor.

The Media Echo-Chamber

2008-09-27T20:56:00.000-07:00

I know that we're supposed to talk about presidential politics, including the debate, like it's a sporting event--Obama "held serve," McCain threw a "hail mary" pass, etc. Here's the thing, though...these are creations of pundits and "experts" who then report them as if they were real things. They weigh in on the contest as if they're only reporting something, while in actuality they're creating it. Reality disappears. It drives me nuts. McCain, I guess, was strong because he knew some hard-to-pronounce names of countries and leaders and Obama was good because he made eye contact and didn't say something to humiliate himself. Listeners, innoculated to pundit-speak, may even mirror these silly judgments. It's like a giant echo chamber or house of mirrors, a sort of political Truman Show in which generalizations and metaphors are thrown around and offered up as if they were something real.

McCain, by all accounts, including a recent "off-the-record" account by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, is an angry and bitter guy with a hair-trigger temper who recently said to Senator Diane Feinstein to "get the fuck out of my office, you stupid bitch." He's a reckless war-monger. If he'd been President during the Cuban Missile Crisis, we'd all be radioactive today. And yet Wolf Blitzer and Andrea Mitchell can talk about how McCain was "strong" on international politics because he boasted of his travels and knew the names of the breakaway province of Georgia. What the fuck? They think they're analyzing a public perception, or speaking on its behalf, while in reality they're just reinforcing--if not creating--the goddamn thing.